If you scratch 14/15 season, Klopp rallies the troops well after defeats.
You can also look at it another way ... most of those teams are in the bottom 6 with only 4 in the top half of the table (and WBA too were simply not at the races that day - it's not like they played well, due credit to United given). Goals scored is still ca. 1.5 per match (title winning teams average 2.25 or more) despite the poor quality of most of the opposition and hard luck stories generally follow the Top 6 around anyway (should have scored more, should have won when dominating, hit the post, penalties not given etc. etc. it's part and parcel of controlling matches, which is what the Top 6 do against most opposition. Liverpool can say the same for all but maybe one or two of their matches this season, no team has dominated us regardless of who has played and who has been injured and missed the game.
4 of them are in the bottom 6. That's some special maths you have going on there.
Stop looking at the table as it is today and go back and look at it when you actually played those teams.
Agree with your first sentence but United aren't a defensive-minded team (which is what you are alluding to when comparing them to Leicester and Mourinho's Chelsea). Half way through the season and United are scoring at 1.5 gpg (2 more than Bournemouth and 3 more than Everton and WBA, 1 more than Palace, over 20 games) and you have only conceded 4 goals less (so 0.95 pg) than Liverpool (1.15pg) whose defence no one on RedCafe rates in the slightest. The reality being both are actually very good defensive records.
I'm sorry did you not actually bother to read what I said before you jumped in to defend your team ? Or do you not count yourselves as a Top 6 team ?
Why is that a surprise to you ? Look at our squad size and then take out 3 of the team's best players. Akin to removing Carrick, Ibra and Myki from your current team.
I agree. All factors considered (United's good run, no top players missing, Liverpool's slip in form and missing key players or having them just returning from injury and going into this game without match-practice) United should be very confident, despite what I've said above it's not a denigration of United's form (just a check-balance), it's still a great run they are on. I've already said that my forecast is 2-1, 1-1, 1-0, 2-2, 1-2 in that order.
Who would it include then?
Agree with your first sentence but United aren't a defensive-minded team (which is what you are alluding to when comparing them to Leicester and Mourinho's Chelsea). Half way through the season and United are scoring at 1.5 gpg (2 more than Bournemouth and 3 more than Everton and WBA, 1 more than Palace, over 20 games) and you have only conceded 4 goals less (so 0.95 pg) than Liverpool (1.15pg) whose defence no one on RedCafe rates in the slightest. The reality being both are actually very good defensive records.
No matter which way you cut it that goal-scoring record isn't good enough for a Top 6 team and yet everyone here seems to think United have some shit-hot attack. The reality is you have one real goal-scorer, Ibra, and considering your next two are Mata and Pogba with 4 each you must be praying Ibra stays fit and can last the season. Red Blinkers or what (I know this is going to come back to bite me on Sunday)
But as soon as their fixtures pile up a bit they struggled so having a larger squad would help them.
It's convenient to pick a date and then include all matches including those against non-PL opposition. If you include just the last 8 days of October instead of a random 'from November onwards' then that adds two 0 goal games and since all the figures I gave were for the PL we'll also exclude non-PL matches. Result ? Actually fractionally lower than your season average at bang on 1.5 gpg. Even if we use your barometer of 'from November onwards' in the PL United's gpg is still only 1.8 with 6 of those coming against Swansea and Sunderland, the bottom two clubs.
That was the whole point ! To show that massaging the figures by using a random date and non-PL games against non-PL opposition really shouldn't enter the discussion since this is the Top 4 Race thread and I only used PL figures.
It isn't and that's my point. The average gpg for a title winning side is ca. 2.25 pg and even using your beginning of November arbitrary starting date, it's still only 1.8 gpg.
United may even be 2nd by the end of February .. but with the way the schedule is I don't expect them to stay there. Top 4 is a strong possibility if they manage good results against fellow Top 6 teams.
As I said above, it's not at PL title winners level yet. And I don't think that's where United are yet either. All opinions though and I wouldn't expect you to agree and the feeling should be mutual !
Indeed. But goose and gander .. he can't say LFC banged in X against so and so without applying that same consideration to United who also had games where they were expected to score more .. and did.
No surprise though. The Top 6 are more than comfortably better than the rest .. as the points difference after just 20 games shows. It could easily be 20 pts between 6th and 7th come the end of the season. The remaining matches between the Top 6 will decide the order, Chelsea look over the hill and far away given that they will win most of their remaining games against 7th and down.
So what would be a non random date to use in order to demonstrate form then?
Yep, as i have already said, i can see the top 6 having a record points tally this season. Maybe 76 points could not be enough to finish in the top 4.
Everton away has become a far less hostile fixture for us since the Barry and Lescott anger passed by, so we've actually been able to have some joy there recently. I think the reaction to Stones will play its part today, if the fans are quiet I fancy we'll take all 3 points, Everton aren't a good pressing side at all.
I can't really comment as long as you leave playing in there, because I don't watch every match the other three teams play (didn't see Arsenal yesterday for instance). But leave it out, and ask the question if I think United are comfortably better than Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool, then the answer is yeah, absolutely.
I don't think you can make the claim over one single game, but over time the law of averages does see to that. If only we had some kind of mechanism in place that could rank teams based on games they've played cumulatively instead of as a one off, then you'd have the evidence to back up the claim!
It was a bit expected, tbf. You have Conte, Klopp, Pochettino, Wenger, Guardiola and Mourinho challenging each other. They are among the best managers in the world.
It's going to come down to head to head fixtures and we really need to up our game. We've only beat Spurs at home. Been hammered by Chelsea and outplayed by City at home, and only managed a draw against Arse at home. The top 6 are comfortably better than everyone else, and that's the way it should be. We shouldnt count on anyone losing points to anyone outside the top 6, its a bonus when it happens.
What a novel idea, we could call it a league table or something.
It was looking like going this way back in October/November when we kept drawing and losing ground. It's why personally I wrote top 4 off back then.
