So why weren't you happy with seventh under Moyes to fourth under Van Gaal last season. I smell hypocrisy
Yeah, we were 2nd after about 15-20 games And it was ****ing Burnley and Hull, as if they were gonna stay there.
RDM was not sacked in August, he was sacked late in the fourth month of the season, when the league table starts to take shape
Updated the OP with everyone's predictions so far. Christian seems the maverick so far, first to back Bournemouth to survive and Leicester to not make top 4... Is he the Oracle in disguise?
Talk about being pedantic Listen fella nobody gives a fck if it was game 2 or game 30. All that anyone compares is where you finished the previous season and where you finished the following season. Your desperation at trying to justify a fellow chelsea fan's hypocrisy is getting beyond surreal!
Ah the 4th month. How could I forget the century long tradition of comparing where teams were after month 4 of the season. Silly me Shotaway!
Mate, I rarely want to defend CFC All due respect to him! And I am probably the least tribal person on this forum. But are you seriously telling me that us being second halfway through the season, switching managers and then finishing 20 points from the top is progress. From the previous season yes, but we took a dive in results thats for sure.
Roberto Di Matteo sacked... After an impressive start to the season, the Blues have won two of their last eight games. They sit third in the Premier League table, four points behind leaders Manchester City, who they host at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20423905
If Leicester make it, then I'm afraid they'll do it at the expense of United. Bournemouth is heart > head. My second favourite premiership team.
I predict: Top Four: Arsenal, City, Spurs, United Bottom Three: Swansea, Sunderland, Villa Think the toon can escape, and think Leicester will have a bad run in March / April and drop back to fifth or sixth. Although whether we are capable of having a good run any more to take advantage remains to be seen.
I think Sunderland will stay up simply because Fat Sam is their manager. Vastly underrated manager. Fans of his previous clubs won't admit it but they know it. Something about a purse and a pig's ear.
He is a good manager, but does rely on a decent defence to get the results he needs. Sunderland's defence is a shambles this season, so I think even he won't be able to save them if it doesn't improve.
I don't particularly like his approach to playing the game. I suppose the "survive at all costs" mentality of the Premier League is the problem. I applaud good defending but as for the rest of the game I would much rather teams went down trying to play football the right way rather than resorting to one dimensional football for the sake of the money. I think that's probably what I like more about La Liga. It has changed in the Prem aswell thankfully in the last 3-4 years.
At one time his Bolton team played decent football because he had the players to play decent football. Campo, Djorkaeff, Okocha...they weren't long ball footballers. He's usually got **** all to work with and has to be pragmatic. That's the case with this Sunderland team.
But then they went on to Nolan and Davies and it was terrible. Yeh but my feeling is if you cant play the game with what you've got then you go down. I look at teams in La Liga and they will try and compete with a "passing game". If they go down so be it, they dont consider it the end of the world. That's an alien mentality over here and I'm sure ppl here just dont get that. Probably bcos the premier league is so hyped and has so much money involved.
Not necessarily - managers like SAF and Guardiola get their teams to attack and defend from the front and so can still get results even if the defence is shaky (look at our 01 and 03 title winning defences for examples, and how close we came in 2012 when every first choice defender got injured). Others like Keegan will go all out attack and just try and compensate for defensive issues by scoring goals. But Allardyce has always relied on defence the same way Mourinho and Benitez do - keep it tight, don't concede and try and take the chances at the other end. Today's result is a perfect example of the problems he faces - a defence that switches off and fails to clear its lines within two minutes of taking the lead and ships three in the second half. I don't think even Allardyce can keep a team up which is so poor at the back.
