Premier League 2-3 April 2016

United are in the most trouble out of anyone; De Gea will be leaving and I don't see any other quality player in their team other than Mata. They are in an unbelievable mess.

Deluded F*ck wrote:Well that's that.

Most Spursy thing ever to have scored the most, conceded the least, been called the best opposistion by several managers & players, and yet, we are going to get beaten to the title by Leicester.

Not a penalty for me, they deserve it, especially for how they switched up their style once the goals started drying up.

TBF, Spurs' don't have a very high maximum possible point total, certainly not one which would make them title challengers in previous seasons. Leicester do.
It's Leicester 87 vs Spurs' 80. Obviously I don't expect either team to reach that maximum but a 83-85 points champion is good turn out for any non fancied team. Sub 80 is just a shit league.

Luis wrote:

christmasborocooper wrote:

Deluded F*ck wrote:Well that's that.

Most Spursy thing ever to have scored the most, conceded the least, been called the best opposistion by several managers & players, and yet, we are going to get beaten to the title by Leicester.

Not a penalty for me, they deserve it, especially for how they switched up their style once the goals started drying up.

Bodes well for next season though. They're bound to lose a player or two I think, despite all this. Can't see you guys selling up this time, not when you're this close to breaking things up at the top.

Spurs have no chance next season, neither do we or United. City with Pep and unlimited funds, Chelsea with Conte and unlimited funds. Good luck finishing above those 2 for starters. If Arsenal get rid of Wenger they are another world class forward away from being a proper force as well.

Nah, bollocks that.

Spurs are a good side with a very good coach. If he can improve the squad in the summer they can challenge again. There's nothing to say Chelsea won't lose players as well.

All the clubs have money, City with Pep will be interesting absolutely but this is new ground for him. He took over Barca as Messi emerged and they had several of the best in the world in his side. Bayern were the best team in Europe when he joined. City aren't shit but they need a good bit of work.

United could improve dramatically with a new manager and a few new players too.

It could be extremely competitive next season.

Leicester have shown that anything can happen. No point trying to make concrete predictions on the next season. They've also shown the team that plays with the most balance is likely to do well.

Deluded F*ck wrote:Well that's that.

Most Spursy thing ever to have scored the most, conceded the least, been called the best opposistion by several managers & players, and yet, we are going to get beaten to the title by Leicester.

Not a penalty for me, they deserve it, especially for how they switched up their style once the goals started drying up.

Huth's looked a sure fire penalty even if Simpson's wasn't.

Nobody wins the title without some luck though. Fair play to them. They have mastered the art of grinding out wins in a way that is absolutely commendable.

It must be said that they have also brilliantly capitalized on a perfect storm of happenstance: firstly the wave of goodwill across the board from the media down to clubs and opposition fans since they topped the league. This feeds into the fact that they also don't play any derbies currently (no Forest or Derby), and also have no historic rivalries with any of the other clubs in the way that you would consider motivations for other teams to amp up to another level when they play them. Nobody wants to stick it to Leicester or their fans. Obviously they also had no Europe, a short run in both domestic cups and virtually no injuries. That only provided a pathway though, which they have seized ruthlessly and made the absolute best of it with what seems a pretty balanced but unspectacular squad beyond Vardez. Its fantastic and I would be lying if I personally wasn't hugely envious of the resolve they've shown when all and sundry still expected them to fall away eventually.

Given how mental this season has been nobody can predict next year, but it may be worth putting some money on them becoming the first ever champions to get relegated. Managing the CL alongside what will certainly be more pressure, far less goodwill and teams figuring out ways to adapt to their - let's be honest - fairly simple style will be a massive test. More importantly however is that even if they keep the same players, will the spirit, motivation and intensity be as high? Not a young team, you'd forgive the likes of Wes Morgan for thinking a premier league winners medal is his nadir and ease himself towards retirement. Same could be said of Ranieri. Don't expect this Leicester squad to feel as hungry to keep going at it in the manner of the Manchester United teams of the past under Ferguson based on (occassionally) local youth.

It's a simple style, but no one has figured it out through the entire season..

I don't see what will be different about that next season.

I think the fact the other clubs will come back stronger will be the issue, they'll have stiffer competition.

It will certainly be hard for them to repeat this season but there's little chance they'll completely collapse. They got pretty wealthy owners + TV money + offer of Champions league football, which means they should be able to attract a good level of new players and have decent chance of hanging onto their best players from this season.

The two trickiest thing for them will be raised expectations (i.e. fans ain't going to easily adjust back to midtable/survival expectations should their level drop significantly from this season) and squad management, as they will have to increase size of squad and quality of reserves in order to cope with CL and then it's a matter of getting rotation right.

And yes, we certainly can't expect all of Chelsea, City, Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton to be as inconsistent as they've been this year. Some will be, but not all.

Put your tin hats on guys

http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-doping-of-leicester-city-players.html

http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-success-of-leicester-city-is.html

http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/webb-of-lies.html

Kayoute's red card rescinded, available to play against Arsenal. I saw a website, that kept track of poor refereeing decisions, we've had 4 in favor of us, but 13 against, worst ratio in the league.

Di Caniooooo! wrote:Kayoute's red card rescinded, available to play against Arsenal. I saw a website, that kept track of poor refereeing decisions, we've had 4 in favor of us, but 13 against, worst ratio in the league.

That doesn't sound like many poor refereeing decisions to me.