Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 1897

I was curious about the title race fixtures:

Arsenal:

Away to West Ham
Home to Southampton
Away to City
Home to Chelsea
Away to Newcastle
Home to Brighton
Away to Forest
Home to Wolves

City:

Home to Leicester
Home to Arsenal
Away to Fulham
Home to West Ham
Home to Leeds
Away to Everton
Home to Chelsea
Away to Brentford

+ Away to Brighton still be to scheduled


Arsenal really do have no room for error. Yikes.

 

Not unfathomable that City go on a 14-match run to secure the 3-peat.

EDIT: Also insane because they hadn't won more than 3 straight league matches up until this current streak.

 

Tbh I still have no idea. I've only watched a handful of games more or less at random

 

Brighton is a fun, up-and-coming team who have built from the lower leagues into their best finish ever in club history. Just have to be prepared to lose a favorite player every year or two to a different team in the same league. Otherwise, Arsenal are fun as hell to watch play.

 

Arsenal are almost certainly going to have to take some points out of City themselves. On paper, City win all their games quite comfortably I think (aside of the Arsenal game). Only crumb of comfort is that City have been a bit prone to the odd weird result.

Newcastle away and then Brighton at home for Arsenal, is not pleasant.

 

Thing is, on paper City win every game in existence.

But it doesn’t work that way, and if they get past Bayern in the CL, they’ll likely have a final seven days involving Chelsea (H), Brighton (A), and Brentford (A).

Their fixtures don’t look crazy difficult individually, but they have a lot of fixtures to fulfil. So you never know.

To be honest, I have thought since the international break that it’s most likely City win the league again, as our fixtures this month are pretty difficult. It feels a bit mad that we’re six points ahead and everyone just goes “Oh well City have won it then.” But I guess that’s more about City just being an absolute juggernaut.

 

City still have a fixture congestion coming up too while Arsenal are solely focused on the league.

 

As irritating as I find Chris Sutton, I have to say he's right on this one. The guy who wasn't good enough for Norwich? If Leicester stay up it will be a miracle.

 

City have a game in hand as well, so you're at best 6 points clear. With their current form, that's more likely 3...

When you consider mentality as well, it swings more towards City. They're used to this run in and have gone toe to toe with a remarkable Liverpool side multiple times. This is not familiar ground for Arsenal.

I don't think it's cut and dried that City take the title and that's not what I was saying in my post. It's still in Arsenal's hands, I just think they have a tougher run. I hope they manage it. It's a better story and it would suck to see it slip away after leading for so long.

 

Yeah I agree with all of that, and I think it’s more likely they beat us and end up winning the league by two points. But like you say, it’s not as cut and dried as people think, and to act like all their games are formalities would be to underestimate every team in the league.

City have clicked by finding a really solid starting 11, plus one or two rotations, to stick with. They simply can’t do that with their schedule. I hope they lose 1-0 tonight, and have to go full strength. I also hope they get to the CL final honestly, as that is our only hope I think.

Also, Saliba is a HUGE lose. We win the Anfield game with him I think.

 

This sounds… bad?

 

we did that with Rashford and he lost a season to poor form

 

But it is in City's hands since 27 points will win the title......

 

If Arsenal win out, they win with 97 points. If City wins out (and Arsenal's only loss is to City and otherwise win out), they probably beat Arsenal on goal differential with points then being tied at 94 each. Any ties throw it all into haywire, though a tie between the squads suits Arsenal much better than City.

Basically, Arsenal control everything, but I'd argue City is in the better form/not as many injured pieces... but also have fixture congestion to fight with a squad not as deep as previous years.

 

I feel both teams will drop unexpected points. As good as Arsenal have been this season they don’t strike me as the machines City and Liverpool were not dropping anything in the run in.

 

Translation: "I don't give a damn. I'm 38 and my career is over anyway"

Abil Rami talking about the possibility of Troyes being relegated lol

 

Ian is a legend

 

How the feck did Owen Hargreaves ever get a job as a pundit?

 

I think Haaland gets two tonight

 

Arsenal and Chelsea just got rescheduled.

 

@orangehorizon has been fumbled, lads.

 

Sometimes teams have to protect players from themselves.

 

Does anybody know why Cancelo is allowed to play in this game? I'm guessing UEFA has no ruling against playing against your parent club?

 

This rule only exists in the PL

 

Cheers!