The 6th Place Trophy - The 2017/18 Premier League Thread

[Dolphin Ziggler]

First topic message reminder :

The fixtures have been released, players have been signed and summer is already a bit boring, so here's the Premier League 2017/18 season thread.

Opening fixtures:

Arsenal v Leicester City
Brighton & Hove Albion v Manchester City
Chelsea v Burnley
Crystal Palace v Huddersfield Town
Everton v Stoke City
Manchester United v West Ham United
Newcastle United v Tottenham Hotspur
Southampton v Swansea City
Watford v Liverpool
West Bromwich Albion v Bournemouth

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Liverpool's defending

Beyond woeful

[Ent]

You wouldn't see that in non league.

2 defenders square on allowing a striker to just run in between them, hard to believe.

[Guest]

Good point vs Liverpool. Highlight of the game was Ayoze Perez being substituted off

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Liverpool desperate to underline their credentials of being the new Arsenal

[Guest]

Liverpool desperate to underline their credentials of being the new Arsenal

I'd take 3 of the next 4 FA Cups. Nice!

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Becoming more and more convinced Klopp is a fraud. I don't see a team that is any better than a Brendan Rodgers side and I'm told forever by Liverpool twitter how much better Klopp is

[GSC]

Fraud is probably strong, but yeah Arsene gets killed for recruiting to type and never addressing obvious issues where Klopp has largely stayed clean of all that so far.

[Ent]

What is success for Klopp though?

Liverpool have probably the 5th biggest budget in the league.

Cl qualification is probably over achieving.

[Guest]

No Liverpool fan in their right mind expects a title challenge. You're pretty much spot on, Ent.

A cup here and there would be nice. I'd put Spurs ahead of Liverpool now in the pecking order. Utd, City and Chelsea are streets ahead of everybody else. I'd expect those three sides to share the next umpteen PL titles.

[GSC]

The Manchester clubs sure.

Not sure their budget is far behind anyone else of the top clubs, if it even is.

[Ent]

Chelsea?

Arsenals wage bill also higher.

Spurs have put together a better team and squad but heir expenditure has been less.

[BamBam]

Only good thing for Brighton fans here is they get to see Giroud in the flesh

Lot of stiffs in the crowd today

[BamBam]

What makes Liverpool extra amusing is the sense of superiority their own fans believe they have over every other club

Watching their calamity defence gives me extra giggles because of this, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch

Klopp can't defend against tooth decay, what hope has he got against Premier League strikers

[Afro]

Koeman next to be sacked

I'm not one to back rash decision making, but I'm starting to worry about Koeman's inability to fix the glaring issues with the side. He did try and add pace yesterday, which we have severly lacked, but still insists on picking out of form players who are low on confidence.

Whilst I can see the justification that they need to play to get back in form and build confidence, you can't carry that many out of form players in key positions.

[LivinginItaly]

To be honest, as a life-long Liverpool supporter, I can sort of understand where BamBam is coming from. It's probably true to say that we have a feeling of superiority, due to a lot of very distant success. Do I expect us to challenge for the title every year with champions league qualification the minimum acceptable? Yes I do!!! Do I think we are at that level at this moment with our current squad? No, not even close!!! Is Klopp the right man for Liverpool?  I honestly don't know, but even if we replaced him I don't know if we would be able to get anyone better. it is criminal, however, that our clear weaknesses were not addressed over the summer.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

I like Klopp's side, although he's starting to become a Muppet in the press. I'd rather a team with defensive fallibility who entertains and sometimes overawes than a Pulis.

[GSC]

Chelsea?

Arsenals wage bill also higher.

Spurs have put together a better team and squad but heir expenditure has been less.

Chelsea bring in a lot of income from loaning/selling their younger players.

Arsenals is a weird one, their wage bill is lopsided because Arsene refuses to give up on anyone who's ever had potential and they pay squad players very well. In terms of putting out a first XI and subs not sure there's a vast difference though.

[Ent]

Chelsea?

Arsenals wage bill also higher.

Spurs have put together a better team and squad but heir expenditure has been less.

Chelsea bring  in a lot of income  from loaning/selling their younger players.

Arsenals is a weird one, their   wage bill is lopsided because Arsene refuses to give up on anyone who's ever had potential and they pay squad players very well. In terms of putting out a first XI and subs not sure there's a vast difference though.

Do we shift the goalposts because they spend their money badly?

[GSC]

No, but we can focus on what the budget is effectively being used for.

Either way Klopp is hardly struggling relative clubs not from Manchester.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

He just splashed £40m on Oxlade Chamberlain to sit on the bench and do nothing

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Jurgen Klopp is just a mediocre manager whom was very fortunate that he had a great squad at Dortmund, whilst Bayern where going through a transformation stage and a crisis of confidence.

Klopp talks bs about ‘rock and roll football’ wtf does that mean? Klopp is tactically inept. It’s funny what lewandowski, hunmels, gotze etc can mask about what limited managerial skills Klopp really has

[GSC]

He could also afford to do that and reject 100m plus bids for Coutinho while making major bids for VVD

[BamBam]

I particularly enjoyed this

https://twitter.com/AnfieldHQ/status/914556038547935232

Klopp: "We don't feel perfect in this moment - you (journalists) write things and the boys read it and they don't feel too good about it."

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Again, is he doing that badly with Liverpool? I think the attacks on Klopp are weird, they're a very good side who play some breathtaking football and have been notably coached to improve as players.

Arguably, he's getting more out of what he has than Arsene, Jose or Pep.

[GSC]

Couldn't disagree more with Pep or José.

[BamBam]

Serious question .. who do you think he has improved as players through his coaching?

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Jose has spent a hell of a lot and the reputation of those players is pretty much the same as when he got there. Fellaini is used better, but I don't think he's made anyone else but Young noticeably better.

Pep does a lot of good with his, but has so much competition and can cherry pick anyone he wants, bar the absolute cream.


Lallana, Firmino, Coutinho, Mane, Can, Wijnaldum. Milner is open to debate as I think he's probably always been likely to have been a fine full back.

[BamBam]

Jones is noticeably better, Fellaini meh, Young and Valencia debatable

I'm not a Man U fan btw

Of those you mention

Lallana - debatable
Firmino - 30m signing performing like one
Coutinho - still a budget Arjen Robben
Mane - he was quality at Saints, just playing in a better team with more opportunities to show it
Can - Gone backwards
Wijnaldum - Gone backwards
Milner is Milner

I look at the defence and think any manager with that reputation would at the very least be able to organise them defensively - can't do anything about howlers other than replace the players, but he can't even manage that

See his views on there not being one CB other than Van Dijk being able to improve them

[GSC]

The working with what they have argument is flawed anyhow as it completely ignores that Liverpool spent 100m+ on midfield, also added Salah and completely ignored defense. Does Klopp get credit for neglecting his defense and being stuck with the players he has (would also argue as before, there's a clear trend of defenders regressing at Liverpool so not sure its all the players).

[Beer]

Can't understand how people can be critical of Klopp, 1 in every 4 or 5 games Liverpool look superb. They have good attacking players, and when it's going wrong, he throws his arms around passionately, and makes some weird gurning faces.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Ridiculous. Just one of those things, they got top four last year, arguably a very big achievement, and over the last two years I'd say they've played the best football to watch, only being pipped by City at the moment.

Seem to be being lambasted for not being perfect, in September too.

[GSC]

Seem to be lambasted for falling to the exact same failings as every year.

Wenger got murdered for "same old Arsenal" after 2 games.

[BamBam]

If playing the best football is all that's required, then good for Liverpool and its fans

Somehow I think the fans think that they should be doing a lot more than that, and its noticeable that there seem to be louder dissenting voices at the moment than at any time before this

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Wenger has been doing it for a bit longer.

Most teams have some failings, the expectations seem to be the issue. They need to improve, but the fraud comments are hilarious

[GSC]

And I never agreed with the fraud comment.

The expectation that they make some effort to address clear issues in a summer where they spent over 100m and rejected 100m+ bids for a midfielder is not an unreasonable one.

Can't keep playing blame onto Lovren/Matip/Moreno era when the club makes little effort to replace them.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Oh I'm not saying people are wrong to question, you should always be questioning somewhat, but the level of severity is bonkers to me. Got Liverpool fans moaning that he's ruining their club; could argue this was the best prolonged Liverpool side since the premier league began.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

I certainly wouldn't put him as the worst performing manager in the league, although I also wouldn't put him in the top four of best performance (Jose, Pep, Dyche and Rafa)

[Fernando]

No Marco Silva? same points as Burnley just behind on goal difference. 1st season in charge there too.

[GSC]

Would probably put Conte and Wagner up there

[Dolphin Ziggler]

I wasn't thinking too scientifically, but think Burnley and Newcastle have been better managed and every limit of performance squeezed out of them

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Whilst I'm thinking about the Premier League, I detest our owners for apparently backing the idea for less even split of money in the premier league

[Dolphin Ziggler]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/oct/05/newcastle-united-investigated-abuse-tax-system

[Fernando]

Sadio Mane out for 6 weeks after getting injured with Senegal

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Notes from supporter groups meeting with PL representatives

There will be no 1600 fixture on Christmas Eve
There will be at least one game that day, probably at 1330
There will be four games across the weekend from Friday Night to Sunday
afternoon
They are “nowhere near” resolving all the issues surrounding December
games so the announcement date of 12th October has now been pushed back to
the 19th.
The announcement on the 19th will NOT include which games will be
televised from 23rd Dec fixtures
The Premier League will honour its commitment to announce TV fixtures six
weeks ahead of time.
It is suspected they will wait until the outcome of League Cup matches in
the last week of October before announcing fixtures.
Premier league signed off on this so “blame us rather than Sky/BT”.
Scudamore said he didn’t think there would be such a fuss about games on
Christmas Eve and the FSF efforts have clearly had an effect.

[guildfordbat]

Notes from supporter groups meeting with PL representatives

There will be no 1600 fixture on Christmas Eve
There will be at least one game that day, probably at 1330
There will be four games across the weekend from Friday Night to Sunday
afternoon
They are “nowhere near” resolving all the issues surrounding December
games so the announcement date of 12th October has now been pushed back to
the 19th.
The announcement on the 19th will NOT include which games will be
televised from 23rd Dec fixtures
The Premier League will honour its commitment to announce TV fixtures six
weeks ahead of time.
It is suspected they will wait until the outcome of League Cup matches in
the last week of October before announcing fixtures.
Premier league signed off on this so “blame us rather than Sky/BT”.
Scudamore said he didn’t think there would be such a fuss about games on
Christmas Eve and the FSF efforts have clearly had an effect.

Hi Dolph - as I regularly bang on about on the cricket threads, I feel the greatest consideration should not be given to usually well paid players or people watching on Sky from a warm and comfortable armchair but the spectators who have given up their time and money to actually attend the game in person. Mainly for that reason I'm glad there will be no 1600 fixtures on Christmas Eve. Committed supporters shouldn't be forced to endure all the hassle and travel chaos that would inevitably go with attending a game kicking off at 4 o'clock.

That said, it's amazing how things have changed over the decades (yes, I'm incredibly old! ). My great uncle was a professional footballer in the 1920s and '30s. In those days matches were normally played on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I remember him telling me that over Christmas 1930 he played 3 games in 3 days and 5 games in 10  - Christmas Day which was a Thursday, Boxing Day the Friday, 27th December the usual Saturday fixture, Thursday 1st January (unsure why there was a game as New Year's Day wasn't a Bank Holiday then) and 3rd January the next Saturday fixture. I doubt many players or even supporters could cope with that sort of fixture list today!

[Dolphin Ziggler]

I find the fact the Premier League are to completely blame for it and still don't care if it's a 13:30 kick off to be a bit repugnant. It's even worse because they're entirely surprised.

No one wants to travel on Christmas Eve

[Ent]

What an utterly dire game.

Appalling performance from united, utterly awful - this side have no chance of winning the league or going far in Europe.

Flat track bullies.

[Guest]

Sky hype job fails again  

Completely expected result & performance from Mourinho away from home. Job done, as far as he is concerned. Not surprised at the lack of quality, or cohesiveness, especially after an international break, with little preparation time.

[Guest]

Sky hype job fails again  

Liverpool vs Man Utd doesn't need SKY to hype it anyway. The game sells regardless.

Nothing failed. It was how most folk expected it to be.

[Duty281]

Palace 2-1 Chelsea.

Roy is the messiah!

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