Premier League Prediction 2017/2018

menamestom

joeyowen said:

Big test for city now 

Well they passed the test, and did it in style.
Still early in the season but City are looking impressive.   

Obviously the press are rightly getting excited over City now, but nobody seems to have mentioned that Chelsea played a day later in the CL, away and against a far better team than City did, so I don’t think Chelsea were at their best.   

I was hoping for a draw myself!

earwighoney

Crystal Palace look absolutely fucked.  I'd be really surprised if their season doesn't end in relegation.  

menamestom

earwighoney said:

Crystal Palace look absolutely fucked.  I'd be really surprised if their season doesn't end in relegation.  

I only listened to the game on the radio, but the commentators were astounded by their lack of basic things like chasing down and putting the graft in.  Seems like there are problems at Palace, which is a shame after becoming a decent team a few years ago.   I really don’t think Woy is the man for the job either, they need a manager who is going to rule with an iron fist and make the team work.   Apparently they are the only team in the top leagues in Europe without a goal.  A sorry stat that is.

Freebird

menamestom said:
TOP 6

1st Man City, 2nd Chelsea, 3rd Man United, 4th Tottenham, 5th Arsenal, 6th Liverpool

I'm predicting 4 of those 6 will make it into the Champions League, just like they do every season ... ZZZZzzzzzzz 

menamestom

Freebird said:

menamestom said:
TOP 6

1st Man City, 2nd Chelsea, 3rd Man United, 4th Tottenham, 5th Arsenal, 6th Liverpool

I'm predicting 4 of those 6 will make it into the Champions League, just like they do every season ... ZZZZzzzzzzz 

4 every season?  

5 of them got in this season

quarky

Yep, so true.

Just think, even 10 years ago, Spurs hadn't finished above Arsenal for ages, teams like Leicester never won the league, Villa qualified for Europe (as did Newcastle even more recently). Nothing every changes though

cruxiform

earwighoney said:

Crystal Palace look absolutely fucked.  I'd be really surprised if their season doesn't end in relegation.  

We’ll be fine. This is the Palace way. We ride the rollercoaster every season. Wilf is back soon and when he plays well so do the team. I thought  appointing Frank De Boer was a massive fuck up, my son and I were at Selhurst Park when we played Swansea. The players just couldn’t adapt to his system and were lost. Unfortunately when Woy took over we’ve had to face some very tough opposition. In the transfer window we need to get another striker, a proper goal machine as Benteke blows hot and cold and is currently injured. But yeah, I think we’ll stay up. It’s still very early in the season.

menamestom

cruxiform said:

earwighoney said:

Crystal Palace look absolutely fucked.  I'd be really surprised if their season doesn't end in relegation.  

We’ll be fine. 

You might be right.  A very good result yesterday.  Good goal from Zaha - can’t help thinking you finished Chelsea’s title defence as well. 

duotone

cruxiform said:

earwighoney said:

Crystal Palace look absolutely fucked.  I'd be really surprised if their season doesn't end in relegation.  

We’ll be fine. This is the Palace way. We ride the rollercoaster every season. Wilf is back soon and when he plays well so do the team. I thought  appointing Frank De Boer was a massive fuck up, my son and I were at Selhurst Park when we played Swansea. The players just couldn’t adapt to his system and were lost. Unfortunately when Woy took over we’ve had to face some very tough opposition. In the transfer window we need to get another striker, a proper goal machine as Benteke blows hot and cold and is currently injured. But yeah, I think we’ll stay up. It’s still very early in the season.

@cruxiform ;Not sure how much truth there is but I heard on BBC 606 a few weeks ago that his training consisted of him lashing a few balls at the goal & basically saying "this is what you need to do, shoot like this!"

cruxiform

duotone said:

cruxiform said:

earwighoney said:

Crystal Palace look absolutely fucked.  I'd be really surprised if their season doesn't end in relegation.  

We’ll be fine. This is the Palace way. We ride the rollercoaster every season. Wilf is back soon and when he plays well so do the team. I thought  appointing Frank De Boer was a massive fuck up, my son and I were at Selhurst Park when we played Swansea. The players just couldn’t adapt to his system and were lost. Unfortunately when Woy took over we’ve had to face some very tough opposition. In the transfer window we need to get another striker, a proper goal machine as Benteke blows hot and cold and is currently injured. But yeah, I think we’ll stay up. It’s still very early in the season.

@cruxiform ;Not sure how much truth there is but I heard on BBC 606 a few weeks ago that his training consisted of him lashing a few balls at the goal & basically saying "this is what you need to do, shoot like this!"

Wouldn’t be surprised! Anyway, yesterday’s performance against Chelsea was like watching a different team, although having Zaha back made most of the difference. 

axisus

I really can't be doing with Mourinho's rubbish attitude to the so called 'big' games. The days of great battles are long gone, we now have to cower behind a dull defensive display and hope they don't score. Pathetic. I'd rather see us lose 4-3 and go down fighting. 

menamestom

axisus said:

I really can't be doing with Mourinho's rubbish attitude to the so called 'big' games. The days of great battles are long gone, we now have to cower behind a dull defensive display and hope they don't score. Pathetic. I'd rather see us lose 4-3 and go down fighting. 

Yeah, it's poor.  Considering the recent form of both teams as well there was no better time to go for it.  Looking forward to Pogba coming back because he increases attacking options whatever the game plan, but I think City are quite a bit ahead as a team and I can't see us challenging if that's our attitude against one of the 'big teams'.

quarky

I think it was the correct approach for going to Anfield this stage of the season. Keeping Liverpool bottled up and hoping to nick a goal for an away win are hardly controversial. United just played a bit crap to be honest and lost the ball too often. An away draw against a rival isn't the complete disaster than some people make it out to be.

menamestom

quarky said:

I think it was the correct approach for going to Anfield this stage of the season. Keeping Liverpool bottled up and hoping to nick a goal for an away win are hardly controversial. United just played a bit crap to be honest and lost the ball too often. An away draw against a rival the complete disaster than some of the ABU'ers make it out to be.

No, not a disaster and the season has a long way to go.  I'm just not sure a team 7 points behind who have scored 8 less goals and let in 10 more than us were the ones that needed bottling up.  We could have showed more attacking intent without becoming too open, but as you say perhaps we just played a bit crap and on balance a point is not too bad.  I wonder whether the same tactic will be employed against City at OT?

FX_Munkee

menamestom said:

quarky said:

I think it was the correct approach for going to Anfield this stage of the season. Keeping Liverpool bottled up and hoping to nick a goal for an away win are hardly controversial. United just played a bit crap to be honest and lost the ball too often. An away draw against a rival the complete disaster than some of the ABU'ers make it out to be.

No, not a disaster and the season has a long way to go.  I'm just not sure a team 7 points behind who have scored 8 less goals and let in 10 more than us were the ones that needed bottling up.  We could have showed more attacking intent without becoming too open, but as you say perhaps we just played a bit crap and on balance a point is not too bad.  I wonder whether the same tactic will be employed against City at OT?

No, the tactics will be subtley different for that one. I suspect we won't be fielding any forwards.

earwighoney

menamestom said:

Good goal from Zaha - can’t help thinking you finished Chelsea’s title defence as well. 

Palace seem to be Chelsea's bogey team.  

***

Right now it looks like with their current form City will finish the season as champions.  

AvalonAndy

Happy that Spurs have got the first league win at Wembley.  I really can't wait for the Bernabeu tomorrow night.  It'll be a great test against the champions.

According to the Totally Football podcast, Conte wants to go back to Italy in the summer and it is nailed on.  I would be concerned if I was a Chelsea fan as their players seem to have a mentality of being happy enough to take the foot of the gas if the manager is on the way out.  But as I'm not a Chelsea fan...

cruxiform

menamestom said:

cruxiform said:

earwighoney said:

Crystal Palace look absolutely fucked.  I'd be really surprised if their season doesn't end in relegation.  

We’ll be fine. 

You might be right.  A very good result yesterday.  Good goal from Zaha - can’t help thinking you finished Chelsea’s title defence as well. 

We have a habit of doing that, did it to Liverpool in 2014. Was there with my son that night. 3-0 down then came back to draw 3-3. I remember Suarez covering his head with his shirt. As for Chelsea: 



He's right. Lap it up. NSFW

cruxiform

earwighoney said:

menamestom said:

Good goal from Zaha - can’t help thinking you finished Chelsea’s title defence as well. 

Palace seem to be Chelsea's bogey team.  

***

Right now it looks like with their current form City will finish the season as champions.  

City are frightening at the moment. Champions League will be the ultimate test for them but really Man U and Mourinho's pragmatic approach of parking the bus at 'tough' games will come undone if City keep playing like this. They'll storm their way to the title. 

On a sad note, gutted to hear about Sean Hughes' passing today. He was a massive Palace fan, seen him a few times at Selhurst Park.

quarky

City looked like doing the same last season for a while too. If they can win the title playing that kind of football though, they certainly deserve it, but there is still a long way to go. I still wouldn't write off Chelsea just yet. It is going to be very tough but *if* City start dropping points, and that *if* gap gets back to six before Xmas, Chelsea are in with a shout again. The worrying thing is that City just look so strong and have so much strength in depth that it looks unlikely. It feels like they could lose two top forwards and/or two top midfielders and still stroll a lot of games.