Worst run of fixtures ever?

Raw said:
Ah right there are 2 weeks without games, wasn't looking properly! So yeah after 12 game weeks we've had the hardest fixtures. Pretty mad.
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And next week we play Chelsea...

The only thing in our favor (or against us looking long term) has been we've played Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle, Brighton, Spurs all at home, while the away fixtures have been significantly easier bar City and Chelsea on the weekend. So 2nd half of the season we'll play most of our hard games away which can drag you down a bit.
 
Seeing this thread bumped I'm simmering with cautious optimism.

If we consider the opening results anomalies, it's been a superb start from ETH.
 
mav_9me said:
That's why I don't have much hope for the long term. Either the glazers didn't provide the funds or Murtough and Co didn't think we needed more. Neither bodes well for the future.
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The budget is allocated by the owners. Liverpool in Klopp's first full season at the club after finishing 8th, only had about 65m to spend.

But what's important to understand is the structure on the football side of the club. And if one fails to look beyond one man who heads the football side of the club and doesn't understand who is running the recruitment department then you've failed to understand the basic concepts of the structural pyramid on the football side of the club.

Edwards at Liverpool took the credit but he took credit for the work of people like Barry Hunter and Dave Fallows who run recruitment at the club and identify who should and shouldn't be signed. The same applies to Rangnick who had head scouts running the recruitment side of his clubs at Hoffenheim and then the RedBull clubs. Rangnick himself or Edwards at Liverpool weren't identifying players to sign for their clubs but rather relied on people in scouting capacities that they'd put in place to do that for them.

So whether the owners allocate a budget of 50m or a 100m isn't important, what's important to understand is if there's a DoF, if he has his chosen head coach, if he has his chosen head of scouting, and if he has his chosen data scientist to lead a team on the data sciences side of the club, which is important in this day and age.

And if all the above positions are in place after the removal of the previous heads of scouting, then we will judge their work according to the budget allocated to them by the ownership.
 
After 11 games we'll of played 8 of the top 10, with Palace being the only side we haven't played and remember that one was postponed as well
 
I’d snap your hand off for a draw against Chelsea and move on after what was a horrid start to the campaign. We struggle to covert chances without Martial and that’s pretty obvious in some games. FDJ in Jan would be brilliant business with perhaps a striker in the summer. If I had to settle for just one player in its FDJ as I can imagine a tightening of the purse strings next summer.
 
it’s mad how usually we’re always playing an annoying team like Villa or Wolves but now they’re both in dire form we don’t play Villa til they get a new manager bounce and not playing Wolves until after the WC. There’s also Palace who we were meant to play whilst they were in poor form but that’ll be in the new year now.

Then there’s the likes of Forest, Bournemouth, Leeds, etc… that again we won’t have even played once before the break. Pretty crazy really.
 
Exceptional return.

We’re 5th. In terms of the current table we’ve played positions 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,10,11,15,20. A slight lean towards home matches against the top sides but it’s a promising position now.
 
100 said:
Exceptional return.

We’re 5th. In terms of the current table we’ve played positions 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,10,11,15,20. A slight lean towards home matches against the top sides but it’s a promising position now.
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yeah point off Chelsea who haven't played hardly anyone yet (just Spurs)
 
So the only team in the top 11 that we haven't played after 11 games is newly promoted Fulham. Next month before the world Cup exclusively against bottom half teams. Martial to come back soon, hope he stays fit, but this is a chance to get a winning run.
 
Also 10 points from 5 games against the big 6. 3/3 wins at home. Crazy how quickly some of them have adapted to Ten Hag, in open play we are so good defensively as a team. Getting better on the ball but also need some better players.

Set pieces we need to improve a lot, both for and against. Eriksen has caught the United curse.
 
I realise there should be no positives from conceding 6 goals. I still maintain that 2nd half at city was very important to the progression

We can see the making of a team here. We aren’t in a situation where we still need 10 new players. It’s another midfielder (maybe?) and certainly a top centre forward away from being an actual title challenger in my opinion
 
We've done about as well as could be expected from the tough run of games, and now our fixture list until the City game in mid January looks very favourable.

Sheriff (H)
West Ham (H)
Sociedad (A)
Villa (A)
Villa (H)
Fulham (A)
Forest (H)
Wolves (A)
Bournemouth (H)
Leeds (H) - postponement, possibly in there somewhere as well
Palace (A) - same as Leeds

The one in Spain is the only one that looks tough on paper. We should be able to put together a very good haul of points either side of the World Cup.
 
It was a tough run of games and we're 5th, 10 points away from Arsenal (they should beat Saints comfortably). It's a solid position but means nothing if we don't do well against 'lesser' teams. Varane getting injured isn't exactly the best thing to happen but better now than month ago I guess.
 
The annoying thing about todays game is we dominated that first half and had clear cut opportunities. Maybe it’s a sign of how far we’ve come that we’re ruing just taking a point from them.
 
The Corinthian said:
The annoying thing about todays game is we dominated that first half and had clear cut opportunities. Maybe it’s a sign of how far we’ve come that we’re ruing just taking a point from them.
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I just think a draw was always a good result from this fixture. So don’t know why anyone would be disappointed. Even more so, taking into account the way the game panned out. I said before the game that nil all would be fine for me. To come from behind with an injury time equaliser was so satisfying.
 
I don't think anyone would have predicted just one loss in this run. ETH has really got them buying into his ethos here, and we have looked overall really good both sides of the City game.
 
Reditus said:
We aren’t in a situation where we still need 10 new players.
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We never were, despite the mass hysteria from certain sections when Rangnick was tossing out his weekly soundbites last spring (while producing literally nothing on the pitch). It was always a case of adding 3 or 4 quality players and having a coach with a clue who can get a tune out of the obviously talented existing ones- which is pretty much exactly what we've done and are seeing now.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I just think a draw was always a good result from this fixture. So don’t know why anyone would be disappointed. Even more so, taking into account the way the game panned out. I said before the game that nil all would be fine for me. To come from behind with an injury time equaliser was so satisfying.
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Yea a point away at Chelsea is nothing to be sniffed at. Our record at the Bridge in recent times is a lot better than it’s been during the Fergie years. I’m just a bit disappointed overall as we could/should have come away with all 3…again, a sign of the progress we’ve made. I also think this takes us to 1 loss in 10(?) against Chelsea.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Was just having a think about how Casemiro could be eased in and struck me that we're in the middle of an insanely difficult run of fixtures.

Liverpool(H)
Southampton(A)
Leicester(A)
Arsenal(H)
City(A)
Everton(A)
Newcastle(H)
Spurs(H)
Chelsea(A)

9 game in a row with the Southampton fixture the one and only one you would expect us to win comfortably (and they've proven themselves well capable of big upsets at home under Hasselhuhtl)

Granted, Leicester/Everton have started the season in poor form but our record against them on the road has been a bit shit recently so the away games are definite banana skin to negotiate. Only won 2 of our last 8 games at Goodison/King Power.

All of which means we're playing all the favourites for the top six, plus the club most likely to break into the top six, plus two away fixtures at grounds where we have a horrible recent record .

Can anyone remember a worse run of fixtures?

Also. Total points predictions? Currently on 12 (which is pretty damn good, all things considered)
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So it ends with W6, D2, L1. Amazing run of form.

We don't play a top 6 team until January now. We just need to take advantage of the games against lesser teams.
 
Chief123 said:
So it ends with W6, D2, L1. Amazing run of form.

We don't play a top 6 team until January now. We just need to take advantage of the games against lesser teams.
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That really is fantastic. The only defeat coming against hot favourites to win the league, away from home. And if Rashford had only buried that last minute header against the Saudis….
 
Chief123 said:
So it ends with W6, D2, L1. Amazing run of form.

We don't play a top 6 team until January now. We just need to take advantage of the games against lesser teams.
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Great return. This has been a hellish round of fixtures.
 
Chief123 said:
So it ends with W6, D2, L1. Amazing run of form.

We don't play a top 6 team until January now. We just need to take advantage of the games against lesser teams.
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This is the key! Over the last few seasons we’ve dropped a scandalous amount of points against mid to lower table teams- particularly at home!
 
Chief123 said:
So it ends with W6, D2, L1. Amazing run of form.

We don't play a top 6 team until January now. We just need to take advantage of the games against lesser teams.
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Sounds like a long time but it's only 6 more games. And then we have City and Arse in succession.

By the time we are at the halfway stage (19 games) we would've played City and Arse home and away. And City and Arse wouldn't have played each other at all.
 
Samid said:
Sounds like a long time but it's only 6 more games. And then we have City and Arse in succession.

By the time we are at the halfway stage (19 games) we would've played City and Arse home and away. And City and Arse wouldn't have played each other at all.
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These next 6 games are critical for me. They are all winnable games. We have 10 out of 12 fixtures coming up where there’s no reason we can’t win. We really have a chance to build upon this good form so far and cement ourselves in the top 4.
 
I dont think we've played any of the sides that have sacked their manager have we? (as in before they were sacked)
 
We did well. We're in good form to face mid to low table teams, but I have absolutely no idea how this goes for us without a striker.
 
Samid said:
Sounds like a long time but it's only 6 more games. And then we have City and Arse in succession.
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If we can put together 6 wins in a row that's huge. It would put us in 3rd above Spurs and Chelsea unless they also put a ridiculous run together. We'd also increase our points gap on Liverpool.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I dont think we've played any of the sides that have sacked their manager have we? (as in before they were sacked)
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Nope. Said the other day teams like Wolves and Villa are stinking the place out and for the first time we’ve not played them multiple times already.
 
Chief123 said:
These next 6 games are critical for me. They are all winnable games. We have 10 out of 12 fixtures coming up where there’s no reason we can’t win. We really have a chance to build upon this good form so far and cement ourselves in the top 4.
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If we can't finish chances then 10 out of 12 isn't a certainty. The lack of a consistent scorer will hurt us long term
 
Our opening fixtures have been tough for ETH but kudos to him for getting those results.

The only games that seemed like that we should comfortably win were Leicester and Soton. Everton away can be a bitch of a fixture over the years, Brentford and Brighton have been punching well above their weight too.

Clearly the Brentford game was the catalyst for the better much like Conte’s stint at Chelsea when they got mauled by Arsenal, changed it up and won 13 league games in a row and basically won the title from that.

I think Martial is being carefully managed but hopefully we can unleash him next week and suddenly scoring looks a lot more likely and it doesn’t look so fecking difficult despite the newfound ease that we can build legit chances now.
 
Samid said:
Sounds like a long time but it's only 6 more games. And then we have City and Arse in succession.

By the time we are at the halfway stage (19 games) we would've played City and Arse home and away. And City and Arse wouldn't have played each other at all.
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That's actually crazy. We're going to have a much better 2nd half of the season just on the basis of how the fixtures panned out. Playing 7/10 big 6 games in the first half of the season is crazy.
 
Love reading these threads in retrospect, we’ve done much better than many would have suggested. My fear going against “lesser” teams in the past would be that we struggle against teams that give us the ball, but after the performance against Spurs perhaps we’ve now turned a corner in that respect. Last 3 games before WC is West Ham, Villa and Fulham, I’d expect atleast 7/9 points there but hoping for max return. I’d expect that to possibly bump us into the top 4 if not very close.
 
If we win the next 3 we're in a great position heading into the world cup.
 
City game aside, we could’ve, and probably should’ve had another extra four points on the bird. Just goes to show how far we’ve come.
 
Samid said:
Sounds like a long time but it's only 6 more games. And then we have City and Arse in succession.

By the time we are at the halfway stage (19 games) we would've played City and Arse home and away. And City and Arse wouldn't have played each other at all.
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To be fair those two massive games more or less replace Palace and Leeds on our first half of the season fixture list. Even that is incredibly unlucky but it does mean we only have 4 of the top 6 to play in our last 18 games.
 
cyberman said:
To be fair those two massive games more or less replace Palace and Leeds on our first half of the season fixture list. Even that is incredibly unlucky but it does mean we only have 4 of the top 6 to play in our last 18 games.
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You mean 3 of the remaining top 5 in our last 19 games? We are one of the top 6 and obviously don't play ourselves.
 
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