Premier League Thread

Exactly this The only thing that will stop us from finishing above them is if we fail to score the goals. Whether Pelle / Long are going to do that is the question.

Our defence (all round) is better than theirs and we are critical of it. Liverpool play with 2 defenders and no protection from the full backs or DM. They will concede more than us in my opinion.

 

Can I have some of what you're on!?

 

IIRC didn't Lovren come with a question mark over his concentration when we signed him?
Maybe a combination of different expectations and losing confidence could result in a few cock-ups.
Shame.

 

Lovren will be great in 80% of the matches he plays in, but when he is having an off day, he REALLY has an off day.

 

I put it down to Fonte carrying him all of last season #notprejudicedatall

 

Just saw a pretty interesting statistic that says every team that will compete in Serie A for the 14/15 season has won Serie A at some point in their history. I wonder if that's the only league in Europe or maybe even the world in which that's the case.

 

Wow, they are far better at sharing than us!

 

We had a better defence than them last season. They had twice as many goals scored. You could argue that Suarez keeping the ball at the other end as well as making other teams more cautious helped Liverpool keep their goals down as well. Man U's defence was awful last season yet conceded less. They had the 8th best defence in the league but Suarez's goals took them to 2nd place. I think they will concede more this season and score less.

My argument (although optimistic and exagerrated) is that if Long/Pelle/Rodriguez can actually score a decent amount of goals then we will finish higher than them. They are playing their first choice full backs and Gerrard is their first choice DM. They don't have a Wanyama helping behind Gerrard and their full backs aren't as good defensively as ours.

 

Neil Warnock new boss of Palace, quite clever how they announced it on their shirt sponsors twitter page.

Punch will be a happy man!

 

Didn't see that one coming....shows how little the media knows.

 

Not the best appointment, in my opinion. Warnock is the personification of a Football League manager. You'd definitely want him in the lower leagues, but he's tactically not there for the PL, and he can't command players from the PL. For me, he'll either take them down or he'll come of age and finally realise what it takes to be a PL manager. Chancy appointment, for me. Can't be a very long term appointment.

 

Will be a lot of comings and goings in next 4 days thats for certain. He's not too everyones taste.

 

Thing about Warnock is that he's a shaker and a fighter. He goes in and takes a stale situation by the scruff of the neck and knocks it into shape. Crystal Palace aren't in that position and don't need that. They just need continuity of what Tony Pulis was doing. They have good players who can play pretty good football. Sure they need a bit of discipline at the moment, but the club itself did that to them, and to my mind, appointing Warnock is akin to hitting a panic button. Tbh, I'd be ringing Pulis and asking if we couldn't have another go at reaching an agreement.

I have a bit of sympathy for Palace fans. It's slightly similar to Saints in that they had a recipe for relative success and then it was taken away from them.

 

So "if we score more goals than them we'll finish higher than them".

Umm.....

We won't.


Secondly we don't have the defence we had last season, neither do we have the very clever defensive coach leading the club we did last season, so the chances of us conceding less are minimal too.

I honestly think your statement is tantamount to "if we win the most games this season we'll win the league", but I admire your optimism!

 

Is our defence markedly worse? I don't mean a little bit, I mean a lot. We have improved our GK (imo), we've kept Clyne and Fonte from last season, Bertrand is in for Shaw (I think he will do well), so it is Lovren we lack. Very early to judge, but is he as good as we thought or was it in combination with Fonte...so he may not be the huge loss we thought when he left. That last bit is contentious I know. In front of the defence is the midfield weakened? I think it is further forward that we may be lacking...we could gain points based on a solid defence this season.

 

The proof of the Lovren/Fonte pudding, I mean pairing, should become a little more obvious when Lovren settles down with Skirtel [spelling?]. There were times last season when Saints were near water tight and for a while it was almost a surprise if the opposition scored. They got their understanding from practically the first competitive game, so they were well matched. We'll see if Liverpool tighten up the same. Early reports suggest they can be broken, but it is very early indeed.

My personal opinion of Fonte has always been slightly higher than the majority of this forum, I think. So, from my view, I think it might turn out that Liverpool's defence improves, but not by the amount many people outside think it should, due to Lovren's inclusion, and Saints defence will become a little tighter once another reliable CB plays alongside Fonte. Gardos doesn't have to be brilliant, but if he can cut out the frequent errors that Hooiveld would make, and the occasional ones that Yoshida is guilty of, then I think we'll have a pretty tight defence. It just might even be as good as last season's, and that would be brilliant.

 

A return for Puncheon?

 

YEs it is me being optimistic and maybe a little unrealistic because I think they will still score more goals than us. However..........

We have lost a very clever defensive coach and gone to...........another very clever defensive coach. The only difference between the 2 coaches is how they like the team to defend.

The problem we had last season if we want to progress is that we didn't score enough. So far it looks like we could have the same problem and so far it looks like our defence will be equally as tight.

I am pretty much on the same lines as the Fran and TSS. I didn't think much of Lovren when Wanyama wasn't in front of him. Fonte was much the better defender last season especially the second half of the season. Lovren in some games (Spurs away for one) was absolutely rubbish. I think he is better than Hooiveld and Yohida but I don't think he is some worldy.

I think far too many are far too pessimistic on here. Our goals against this season will be pretty similar as last. We definitely need to start scoring though.

 

New chums.

 

What a pair of twats