The thing is a whole host of teams are stronger than utd in the middle of the park, the problem is utd have such quality out wide and up front that they (upto now) have still been able to still win games. So whilst it is a good advantage to have over them it will stil take a tremendous performance to beat them.
For goodness sake! Let's just keep on playing our football and leave others to worry if it's good enough for them or not. We will not know what is and is not possible until about Christmas. The owners amd management have already declared that our target is to continue to improve. CL football next season would be the proof of that improvement. However, nothing is yet guaranteed. If we are 'there or there abouts' at Christmas then a push for the title is well on the cards. If we are 10+ points behind the leaders then top 4 remains the prime objective. It's as open as that.
Kelly/Johnson - Carra/Coates - Agger/Skrtel - Enrique/Aurelio That looks like a strong enough defense to me.
Thing is though, we have 4 centre backs, 3 right backs and 3 left backs, all of whom could come in and slot into the team. When Rafael is out, you have to put Smalling, a centre back, at right back. Admittedly he's done well there, but he's nothing more than cover. When Johnson is out, we have Kelly (who can play CB, but I think he's a RB for the foreseeable future), and then Flanagan. On the left we have Enrique, Aurelio and Robinson. If Smalling got injured, who would you put at RB? If Evra and Fabio got injured, who at left back? You might be strong in defence in terms of your first XI, but you're relying on youth beyond that.
Calm down I wasnt having a go. But £35m for a championship striker is pretty funny. Looks like you will get 4th by default this year anyway.
by default you mean by Arsene having made a complete balls up of your squad right? Even during our darkest times we didn't get twatted 8-2 bollox that lad. You should be embarrased of your own squad and probably leave worrying about our players and concentrate on your own (try not to forget that Liverpool beat that shower only last week with Carroll starting). Probably picked the wrong day to try and WUM us seeing as our clubs are so obviously heading in opposite directions
Abramovich paid for him when he gave us £50 million for Cashinhando HAHA, KPR!!! Don't call it a comeback! He's been here for years!
4th by default. What is that supposed to mean? All clubs benefit when another is having a crisis, do you expect all clubs to stand still when another is struggling. Sorry it doesn't work like that. You look after yourself first and foremost and if you want to be successful you treat all rivals like the enemy. Its like ''Do onto others because they won't think twice about doing it to you''.
We won the champions league in 2005 by default aswell apparently!! According to Lawrie Sanchez anyway
ok ok... everyone chillax on the whole only 3 games gone thing. here's some salient FACTS that hold true no matter what season it is. the season may be convienently broken into 4 game groups (with 2 left over) so thats 12 points, if you ignore individual results but focus on form over 4 games then; 1. the champions, will finish on somewhere between 9 and 10 points out of every 12 available (or 86 to 95 points) the very odd year like last year that standard may drop but most year this holds true. 2. 4th place will usually require 70 points. that's about 8 points out of 12 (76 points exact) So..... 4 game blocks 3 games in and we have 7 points. Stoke away with complete a block of 4. Spurs away. Wolves home. Everton away Utd home. next block Whatever way you lean it is quite fair to say liverpool on thier current form can get 8 points out of 12 here.... ................................................................................................................................................... The point is no matter what the game the top teams will get thier results or if they get one bad result will bounce back and still get the prerequisite points to keep the table ticking over. Why, amazingly if you look at our form in 09 when we finished second we actually did just this, we fell apart when we lost and drew to middlesboro (0-2) and wigan (1-1) fell behind and despite beating utd couldn't catch up.... It doesn't matter whether its august, novemebr, or march you have to keep doing the same things and accumulating those points. Right now we are, there is no point knocking oursevles or letting others do so just because we know the season is a long one. Rather lets just follow the kenny mantra and look to the next game only. Stoke. that's all that matters. We need to win to keep up with our near neighbours down the road.
