2016/2017 Title race

Treble_Winning said:
Chelsea have no height in their team. They don't have the players with the physical attributes for a long ball strategy.
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Chelsea are the team best equipped to play long balls. With world class passing ability of Fabregas and Luiz feeding into near world class dribbling ability of Hazard and Pedro.

You don't know need height to play long ball and even if you did Costa is taller than all the CBs he will face bar Matip.
 
Treble_Winning said:
Chelsea have no height in their team. They don't have the players with the physical attributes for a long ball strategy.

I am hoping for a draw at Anfield and another draw between Chelsea and Arsenal. Would allow us to make up some proper ground on several teams at once. It will be a massive few weeks with our rivals playing each other. We need to pick up maximum points.
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So we have Costa, Matic, Cahill, Luiz who usually score a lot of headers and you say we are not equipped to play the long ball game. No other striker in pl can control long ball better than Costa can actually. And no cb or cm can play long balls as Luiz and Cesc can.
 
Santi_Mesut_Alexis_87 said:
I would give my blood to draw at Stamford Bridge :D
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Even though we'll probably go into the game as favourites, I wouldn't mind a draw either. If that was the case we'd be minimum 4 points clear, and only having two of the top 6 left to play. Obviously a lead half as large as it is right now, but still a decent cushion.
 
duffer said:
Interesting stat from SKy. "nobody with this number of points at this stage of the season has failed to win the title".

Lets not break that one please!
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4 teams have had this amount of points, at this stage. 3 of those 4 are you lot lol
 
Treble_Winning said:
The title race will be between Chelsea, UTD and Spurs, with Arsenal probably filling out the top four. This is based on quality of the Football and other overall factors. Liverpool and City are out, they will be 5th and 6th. Guardiola has already conceded the title race. Horrible football and comical defending.
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Barring a epic collapse from Chelsea, the league is done I would wager. We all bang on about the run Jose and the team have been on, and that run has put the club from 13pts behind Chelsea, to 14.

I admire your optimism but Conte has made light work of all his challengers this season so far, and if he comes out of Liverpool and Arsenal with 1 defeat at worst, I fully expect him to be lifting the crown. He can afford to lose both, and still be 2pts clear. if they lost the next 5 and Utd won the next 5, they'd be one point behind. Jose is not catching Conte. Period
 
Womp said:
And yet even with Clyne returning, they managed to win by putting 3 past Liverpool. When we played them they had an inexperienced kid, no Matip and we only managed a single goal, which should have been ruled offside anyway.

Don't know how you can't see the problem with that. With the money we spent, the players and manager we have, Stoke, home or away, should be a walk in the park.

I don't expect us to win every game, that expectation has long been gone, but I expect us to beat cannon fodder when we are full strength. This was a great opportunity to make up some space on our rivals who have faltered, yet we continue to make things even more difficult for ourselves.

This doesn't even have anything to do with performances, we've been much better this season under Jose, it's the fact that ever since SAF has left, no matter who we recruit our players seem to have a fetish for handing out draws/losses because they refuse to be clinical. You'd think someone would have figured this out and worked on their finishing. If it wasn't for Ibra, who has also squandered quite a few chances earlier on in the season, we'd be mid table.

All this money spent and we can't seem to score enough goals to win games, yep, certainly no problem with that.
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Stoke are far from cannon fodder and most teams struggle to get a result especially away.

Having said that, we had ample opportunities to have put them out of sight and should have done so.
 
Eire Red United said:
Stoke are far from cannon fodder and most teams struggle to get a result especially away.

Having said that, we had ample opportunities to have put them out of sight and should have done so.
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Stoke's record against the current top 5:

Played - 5
Lost - 5
Scored - 4
Conceded - 19
 
Treble_Winning said:
Chelsea have no height in their team. They don't have the players with the physical attributes for a long ball strategy.

I am hoping for a draw at Anfield and another draw between Chelsea and Arsenal. Would allow us to make up some proper ground on several teams at once. It will be a massive few weeks with our rivals playing each other. We need to pick up maximum points.
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:lol:
 
Kentonio said:
royboy16 meet Treble_Winning. He also thinks a team that has 6 regular starters comfortably over 6" 'have no height in their team'. ;)
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He also is on record as stating that Zlatan is currently the 4th best player in the world, that N'Golo Kante is "a decent squad player", and that Diego Costa will transfer to Man United to be Zlatan's backup because he is indebted to Mourinho who is responsible for taking his game to another level.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
He also is on record as stating that Zlatan is currently the 4th best player in the world, that N'Golo Kante is "a decent squad player", and that Diego Costa will transfer to Man United to be Zlatan's backup because he is indebted to Mourinho who is responsible for taking his game to another level.
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Conte only being a slightly better manager than Gary Neville is my favourite.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
He also is on record as stating that Zlatan is currently the 4th best player in the world, that N'Golo Kante is "a decent squad player", and that Diego Costa will transfer to Man United to be Zlatan's backup because he is indebted to Mourinho who is responsible for taking his game to another level.
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wait, what? Seriously?

Edit:
duffer said:
Conte only being a slightly better manager than Gary Neville is my favourite.
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SERIOUSLY?!?!
 
duffer said:
Conte only being a slightly better manager than Gary Neville is my favourite.
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That is utterly ridiculous of him. He has another post today where he more or less states Chelsea's current form and league position is indebted to Mourinho. Or words to that affect.

I think he has Jose posters on his bedroom wall, or he is Duncan Castles lol.
 
Rafateria said:
I'm convinced he is a WUM artist par excellence, because such delusion is impossible to reconcile !
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No. A good wum would not give away that they are up to a wum. Some spurs posters on here are the best ones and he is nothing like them.

He is enjoyable though. He seems to genuinely believe what he says, kind of like an ant trying to climb out of a glass believes it will.
 
I know we've seen the top 6 mini-table before, but the other side is interesting.


1
 
Kentonio said:
I know we've seen the top 6 mini-table before, but the other side is interesting.


1
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If you make it top 7, we'd still have dropped 15 points while the second worst (United) would only have 9 points dropped. Whichever way you look at it though, only 2 points dropped late January against the bottom 14 is very impressive from Chelsea, and will always take you close to first place regardless of how you perform against the other 5 sides in the top 6.
 
RobinLFC said:
If you make it top 7, we'd still have dropped 15 points while the second worst (United) would only have 9 points dropped. Whichever way you look at it though, only 2 points dropped late January against the bottom 14 is very impressive from Chelsea, and will always take you close to first place regardless of how you perform against the other 5 sides in the top 6.
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Our top 6 numbers are a bit troubling though, although with the formation change its difficult to get a clear picture. It feels a bit too easy to just say 'Ah, but 2 of those were before the change' as if it just wipes them away, the Spurs result left the question a bit open.
 
Kentonio said:
Our top 6 numbers are a bit troubling though, although with the formation change its difficult to get a clear picture. It feels a bit too easy to just say 'Ah, but 2 of those were before the change' as if it just wipes them away, the Spurs result left the question a bit open.
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I get that but fortunately for you, you already have a buffer so you can still 'afford' to lose a couple of games against the top six as long as you keep on beating the lesser teams in the league. I thought the Spurs game was evenly matched fwiw and could've gone either way. I think it'll also help that Conte knows he doesn't necessarily need to win at Anfield next week, a draw would still be a good result for you whereas Liverpool is in dire need of a win right now.
 
RobinLFC said:
I get that but fortunately for you, you already have a buffer so you can still 'afford' to lose a couple of games against the top six as long as you keep on beating the lesser teams in the league. I thought the Spurs game was evenly matched fwiw and could've gone either way. I think it'll also help that Conte knows he doesn't necessarily need to win at Anfield next week, a draw would still be a good result for you whereas Liverpool is in dire need of a win right now.
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I'd take a draw right now, without even thinking about it.
 
RobinLFC said:
If you make it top 7, we'd still have dropped 15 points while the second worst (United) would only have 9 points dropped. Whichever way you look at it though, only 2 points dropped late January against the bottom 14 is very impressive from Chelsea, and will always take you close to first place regardless of how you perform against the other 5 sides in the top 6.
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That tweet is a bit harsh on Liverpool - those stats were accurate post your game against Swansea but prior to the 3pm kick-offs on Saturday. With the Stoke result factored in United are only 2 points behind you having dropped 13 points against the bottom 14.

Chelsea only dropping 2 points across these games is really something. Hadn't realised they'd been quite so efficient.
 
Kentonio said:
I suspect he's actually quite young, from the unceasing optimism, so I've been trying not to be harsh. :)
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Yeah I have the same feeling. His sentence constructions and vocabulary look like a teenager's. Plus his unbounded optimism as you say.
 
Is this not a case of things levelling-out for Liverpool? As in, did anyone expect them to win the league this season?

They have a manager capable of winning the league, but a squad that is reliant on the sum of it's parts and man-for-man isn't as strong as Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal, City or United.

Strong start to the season aside, Liverpool claiming a Champions League place is progress no?
 
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