@MajorRage when we got an opening day draw against Liverpool I didn't realise that was a minimal performance.
Always knew it would be tight at the bottom involving 8-9 teams. Just didn't think it would b4e this bunch
Crazy to think for a team that were considered one of the big 4 (and even title challengers), this is the first time in about 2 decades that Arsenal have started with three straight wins.
@KiwiPie I figured I was in danger of turning this thread into "Look at Little Fulham"
Plus next four fixtures are Arsenal (A), Brighton, Spurs (A) and Chelsea. Anything more than 3 points from that lot is a bonus and can easily see us getting zilch.
Still it was nice to stick it to the Hounslow Town supporters. The rivalry with Brentford has really only surfaced over the last decade but while Chelsea are the west London team I'd most like to beat, I have to admit their fans wouldn't even consider us a derby. So Brentford are the team I least want to lose to.
As a club there is a lot to admire about them, really good manager, superb recruitment strategy, tactically aware of the pattern they play to, make the most of their strengths, shiny new Lego stadium. Gob shite fans but.
@Bovidae Yeah that was a shocker Most worryingly it wasn't the kids who played poorly but the new recruits Mbabu and Diop. Apparently it's Joe Bryan's last game for Fulham. Not a great way to go out.
Still it will have strengthened Silva's argument that we have to strengthen the squad. Our run on team is good enough to stay up, but the bench ... We've already picked up three long term injuries, desperately need reinforcements particularly out wide to keep feeding Mitro.
We can make the thread about Bournemouth instead? Blatantly copying their South Coast neighbours to match the "heaviest ever EPL defeat" record.
It must be hard to keep morale up after 3 consecutive pumpings but on the bright side they are outside the relegation zone having already ticked off 3 games against likely top 5 teams. Still unlikely to survive on goal difference at season's end.
@KiwiPie said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
We can make the thread about Bournemouth instead? Blatantly copying their South Coast neighbours to match the "heaviest ever EPL defeat" record.
It must be hard to keep morale up after 3 consecutive pumpings but on the bright side they are outside the relegation zone having already ticked off 3 games against likely top 5 teams. Still unlikely to survive on goal difference at season's end.
we have brought two new defenders this year..ironically none have been able to get on the pitch yet, no squad depth is posing a real challenge. 16 goals conceded in three games though is a tough watch
@bayimports said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@KiwiPie said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
We can make the thread about Bournemouth instead? Blatantly copying their South Coast neighbours to match the "heaviest ever EPL defeat" record.
It must be hard to keep morale up after 3 consecutive pumpings but on the bright side they are outside the relegation zone having already ticked off 3 games against likely top 5 teams. Still unlikely to survive on goal difference at season's end.
we have brought two new defenders this year..ironically none have been able to get on the pitch yet, no squad depth is posing a real challenge. 16 goals conceded in three games though is a tough watch
At least on Saturday the hope didn't last long - going down 2-0 in 6 minutes saw to that.
Personally I'm wanting these teams to go down (and presuming Man U won't).
Forest - obviously
Villa/Everton - Stevie G, Lampard - shame they will both be fired before they get relegated.
Leicester - for cocking up their superb few years and especially for their goal celebration music.
@KiwiPie said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
Blatantly copying their South Coast neighbours to match the "heaviest ever EPL defeat" record
That was my immediate thought. They still have time to do a Wigan and suffer another similar defeat in the same season. As do Fulham.
The relegation dogfight is going to be a doozy. It looks like sides which would have comfortably avoided the drop in previous season are going to drop back down in May.
@KiwiPie Villa could be in trouble if they go down what with the way they have spent. Forest too I guess.
I think realistically only one promoted team survive most years so sorry @bayimports I hope the Cherries go down too.
I'll take any three clubs finishing below us. Everton and Villa for similar reasons would be 'nice' So too IMO Leeds, Southampton and Wolves.
Although Fulham aren't supposed to like Brentford that's a younger fans thing. To my vintage they were an irrelevance and I think they are an extremely well run club, on and off the pitch. I quite like Palace and West Ham (last 2nd tier club to win FA Cup) and that's exhausted the list of those who can realistically ever be expected to go down.
The days of the likes of the Manchester clubs spending a season out of the top division have sadly gone
@dogmeat said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
So too IMO Leeds, Southampton and Wolves.
Leeds I like to watch play so happy for them to stick around - and the manager is entertaining as well even though he looks like he may combust if they go on a bad run.
Southampton was my late father's club so I have a soft spot for them.
Wolves - the Portuguese unemployment rate will increase if they go down.
The TAB has Bournemouth favourites for the drop then Forest and Everton and Southampton level as the other one to go down. Fulham paying $3.30 if you fancy an insurance investment!
@Bovidae said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
The first managerial casualty of the season - Scott Parker sacked by Bournemouth.
Equal biggest premier League defeat ever, fair enough!
@Machpants said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@Bovidae said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
The first managerial casualty of the season - Scott Parker sacked by Bournemouth.
Equal biggest premier League defeat ever, fair enough!
nah more about how vocal he was about the owners/management and the squad lacking depth. The people paying him didn't like that at all.
@Bovidae said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
The first managerial casualty of the season - Scott Parker sacked by Bournemouth.
Scott Parker is highly rated as an Assistant Coach. I expect to see him back at Spurs straightaway or part of Southgate's set-up with the England team.
@bayimports said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@Machpants said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@Bovidae said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
The first managerial casualty of the season - Scott Parker sacked by Bournemouth.
Equal biggest premier League defeat ever, fair enough!
nah more about how vocal he was about the owners/management and the squad lacking depth. The people paying him didn't like that at all.
Ok, I don't follow, but certainly noticed the score!
@sparky said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@Bovidae said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
The first managerial casualty of the season - Scott Parker sacked by Bournemouth.
Scott Parker is highly rated as an Assistant Coach. I expect to see him back at Spurs straightaway or part of Southgate's set-up with the England team.
By who? Nice line in cardigan's but...
He might be a good skills coach, but tactically and as a man manager he's a long way from the finished article.
Just the latest example of good players don't make good coaches. How long before Lampard (almost certainly) and Gerard (possibly) join him?
I think @bayimports is spot on. Surely the Bournemouth owners didn't expect more than the 3 points delivered from an opening four matches of Villa, Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool. But Parker has form he tried the same trick at Fulham and lost the dressing room with his constant criticising of his own players when arguably in March we were more favoured to stay up than go down. Just as the owners should have known the reality so should have Parker. Karma really for the way he tried to exit Fulham with a severance payout when he was the one courting Bournemouth.
The Fulham side that got promoted last year and the current side are in the main the same players Parker had, just playing to a better system and made better players by a Manager they trust and who gets the best out of them.
Meanwhile a 2-1 win for Fulham over top 4 giants Brighton, Southampton take down Chelsea 2-1 and 1-1 draws between Palace/Brentford & Leeds/Everton.
On Parker, what did Bournemouth expect from those first 4 fixtures? Away to the 2 best teams and 3 points is about the best they could expect. Looks like a job for Big Sam or Tony Pulis.
In bigger news, another win for Notts has them sitting 5th and still unbeaten - they plus Chesterfield, Wrexham, Oldham, York, Southend are the big clubs in the league as can clearly be seen in the average attendances.
@KiwiPie Some of those attendance figures are rather impressive.
As a comparison these are the home attendances of the top few in LEague 2
Bradford 17538
Strockport 8690
Swindon 8670
Wimbledon 7216
Orient 7173
Grimsby 6697
Mansfield 6587
Doncaster 6029
Whilst the bottom five clubs do not even crack 3000 average home attendance.
A similar story in League 1 with the bottom six not breaking 5000, different story at the top thanks to "big" clubs like Derby, Ipswich and Sheffield Wednesday, between 24 and 28 thousand. Others like Bolton, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Charlton are also sitting pretty averaging over 14000.
Based on club size, Bradford, Derby, Ipswich, Sheff Wed, Bolton, Portsmouth (Notts County) should be Championship clubs while Plymouth have always been lower than they should be given the size of the city.
@KiwiPie said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
It was all going so well for Fulham and then
I laughed when I read that.
Willian looked great for Arsenal in his first game. But after that...
@Bovidae The Athletic are reporting that Roma Fulham finally agreed terms for a one year loan with an option to buy but it has fallen over post Brexit because he can't get a work permit.
Strange if true but might explain late renewed interest in Willian if Fulham thought they had wide cover and it has fallen over on deadline day.
Underwhelmed by it all if true.
7 days later
@MajorRage said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
Tuchel sacked.
Awful decision.
No change in Chelsea's manager policy even wit the change of ownership.
The new owner seems to think he knows how to run a football team better than the people who run football teams for a living. Their spending has been wild in the window without making the team any stronger than last season. Tuchel did look like a man at the end of his tether so I suppose something had to give.
@KiwiPie said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
The new owner seems to think he knows how to run a football team better than the people who run football teams for a living. Their spending has been wild in the window without making the team any stronger than last season. Tuchel did look like a man at the end of his tether so I suppose something had to give.
Definitely seemed under pressure. His altercation with Conte and a stream of odd pressers were the giveaway
And now Liverpool are in a mini-crisis being thrashed 4-1 by Napoli in the UCL. Has Klopp's reign run its course in the 7th season again (he was 7 years at Mainz and Dortmund)? This is looking a lot like his final season at Dortmund when Lewandowski left before the season started (Mane leaving) and they were even bottom of the table during the season. And he was replaced by Tuchel.
@KiwiPie said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
And now Liverpool are in a mini-crisis being thrashed 4-1 by Napoli in the UCL. Has Klopp's reign run its course in the 7th season again (he was 7 years at Mainz and Dortmund)? This is looking a lot like his final season at Dortmund when Lewandowski left before the season started (Mane leaving) and they were even bottom of the table during the season. And he was replaced by Tuchel.
Mane was a huge loss. And didn't Salah want to leave and got blocked? The mix isn't quite right at the moment
Chelsea so scared to face FULHAM they are hoping a managerial dead cat bounce will win them the day....
Potter takes the poisoned chalice
It's nice that two London clubs have started well so that things don't look over already, but
City buying Erling Haaland is fucking outrageous. Scores again this morning to get City a win. He's played for City six times and he's already scored 10 fucking goals.
They'll score 100 in the league this year so everyone else can kiss their ass. I wonder how they'll fuck up the Champs League though?
Liverpool scored an 89th minute winner to avoid a long break of "club in crisis" articles. Which papers over that they look a bit fucked. Chelsea aren't doing much better, but sacking their manager was fucking ridiculous.
Haaland has 13 goals across 8 EPL and UCL games. If he plays 50 games this season that's 81 goals at his current rate - surely he can't keep that up.
My new favourite thing is watching Trent Alexander-Arnold defend - or rather jog back looking disinterested and then not spot the danger when he is actually back in the box. He lays as if they have is a wingback with 3 central defenders. The problem teams have is being able to cope with Liverpool's relentless press to exploit their obvious weakness.
Did you see Marcus Edwards (ex-Spurs youth) playjng for Sporting against Spurs? He almost scored a goal that was Maradona-esque and would have been replayed for years had it gone in - it deflected off the inside of a Lloris foot to go narrowly wide.
It's extra insane that city on paid about £50m for him when you look at some of the other moves. Without that release clause he probably goes for closer to 100.
If he can stay fit (from memory he had a few issues with Dortmund) he's the next Messi/Ronaldo. Now that he has city's quality feeding him he's unstoppable.
One month into the season and the question is who can stop Manchester City and Haaland?
In the League, no one I suspect unless they suffer a number of injuries. Arsenal have best team in years. They have a chance to beat Liverpool for 2nd place. Not much between Chelsea, Man Utd and Tottenham so it's going to be a tough battle between the Top 6 for the four UCL places.
In the UCL, I think City will have a more difficult time. PSG have started well. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich have strong squad. Liverpool will be a handful across two legs in the last 16.
@Cyclops said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
It's extra insane that city on paid about £50m for him when you look at some of the other moves. Without that release clause he probably goes for closer to 100.
If he can stay fit (from memory he had a few issues with Dortmund) he's the next Messi/Ronaldo. Now that he has city's quality feeding him he's unstoppable.
City actually made a profit of 69 million in the recent transfer window, selling Sterling, Zhinchenko & Jesus plus a host of unknowns who netted a total of 50 million between them. Chelsea spent 223 million even with selling Werner for a cool 20 million quid loss.
16 days later
