Match Day Thread 2016/17 Premier League, Cups & Euro Watch

Thats an improvement with a squad that finished 11th the year before and with a new manager trying to implement his ideas

 

Because we kept beating the sides below us.....

 

TBF I'd expect a far greater instant improvement when two of his ideas were

1. don't play Howard in goal
2. don't play Stones in defence

 

We both had better seasons than prior year, not sure what the debate is on this one

 

You didn't though. In half of those 22 weeks you were beaten or drew, 11 games = 5 points. It's remarkable to keep hold of a place for so long and it only happened because of the poor form of those below you.

 

There was 2 or 3 points between us United and Arsenal for weeks around Easter / early April, the draw at United finished any chances we had of top 4 / 5 and we finished poorly.

 

As you keep avoiding it, we smacked up the teams below us but were poor against the top six side

 

Don't you find it remarkable though that while those at the top and the bottom were jostling around for glory or safety you stayed unmoved throughout?

 

What utter twaddle that is.

We won 8 homes games on the spin from Jan to April.

Remarkable how a side who took 6 points from the whole of Jan and Feb somehow managed to finish 4th isn't it?

 

given lfc had the same and got 8th.... well.... its purely down to away form. it is a big improvement on prior years.

 

62 points would have got you 7th.....60 the year prior......

A massive shift eh.......

 

You were right your game against each other was the turning point but mainly for them

After that Man Utd won 6 on the bounce

You actually weren't doing too bad but just couldn't keep up with that

 

If we'd have seen that game out and ended Uniteds 23 game unbeaten run (I think that's the right number) it'd have taken the wind out of their sails and we'd have had the momentum. They were ****e that night as well ffs, we should have picked them off on the break

 

You drew against Hull, Stoke, Boro, West Ham - lost to Swansea, Watford, Burnley - is that what you mean by 'smacked'.

I understand that unless you were Chelsea or Spurs then the results were dependent on every other team, it's how a league works but you benefitted rather well. How else do you explain no movement whatsoever?

 

best of the rest... they top 6 were just too good and the bottom 13 were truly awful.

If anything you should be asking why no cup run. Its a long season in comfort without one.

 

Not really, we beat those below with ease, while didn't do so well against those above

 

You were 7th for 22 weeks that's got to be down to the results of other teams and not just your home form. Have you ever seen anything like it before?

 

We also beat those teams, thats the beauty of a home and away games

 

Weren't you in the top 4 since Sept without looking like challenging the top 2?

The difference this season was merely the difference in consistency and quality between the top 7 and the rest, hence the 15 point gap which normally much smaller, but that doesn't alter the fact that 61 points invariably gets you 7th.

 

At the start of the season, there weren't many of the self-styled cognoscenti on here predicting we'd make top 4. Most seemed to be ****-scared of Utd because of the vast amounts of money they'd spent - yet again. In the end, they were largely irrelevant as they were incapable of taking more than a handful of points off any of the other top clubs.

I would call our season a success, in that we've improved our position in a highly competitive arena. A lack of European games has helped of course, so it remains to be seen whether we can continue that improvement.