The premier league has changed considerably over the last 10 years where you just cannot tell what will happen. If you now look at the players at our disposal with the addition of 2 players we have to expect a challenge. Liverpool have had an amazing season. We have seen it in the past with Chelsea when they walked the league under Conte and the next season they struggled. City have had 2 outstanding campaigns and fallen of this. This is Liverpools second brilliant season, I expect a slight drop from this season.
If the teams on top are going to drop a level and we pick up a level, we should be up there.
I have seen with the poster, any evidence comes with a OH BUT.
As you have seen from today’s show he won’t accept another opinion and when proved wrong or shown stats he moves the goal posts.
That's like saying if Ronaldo could win ballon dor 5x then Rashford can win 5x as well.
You replied to my post that mentioned "If we sign Sancho or new RW now, we’ll still battle for 4th place anyway. That new RW isn’t going to closed that 37 points gaps with Liverpool".
I never actually mentioned this "couple signings" to begin with, the point was if we only sign Sancho or RW this summer.
An the award for worst analogy goes to...
Anyway you’ve consistently until this post ignored the fact people have not said Sancho alone will have that effect.
Agreed
How is that comparable? Players like Ronaldo don't come often, him and messi are on another level.
Do you understand that the points recovered were by 3 different teams? Leicester, Chelsea and Liverpool?
Even if we sign Sancho, top 4 would not be what we will be challenging. Without Pogba, Bruno we are challenging for top 4, so with Pogba back, Bruno in the team and hopefully a RW, we can challenge for the title yes.
Don’t come in here with logic and a sound argument. Are Leicester Ronaldo? No so be quiet.
That's exactly what I'm saying. What Liverpool did in the last two seasons is on another level compared to what Chelsea & Leicester did.
So from this "couple signings" to RW now. Okay, you know what, I can't keep going back and forth talking about this.
Like I've mentioned before if we want to be closed to Liverpool's level, we'll need to have Salah & Mane similar level means Rashford & Martial will need to step up into world class level. One RW alone without those two stepping up into world class won't make us to be close on Liverpool's level. To put it simple, the current Rashford, Martial & Sancho are still way below their front three.
Statistically our forwards this season have put up comparable figures.
The point I was making is that what both Chelsea & Leicester did to win the league in 2016 & 2017 is not comparable to what Liverpool is doing right now. In other word, it's on different level, it's exactly like comparing Rashford level to Ronaldo level.
And we’ve added already and have shown we are capable of beating them and other top 4 sides this season. It’s the smaller sides we need to beat to gain our points and with Sancho, Bruno and Pogba playing together there is 3 players to make a huge difference in the games where we face more stringent defences.
Let's look at the stats of the attackers this season in th
Rashford - 14 goals 6 assist in 22 games
Mane - 14 goals 9 assists in 26 games
Martial - 11 goals 3 assist in 23 games
Firmino - 8 goals 7 assists in 29 games
Sancho - 17 goals 17 assists in 27 games (Holy shit!!)
Salah -16 goals 6 assists in 26 games
These stats are only from the premier league and Bundesliga and as you can see our attack which is young and can only get better matches up to theirs. The Bundesliga has obviously caused Sancho's stats to skyrocket but I'm not going to use that to reduce his quality as a player. If you like you can take away 10 g+a contributions from Sancho to make it fairer and it still matches up
On our midfield I'd say Liverpool has a midfield trio that perfectly suits their system. But we can't judge Bruno Pogba and Fred trio because we haven't seen them. However pick them out individually and our midfield is superior to theirs
On defence only Van Dijk and Robertson is better than what we have in our starting line up. Our RB is the best in defense and theirs is the best in attack. And Maguire is the better than their 2nd CB. Overall though I'd say their defense is better
It's hard to compare the bench but I'll give you this one and say Liverpool's is slightly better even though I'm not so sure tbh
Overall Liverpool is better but we can't say it's impossible to challenge them for the title when our squad plus Sancho is almost as good as theirs
How dare you come in here with your statistics. Filth!
Both of their midfield & full back have different way to offer compare to ours. For example they rely on their full back to create chances while we rely on our midfield to create chances. If our right back is better in defending than their right back, their midfield is better in defending than both Bruno & Pogba individually. You cannot just ignore the impact what their midfield & defenders can offer defensively & offensively.
Defensively they are the best in the league, only conceded 21 goals, while we conceded 30 goals, and they played Adrian as GK in some of their games. Offensively we scored 66 goals while we scored 44 goals.
The trio is the massive difference here. Not only their fitness is way off the chart compared to ours, Salah & Mane are proven capable to score 20+ league goals per season or even 30+ league goals while Martial, Sancho & Rashford are still not on that level yet which is why I believe even if we don't get Sancho or no, the first thing that will make us to challenge the league is that if both Rashford & Martial stepped up into world class level. In 5 months you might see them scoring similar number of goals, in the next following 5 months you'll expect them to maintain it consistently while ours might drop drastically. The difference of being world class.
And just to reduce your "holly shit" hype on Bundesliga stats. Haller scored 15 league goals & 9 assists 23 appearances with 6 subs with Frankfurt. While he only scored 7 league goals & 1 assist with West Ham 24 appearances with 3 subs.
Or another way to look at it without our best player and with injuries to key players throughout the season we still have the 3rd best defence in the league as it stands and 6th best attack. This is without our sole creative outlet at the start of the season Pogba. Since we had a fit creative outlet in Bruno we’ve been a joy to watch and much more potent. Having him, Pogba and Sancho will make a huge difference.
What Liverpool did was overcome a 25 point gap.. to challenge for the title. No one then thought it was a world class team.
No we don't, we need the whole team to step up. We could have Bruno, Pogba, Rashford, Martial, RW all at a very high level and still manage to overcome the points.
Will you please stop using facts to support your argument? It’s not fair!
In that season of the 25 point gap. Liverpool scored 84 goals. 2nd highest in the league, above United (68) & Spurs (74) and to make it even more promising they reached final CL. And the next window they signed Fabinho, Shaqiri & Allison while both Trent & Mane stepped up to different level. So it wasn't really just one signing + Van Dijk alone that makes them closing the gap.
I don't get what you're arguing on this one. I clearly have made myself clear enough multiple times that Sancho or this RW doesn't hold the key for us to catch Liverpool. So even with the exact current squad, we can still challenge the league but that's only if both Rashford & Martial step up to world class level.
Much better post from you here.
I would argue we are in an almost identical situation to that Liverpool side. Young players developing, some world class players a settled system of play and a couple of signings away from real progress.
Isn't this what you're doing. Ignoring the impact of what Bruno Pogba and Fred can have offensive and what Shaw and AwB can have defensively
For the second bolded part you can go back to my post where i said Liverpool has a better defense than us overall. And you say they have scored 22 more goals than us but so far this season Salah Mane and Firmino have all missed 6 matches combined meanwhile Rashford and Martial have missed 13 games combined. And plus we don't have Sancho who would have added to our goals scored. You're also ignoring Pogba and Bruno who would have added to our goals scored if they weren't absent through out the season
For the third bolded part The post I was referring to spoke about 'current level' and if we go by that Martial Rashford and Sancho have similar stats to Liverpool's trio.
For the 4th bolded part Aubameyang had 31 goals and 2 assists in his last full season at dortmund where he played 32 games. I don't know what you were trying to prove there
Top post!
So now you are changing the goal post? is it points that matter or goals scored? because Jose's second season we conceded one of the least goals, did we win the league year after?
Spurs got to the CL final last year and made 3 signings, are they fighting for the league? I do not get what you are getting at?
I have made it clear to that a RW is enough to catch liverpool / city if Pogba stays... Oh are you forgetting they sold Coutinho too that season?
If VVD can be the reason to close the gap, why can't Sancho.. Plus you are forgetting we got Bruno and Ighalo too. Rashford and Martial have stepped up this season havent they?
We need to be lucky with injuries, like Liverpoool have.
Don’t you get it you have to be able to argue to his criteria which can change on a whim.
How in your view that you think I'm changing the goal post?
I was making a point that despite of them being 4th place and 25 points behind, they reached final CL & their league goal scoring number showed some promising to be in the title challenger next following season. With the additional of both Mane & Trent massive improvement and spent 170m pounds on 4 players, they closed the gaps.
I don't know whether you are playing dumb on me here but I was actually expecting you to be smart enough to know the difference between Spurs & Liverpool situation.
Toby, Vertonghen, Rose are declining and they lost Trippier without replacing him. Liverpool wouldn't close that 25 points gaps if their defense is in decline & they lost Trent the next following season.
First of all VVD was already the best PL centre back at that time. Second, Salah was world class. Third, it wasn't just 1 signing that close the gaps but another 4 signings. Fourth, it wasn't just signings that close gaps but also the fact that both Mane & Trent made massive improvement to different level which make the losing Coutinho as a small loss.
I don't get what you are getting at. The fact that I said we can still challenge the league with the current squad sums up that I'm not ignoring the others like Bruno & Ighalo, that's pretty much tells you that we have the core to challenge the league but we don't have world class attackers to win us. Both Rashford & Martial have stepped up but they'll still need to go further like what Mane did last season and what Salah did in his first season.
The fact that Sancho doesn't want to join Liverpool because he knows won't start over Mane or Salah which should give you the point here.
Why do you always call people dumb when they make valid criticisms of your stance?
I did...did you read when I said Liverpool's midfield is perfect for their system
I'll say it one last time Liverpool are better defensively than us. The scenario the people who say we can challenge for the title is one where Rashford and Martial continue their good form as well as Pogba Bruno and Sancho if brought in. And you cannot come to the conclusion that if these players perform as expected that Liverpool's attack is superior to ours when these players - Rashford Sancho Martial are bringing similar stats to Liverpool's attacking trio. I'd say it's more realistic to expect Rashford Sancho Martial to continue their form than to drop.
This is the scenario
Current Rashford Current Martial and Current Sancho are as good as current Mane Firmino and Salah and the stats proves it. I'll say it again nobody is working with Rashford Martial and Sancho's form dropping drastically. We all expect them to keep performing or don't you?
Pogba Bruno and Fred are better than Liverpool's midfield.
Liverpool's defense is better than ours
With this squad we can challenge for the title. I never said we will challenge or win the title but it's something that looks achievable looking at our current squad plus Sancho
And for the Wjnaldum point if that's not how football works then how come Aubameyang brought his form from Dortmund in a lesser league and became highest goal scorer here.
The argument here is solid. If you expect Mane, Salah and Firmino to perform again next year then surely the same must apply to Rashford Martial and Sancho.
You either give everyone the benefit of the doubt and look at best cases or you deliberately disadvantage one side of the argument without any reason to.
Mane & Salah are capable proven to score 20+ & 30+ league goals.
I didn't underplay VVD effect. I'm making a point that VVD wasn't the only thing that change Liverpool.
I didn't ignore our young players improving every years.
So where is this negative you are talking about. Quote & highlight it. Don't talk non-sense.
Just read your own posts and the way they sound. You’ll see what everyone is getting at hopefully.
Salah literally scored 32 league goals, 22 league goals following season & 16 league goals currently. If that's not above Rashford level, not sure what do you wanna call it.
How is calling Rashford not a world class is being negative? The fact that I said I believe we can still challenging the league without signing Sancho and relying the current same players should tells you that I'm being positive about it because I acknowledge the potential of our current squad. However, at the same time I'm being realistic that I know both Rashford & Martial are still away from Mane & Salah.
Rashfords current performances and goals are on a par with Salah. It would be unfair to compare a peak Salah in a settled side with a Rashford learning under Mourinho with a change of manager regularly.
Feel free to ignore the above but I’d really like these questions answered by yourself.
What do you consider world class to mean for a winger?
What do you think we need to close the gap on Liverpool as things current stand?
What criteria would Rashford/Martial/Sancho have to meet for you to accept them being of good enough quality to compete with Liverpool’s front 3?
Thank you for your time
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