Rival watch

Agree with you District. That's the saving grace for us with Wigan gone,it's one less team to take 3 home points off us as they did a couple of times. They provided a 9-1 thrashing so their tenure in the PL was quite interesting.

All fair points Roo,nothing to add. It's not over yet though is it?

 

However much we rattle on about unfair penalties, diving, cheating, whatever. The fact is we would not be having this conversation if the club had invested in the striker we so desperately needed.
If that had happened we would be out of The Goons' reach by now.

A creative midfielder would have been a bonus too.

 

The penalty situation is an absolute disgrace, but we shouldn't use that as an excuse as it makes us seem bitter.

The striker situation has cost us, and it was our own doing. It probably cost us a better shot at the EL too. We either need to be betting big on the striker front or we need to be spreading our net far and wide trying to pick up a Benteke-type on the cheap. We did NEITHER.

I've said it before but on reflection over the whole season i still think Arsenal have edged us on performances, so have Chelsea.

 

We are Tottenham Hotspur,the first team last century to do the double and win a European trophy. Greaves,Chivers Klinnsmann amongst the greats of our team and I could name many others. A team which could once live with the best and not go many years without a win ie Utd,Arsenal and Chelsea. But here we are this season cock-a-hoop about beating Man U for the first time in goodness knows how long. We should be above being happy about beating a certain team because we should be matching them as before. Being at the top should be the norm for us.

I thank AVB for presiding over our first win against Man U but we MUST do better and take success in our stride and not feel elated and privileged about making top 4 which is by no means a trophy.

If we do make it by creeping in by the skin of our teeth new players have to be recruited.

 

Technically Theo is more right sided YV, and bale starts "centrally". But regardless, that's why I added Bale to make the point. we're still much worse off.

You don't have to tell us mate! It's been a very tight season and I'm proud of the Manager and the lads. (most of them). No one can call us bottlers/bucklers this season if we don't make it. It'll be by the tightest of margins.

Again, others got more points!

It's certainly not mate, I'm just prepared for the worst and have been since it was out of our hands and I haven't got anything against the Europa. Infact, I've got used to the idea of it. There's some good teams in it and more of them who drop out of the CL. It's obviously not the CL, but it's still a European cup.
Who knows, maybe we'll make it into the holy grail that is the CL....

Yes, Yes and YES!

 

well said Spurmey.

 

The fact is whether we finish 4th or 5th there is little clear water between us and Chelsea, Arsenal or Everton. You could say that Chelsea have the strongest squad of the 4 but have underperformed because of management changes. Arsenal have the most experienced manager, the best attack but lack a midfield enforcer. Everton with possibly the weakest squad but the best utilised one and possibly the most commited. Spurs have lots of flair but also weak areas in the squad and have only played to their full potential in patches.

Sadly the order as it stands at the moment coincides with the respective financial clout of the clubs involved.

 

How long has Bale started centrally for? Not even half a season.

We're also much better at scoring goals away from home, you can twist stats how you want to suit you but ultimately we've scored 6 less goals this season and had zero penalties to their 5(4 scored), I wouldn't say there's a huge difference. You might think there's some great gap to be made up in midfield but if you're counting Giroud as their only striker then our 2 have scored more, let alone if you include Bale as a striker too(and not count Walcott or Podolski).

 

One thing that stands out for me is that, this season, we haven't fielded our first xi for a single game.

Dembele was signed before the Norwich game
Lloris and Dempsey arrived on Deadline Day (and Lloris didn't start for a long time)
Kaboul injured after the first game of the season
Adebayor didn't play for an age due to injury and being on ACoN duty

That's almost as bizarre as going 18 months without being awarded a penalty in the Premier League.

 

A more disturbing issue is that you include Adebayor and Dempsey as part of your theorised strongest XI.

Surely...

------------------------------------Lloris-----------------------------------------

Walker---------------Kaboul-----------------------Vertonghen-----------------BAE

Lennon--------------Dembele----------------------Sandro---------------------Sigs

-------------------------------------Bale-----------------------------------------

-------------------------------------Defoe---------------------------------------

With Bale now playing up front, your left hand side is now pretty cr@p. Sort that out, get a great striker and you'd be in the big time.

 

If both on top form i would have Ade ahead of Defoe. The problem is that Ade's poor form is utter dog poo whereas Defoe's poor form is at least bearable.

 

I don't get this YV, I think there's been some confusion.

I was talking about goals coming from "midfielders", so that meant anyone but the main strikers. That's why I left out Giroud, Defoe and Ade in the first instance.

Therefore, I was talking about the likes of Dempsey, Sig, Holtby, etc etc compared with Arsenal's players like Walcott, Podolski, Cazorla etc, who play in similar positions to those 3. The difference in goals was huge.

But I added bale to the "edit" as he'd scored a fair amount before moving as a striker and then used his "striker" goals to show that even with those ones added, we're still in a massive defecit.

Yes i know, Girouds, Ade's and Defoes change things, but it was to show that we don't have the goals from the "midfielders" like Arsenal have. Putting Bale's extra goals in was purely to show that his goals as a number 10 have been vital.



Don't really know how I've twisted anything?! Walcott can't be classed as a striker, he predominantly plays in the same position as Lennon, but just scores more goals.

 

they don't appear to work well together either.

 

Don't take the risk,change both of them.

 

With all due respect Roo.

Manchester United 09/10 - 85 points - 2nd
Manchester United 10/11 - 80 points - 1st

Did United get worse when they won the league?

The league will change year by year, some years it will take a low amount of points to achieve your objective due to the league being more competitive. Other years (like this one) it will take a higher amount of points to achieve your objective due to the league being less competitive and poorer quality.

 

They could well have got worse yes. Chelsea got more worse though

 

True sadly

 

They don't really play that similarly though, that's shown by the goal distribution, if nothing else. Infact you acknowledge this by saying Bale is a striker for us, meaning we play one more striker and one less midfielder compared to what the others do. Realistically Bale plays deeper and moves around all over the pitch, he's no more a striker than Walcott or Podolski are for them, or VDV was in the past for us.

Anyway, we score a similar amounts across the team and we've also outscored the same amount of opponents this season, which is the most important thing. I get that it's frustrating such small margins can be the difference in CL football and EL football for the second season in a row but I think you're grasping in the wrong place with this. We can't need better strikers, plus more goals in midfield and for our defence to improve(which has conceded more goals than Arsenal's) and still be in with a shout of finishing above them.

 

I'd say our first xi was: Lloris; Walker, Kaboul, Vertonghen, BAE; Sandro, Dembele; Lennon, Bale, Dempsey; Adebayor

At the moment Sigurdsson and Holtby are either the first subs to come on, or the first players to come off. Having Dempsey as an option on the bench would be preferable, but we don;t have the persoonel to make that happen as yet so he starts - or, at the very least, we notice he's on the pitch when he scores.

We do have an issue with players being anonymous this season - Defoe was for a while after his early season scoring streak, Dempsey doesn't add anything to the team but goals (tolerable for a striker, less so for a midfielder), Adebayor often went missing until very recently, whilst Naughton was more noticible when making another calamitous error than anything else (Walker and Benny were also guilty of this, albeit less frequently)

Parker can also be accused of anonymity, but he has the excuse of being out for half the season - although that excuse is starting to wear a little thin...

 

No, DL, they didn't.

All I was saying is that if you get more points than the previous season, you've done better. You have to have won or drawn more games than the previous season, in order to get more points.

United might only have needed 80 points to finish first, but that's down to the result of others. Even though 85 points was only enough for second, they've still been better in terms of results, despite finishing second.