Might as well stick the list up: All times BST Friday, 15 August Liverpool v Bournemouth (20:00) Saturday, 16 August Aston Villa v Newcastle (12:30) Brighton v Fulham (15:00) Nottingham Forest v Brentford (15:00) Sunderland v West Ham (15:00) Tottenham v Burnley (15:00) Wolverhampton Wanderers v Manchester City (17:30) Sunday, 17 August Chelsea v Crystal Palace (14:00) Manchester United v Arsenal (16:30) Monday, 18 August Leeds v Everton (20:00)
Completely. League and/or CL or he should go. But I can't see the board sacking him regardless though so it's only really make or break in fans' minds, not in actual reality.
Not quite yet. They still need to announce which VAR rules will only apply to Arsenal in the first few games before not being applied to anyone else for the rest of the season.
What phase is this? Six? Man got more phases than the Marvel cinematic universe, and like the MCU, his popularity is on the wane.
Meh. No-one has ever won the league with the number of days missed through injuries we had last season. Since the injury reports started to be released, the league winners have always been the title challengers who's players missed the least number of games. Every single time. And when there's been three challengers (which is admittedly rare in the prem), the team that's come second has had the second least. There's nothing subjective about it. Klopp and Pep both never won the league when they had players miss more games than their title rivals. So I'm not sure you can bash Arteta for not doing something in 24/25 that the best managers in the world have never been able to do either. The mantra of 'you just have to deal with injuries' is nonsense, because no title chasing team in the premier league has ever dealt with injuries and won the league, regardless of manager. Arteta has to, at some point soon, win something. By the law of averages, surely we have to have a season soon where our injury levels are tolerably similar to other title challengers, and then he's got no excuse. And if our injuries are higher again, then I start to think that's also on him and his training methods and style of play. You don't have more injuries than your title challengers four years in a row just by chance. He'll have to take some sort of accountability for that.
A bit simple that init Imo when you play teams does matter due to things like form, injury list, fixture pile up, ball shape like Klopp used to say or wind factors like Klopp used to also mention as valid reasons for results being affected
I can post up a graph and a stats test showing significant correlation between numbers of games missed through injury and how well a team will do in that particular season. -0.591 correlation co-effiicent... which is significant down to about a 2% significance level. Interesting stuff. Possibly. I know you love facts and figures and engaging in genuine debate. The biggest overachievers (therefore most impressive season) on this correlation are Liverpool 21/22. The biggest underachievers (therefore least impressive season) on this correlation are City 24/25 and Arsenal 23/24. BUT trophies are what matters and everything else is just crying.
Stats and injuries. Two of my favourite subjects. Anybody got any thoughts on amortisation or related parties?
