The most in form team in the Premier League……

I’ve gotta admit if we had a purple patch and won the league or even finished third with all the insanity and injuries that would be utter hilarity with all the pundits absolutely piling on us this season.

They have had an absolute field day. When we win it’s like it never happened. They just keep waiting for the next loss to pile in.
 
Winrar said:
What use is getting Top4 when we just whimper and crash out of the group stage, just like how it'll most likely happen this season?

Results are one thing, we don't have to dominate every match we play, but we've labored through every single match this season with no sense of progression from what we built on from last season. Hard not to be pessimistic at this point.

Now we have large parts of the fanbase just content with making Top4 and "only" being 5 or so points behind City, Liverpool, Spurs, etc with 12 games played. The standards have been lowered, so don't be complaining if/when City and Liverpool overtake us in trophy count.
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Money. Our spendings are limited and will be limited further without CL money.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Hard to picture madrid fans celebrating hard fought wins over Luton and Fulham but maybe just be
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There’s a difference between celebrating and shitting on it is there not? This just proves my point, this casual hyperbole when all thats being done is acknowledged it. It’s hard to laugh at this thread when a few weeks ago the same posters were saying no chance of too 4, already too far behind, season over etc.
I’m sure Arsenal would have celebrated a hard fought win v Fulham, same with Liverpool v Luton by the way
 
Spaghetti said:
In the two L in the Champions League, we were actually playing really well until the red cards.

In some of the league games, we missed loads of chances; if one or two more had bobbled in, the attitude would be different.
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You should still be beating FC Copenhagen even after a red card. That club got 3 points in the CL last season.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Hard to picture madrid fans celebrating hard fought wins over Luton and Fulham but maybe just be
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Celebrating a narrow win is fine, the problem is when all wins are narrow.

Barcelona are currently going through that, they get points but they're winning by 1 goal or drawing, often having to come from behind. And everyone's criticizing them.
 
It's nothing we haven't achieved in previous seasons. What we really need to see is going on winning runs when we come up against the tough teams, including beating the away from home. Until we can do that we're not going to close the gap to the top
 
Alex99 said:
They only lost 2-1 to Bayern. You're acting like they've been turned over by every other team.
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Sorry, not accepting this. The third best team in the oh-so-competitive Premier League should not be talking about how FC Copenhagen almost got a result against Bayern.
 
The next few games will tell us where we really are. We 100% need a win at Everton. Our rivals are playing each other
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Sorry, not accepting this. The third best team in the oh-so-competitive Premier League should not be talking about how FC Copenhagen almost got a result against Bayern.
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United are clearly not the third best team in our current injury-hit state.

Why do you keep ignoring this massive factor?

I actually think we probably should have won, but it's quite clear that any team with 10-men, let alone one already hit by injuries, is going to struggle against a CL calibre team, even if it is one of the weaker ones.

We're only a couple of years removed from your side losing, at home, to Sheriff Tiraspol. Sometimes sides lose against underdogs. Sometimes, such as being hit by injuries and having a men sent off in the first half, those results are a bit more understandable.
 
cyberman said:
Never seen a fanbase play down their own wins like this before
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Don't get me wrong, to a large extent, a win is a win, and there are no easy games in the Premier League.

However, I have said all along that what's more important to me this season than results is seeing improvement in our performances and tactical progression, and so far it's been a real mixed bag.

Also, let's not forget that these four wins in the Premier League have come during a period in which we've been beaten 0-3 at home by our nearest rivals and effectively knocked out of two competitions, conceding 7 goals to mediocre sides in the process.
 
Alex99 said:
United are clearly not the third best team in our current injury-hit state.

[...]

We're only a couple of years removed from your side losing, at home, to Sheriff Tiraspol. Sometimes sides lose against underdogs. Sometimes, such as being hit by injuries and having a men sent off in the first half, those results are a bit more understandable.
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It just shouldn't matter much.

The CL group stages are built to be easy for teams from the top leagues. No PL team has failed to qualify from the CL group stages in the last 5 years except for Manchester United in the 20/21 season (and that was in a relatively difficult group with RB Leipzig and PSG).
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
It just shouldn't matter much.

The CL group stages are built to be easy for teams from the top leagues. No PL team has failed to qualify from the CL group stages in the last 5 years except for Manchester United in the 20/21 season (and that was in a relatively difficult group with RB Leipzig and PSG).
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I don't disagree with the general point about the quality of the group being ideal for United to qualify from it.

However, I do think it's daft to pretend that a) underdogs don't win games (again, Sheriff Tiraspol at home), and b) losing games to underdogs isn't likelier when you're hit by injuries and go down to 10 men.
 
Lentwood said:
Don't get me wrong, to a large extent, a win is a win, and there are no easy games in the Premier League.

However, I have said all along that what's more important to me this season than results is seeing improvement in our performances and tactical progression, and so far it's been a real mixed bag.

Also, let's not forget that these four wins in the Premier League have come during a period in which we've been beaten 0-3 at home by our nearest rivals and effectively knocked out of two competitions, conceding 7 goals to mediocre sides in the process.
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To be fair I think we have a better chance at qualifying from our group than many here, ( 6 points may be enough which would be humiliating but we’d be there)
Our start of the season was horrendous, big game after big game so this is just the fixtures becoming a lot more even. I’m not saying the big games doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t have lost the two against the London teams imo ( who we played away and not s lot of teams at the top of the league many big away games anymore, look it up it’s unreal, City have won about 2 in 18 months and they’re the best team in the world) but it’s evened out to such an extent that the only difference separating us and most above us are the head to head results.

I’m starting to spam the forum a bit with my posts so I’ll just state it here and leave it. There was a period last year at the beginning of the season and mid way in January from Palace and Arsenal scoring late goals to take 5 points off us followed by a harsh red card for Case that led to a draw v Southampton where we said if it wasn’t for those runs we would be in a title race and still ended up on 75 points. Unless we think our front players are never going to go on a run or we don’t bring in a Toney with the Sancho money or maybe sign a defender in January or, at the very least, not improve with Shaw and Martinez back, we will get better. These results are significant because getting better will be from 10 to almost 15 points better off than we should have. The big fixtures are now so heavily loaded towards the end of the season we now have the fixtures that allows us to build that momentum and give us a cushion to fly into those big games. There’s every chance we won’t, I’m not saying we will go to the Etihad and win but a lot of those big games are also at OT and who knows how high well be in the league at that stage. For me, that’s why it’s so important that we pick up these wins when not playing well and not something to be dismissed.
I said our league position in January will fry a lot of heads and I stand by that, you can see in this very thread it’s already happening. We can’t take beating the teams we should beat for granted and we’ve been doing that for 18 months now. Beat the bottom half of the table home and away leaves us with 60 points alone.
 
Alex99 said:
However, I do think it's daft to pretend that a) underdogs don't win games (again, Sheriff Tiraspol at home), and b) losing games to underdogs isn't likelier when you're hit by injuries and go down to 10 men.
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Nobody is pretending that underdogs don't win games. But they are isolated incidents. That game against Sheriff was the only defeat in 6 group stage games for Real Madrid, they qualified comfortably and then won the title that season.

United's trouble isn't just an isolated game against Copenhagen, it's losing 3 out of 4 games.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Nobody is pretending that underdogs don't win games. But they are isolated incidents. That game against Sheriff was the only defeat in 6 group stage games for Real Madrid, they qualified comfortably and then won the title that season.

United's trouble isn't just an isolated game against Copenhagen, it's losing 3 out of 4 games.
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You were the one who picked out the isolated game.
 
Ole'sgunnarwin said:
Does Top 4 really matter if we're gonna shit the bed in one of the easiest group possible?
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Top 4 is about more than playing in the CL. With qualification to it, a higher calibre of player can be enticed to the club at a lower cost - if you’re not in the CL, that same player may well come at a premium, or have to be compensated for loss of PT in the CL. Also, the best players at your club might get antsy if they’re missing years out of the CL.

We obviously want to shop in the top-end of the market, so CL qualification is paramount. There’s also the small matter of the amount the coffers can be filled via better sponsorship deals because of CL association making us a lot more appealing to be partnered with.

CL qualification is not something to do without.
 
Son said:
I’ve gotta admit if we had a purple patch and won the league or even finished third with all the insanity and injuries that would be utter hilarity with all the pundits absolutely piling on us this season.

They have had an absolute field day. When we win it’s like it never happened. They just keep waiting for the next loss to pile in.
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Go read the majority of Player Performance threads, it's the same. :D
 
We don't have the prettiest run of games on paper coming up, along with Galatasary away and Bayern at home in the CL.

It's a positive that we've managed to grind out some wins with our attack misfiring and some unlucky decisions going against us in recent weeks.

The CL campaign has been a bit of a train-wreck. I actually don't think there's much EtH could have done in some of those games, we hit the self destruct button against Galatasary at home and Copenhagen away.

My biggest worry is that we don't seem to be working our way through a 'process'. Like it's one thing to say the performances have been better than the results and we just need to trust the process or whatever. On the outside looking in, it seems like there is no process.

I am worried for Newcastle, Villa and Liverpool away. We could easily get thumped in those games with how vulnerable we've looked against lower tier opposition, despite picking up some much needed points.

The season isn't a complete unmitigated disaster, and that's a positive, but we need our key players to start coming into form real quick for that run of fixtures.

Edit: Just seen Villa is at home. Still a lot of tricky away games in that run of fixtures. Hopefully we'll be nearing a fully fit squad coming into the Christmas period. Could be a weird positive that we've had key men out injured that won't have built up a huge overload of games coming into the second half of the season.
 
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We have scraped a few wins against some poor teams while playing absolutely terrible football.

Then when we faced good teams like City and Newcastle we were outclassed and embarrassed.

Stats mean little in football. You can see with your own eyes how poor we currently are
 
lsd said:
We have scraped a few wins against some poor teams while playing absolutely terrible football.

Then when we faced good teams like City and Newcastle we were outclassed and embarrassed.

Stats mean little in football. You can see with your own eyes how poor we currently are
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Playing poorly means little in football. Points and league position is all that matters at the end of the season.
 
A handful of points behind teams playing far better with fewer injuries. If we are this far off top 4 in Jan it’s a miracle. It’s going to be then that our players should all be back and might actually have a chance of having a decent second half to the season. Way off where we want to be mind and should be. We don’t need top 4 to attract the solid players we need to be getting in but it won’t hurt. We just keep overlooking these players and it’s not working out.
 
The holy trinity 68 said:
Yes because of the CL money for qualifying.
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We’ll waste double the CL earnings next summer regardless. For me you are in the CL to win it and that’s it. I don’t want to develop an Arsenal mindset to it being crucial to financial stability…we’re 1bn in debt…it’s irrelevant on that front when coupled with our recruitment.
 
hobbers said:
7 wins this season... against 11th, 12th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th. 4 of them at OT. Most of them games we didnt deserve to win.
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This says it all.

We have lost to teams currently 1st, 3rd, 4th, 8th, 13th.

It is pretty simple. Play against a good team, we lose. Play against relegation fodder, we are just about good enough to scrape a win.

The 7 games we have left in this half of the season are all against current top team teams. This will be the test.
 
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