2023/24 - The Race For..................

[Nayim60yards]

Have a look at the fixtures before you laugh.

Ok let's look:

Luton A
Fulham H
City A
Everton H
Sheff U H
Brentford A
Chelsea A
Liverpool H
Bournemouth A
Newcastle H
Burnley H
Palace A
Arsenal H
Brighton A

I have highlighted the games I could easily see them dropping points in. They likely won't drop points in all of those but none of them are banker wins either. If you see them pipping us by one point from six (effectively seven) behind you must either think they are much better than they are or have us pegged to finish the season as shit as last term.

 

[easley91]

We won't finish lower than 5th. Villa have Europe with injuries piling up and Emery loves the European comps. United are hit and miss. They can look great or scrape wins but also drop points with ease.

Arsenal have champions league to contend with so I expect that to take its toll. Liverpool and City will cope fine because they're used to it.

 

[Trix]

By my calculations Man U beat us by 1 point, so we will need a draw at Villa and 5th place CL IMO.

I guarantee your predictions will be wrong.

 

[Steffen]

By my calculations Man U beat us by 1 point, so we will need a draw at Villa and 5th place CL IMO.

How can you calculate anything involving Manchester United? You never know if they turn up or not.

 

[vegassd]

By my calculations Man U beat us by 1 point, so we will need a draw at Villa and 5th place CL IMO.

Totally fine to have an opinion, and of course anything can happen. It would be interesting to hear where you think the points swing is going to come from.

We play the same teams apart from us having Wolves, Villa, West Ham, Forest when they have Everton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Brighton. The only major offset there would be Villa against Brentford, so I think a 7 point swing coming in those games is unlikely myself.

 

[newbie]

I was wondering how the situation looked this time last season given all this talk of resurgent Man United etc. Comparing the tables from then and now makes interesting (grim?) reading.

Current Table: Matchweek 24 2023/24
View attachment 137892

Matchweek 24 2022/23
View attachment 137891
So we were in fourth spot, the same position as now but we are five points better off this season, we have scored seven more and also conceded one more so our goal difference is six better this year.
We were 12 points (call it 13 with GD) away from the summit, this season we are 7 points (call it 8 with GD) away.
2022/23 we were 7 points behind the third placed team and now we are 5 (call it 6 with GD) from third place.
Last season we went on to pick up only 18 more points from 14 matches!

It gets really interesting when you look at some of the other teams and how much they changed their situations and it applies caution to teams who think they have nailed their objectives already with 14 games to play. Arsenal have two fewer points and have played a game more. They were first then and third now. Man City have the same number of points but have played one fewer game than last season. Liverpool have 19 more points than they had at this stage last season. They were eighth and seven points behind us and yet they grabbed fifth spot. Brighton were seven points behind us (with two games in hand) and lost to us twice but still finished above us in sixth now they are twelve points behind us. Villa had a game in hand on us but were 14 points behind us (call it 15 with GD) and finished a place above us in seventh!!! They are now just a point behind us. West Ham were in the bottom three! I didn't remember that and to think their fans are moaning now! Leicester were four points clear of relegation and we know what happened to them. Chelsea were 10th for God's sake and now they are....10th!!!

This time last season Southampton and Leeds had 18 and 19 respectively and they went down. The bottom two clubs today are Burnley and Sheffield United who both have 13 points, You cannot make a case for either to survive based on those numbers.

So, in essence we fucking collapsed last season from a position where we had top four in our hands to slipping past Europa League and Europa Conference League and into the non-European spot of eighth, allowing average teams like Brighton and Villa to wander past our bloated corpse. The more I think about it the more embarrassing it is. I don't think I quite took it in last season because the season was so shit in general. Was it looking shit enough for us not to qualify for Europe at all though? No chance.

I cannot see any chance of a collapse of that magnitude this season, we have actually had the same manager from the start of the season and he looks like he will make it to the end. That'll help straight away. None of Mourinho, Nuno or Conte started and ended a season in charge! We have a structure and a philosophy which has seen us through some sticky times and now we look ready to leap forward with a squad getting stronger by the day.

Based on what we see from last season it is not impossible that we could win the league. If that sounds ridiculous it's because it kind of is, but look for yourselves how much changed in fourteen games last season. Aston Villa picked up 33 points FFS! If we match that we would finish on 80 points. Who is to say that wouldn't be enough?
Nobody knows what the hand of fate is going to deal out in the next fourteen games. Let's start putting a winning run together and see where it takes us.

Last season it felt like we where playing terribly are we all kept thinking it suddenly will click but we didn’t. We actually got worse this time round it feels as optimism and it feels that we’re playing genuinely well and we’ve actually put a squad up

 

[wpmcg]

I think ManU will be much more consistent now, no Europe. I actually have them losing only once to Citeh.
7 wins and 6 draws. So 68 points. You can guarantee me that won't happen Trix?
Then for us it's 5 5 4 so 67 points. We have had some very lucky wins lately and I don't fancy us in 4 of those games.
OK so this is probably on the pessimistic side but it's still why I'm hoping for that 5th place to be CL.
Villa, I agree we'll stay above.

 

[Styopa]

I still think lots of people are wildly overestimating Man U right now whilst also underestimating us. What is this based on? They’ve taken two more points than us during the last six matches, and that’s includes us going to Old Trafford. Why do some people suddenly think on that basis United are favourites to achieve a 7 point swing and finish above us?

 

[HildoSpur]

I think ManU will be much more consistent now, no Europe. I actually have them losing only once to Citeh.
7 wins and 6 draws. So 68 points. You can guarantee me that won't happen Trix?
Then for us it's 5 5 4 so 67 points. We have had some very lucky wins lately and I don't fancy us in 4 of those games.
OK so this is probably on the pessimistic side but it's still why I'm hoping for that 5th place to be CL.
Villa, I agree we'll stay above.

Utd are not very good at all though, we are much better and really shouldn't be even worried about them right now. Why are people suddenly rating Utd? Their midfield is shockingly bad.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

I think ManU will be much more consistent now, no Europe. I actually have them losing only once to Citeh.
7 wins and 6 draws. So 68 points. You can guarantee me that won't happen Trix?
Then for us it's 5 5 4 so 67 points. We have had some very lucky wins lately and I don't fancy us in 4 of those games.
OK so this is probably on the pessimistic side but it's still why I'm hoping for that 5th place to be CL.
Villa, I agree we'll stay above.

Thinking anyone can correctly predict (or worse still, calculate) the outcome of well over 20 games of football was, is and always will be a mug’s game.

Trix guarantees your predictions will be wrong. And that’s the only banker here.

 

[dirtyh]

anything can happen for sure but united are shit and inconsistent, they've been shit and inconsistent all season. even without my spurs tinted glasses on, they've shown me nothing to suggest they can go on a sustained 2 pts per game run over 10+ games.

 

[djhotspur]

Villa players are falling daily right now which is worrying for them.
In the past week

Kamara (ACL)
Diego Carlos (Hamstring)

have both been ruled out injured, adding to Konsa and Mings already injured.

Pau Torres and Digne have just came back for them aswell.
They might struggle for a few weeks, we need to take advantage.

They snatched a lucky victory against us when they were basically full strength and we had loads out

I think ManU will be much more consistent now, no Europe. I actually have them losing only once to Citeh.
7 wins and 6 draws. So 68 points. You can guarantee me that won't happen Trix?
Then for us it's 5 5 4 so 67 points. We have had some very lucky wins lately and I don't fancy us in 4 of those games.
OK so this is probably on the pessimistic side but it's still why I'm hoping for that 5th place to be CL.
Villa, I agree we'll stay above.

What… based upon what? They lost martinez again, they look a lot better but I have watched their last couple of games and they still look don’t look anything special. There is zero chance they only lose 1 game

 

[wpmcg]

I still think lots of people are wildly overestimating Man U right now whilst also underestimating us. What is this based on? They’ve taken two more points than us during the last six matches, and that’s includes us going to Old Trafford. Why do some people suddenly think on that basis United are favourites to achieve a 7 point swing and finish above us?

They've taken 2 more points than us over the last 3 matches and they seem to have pulled together more.

 

[wpmcg]

They snatched a lucky victory against us when they were basically full strength and we had loads out

What… based upon what? They lost martinez again, they look a lot better but I have watched their last couple of games and they still look don’t look anything special. There is zero chance they only lose 1 game

Great, I hope you're right.

 

[vegassd]

I think ManU will be much more consistent now, no Europe. I actually have them losing only once to Citeh.
7 wins and 6 draws. So 68 points. You can guarantee me that won't happen Trix?
Then for us it's 5 5 4 so 67 points. We have had some very lucky wins lately and I don't fancy us in 4 of those games.
OK so this is probably on the pessimistic side but it's still why I'm hoping for that 5th place to be CL.
Villa, I agree we'll stay above.

I think that's a real stretch in your thinking. Draws are not that common (I believe around 15% of the season so far) so I would suggest that those draws you are predicting are less "calculations" and more just games where you can't predict the result. And it's totally fine to not be able to predict a result.

I'm going to assume that you have United drawing against Brentford, Chelsea, Liverpool, Newcastle, Arsenal and Brighton? Do you really think all of those games will be draws? It wouldn't surprise me if United got more than 6 points from those to be honest, but I find it very hard to imagine all 6 being drawn.

After 24 match weeks, our two teams combined have produced 6 drawn games. You are predicting a further 11 draws in the next 14 match weeks. Stranger things have happened, but I think you're on a fool's errand with those predictions.

Incidentally, which matches do you have marked as draws for us? Would I be right guessing Wolves, Fulham, West Ham, Newcastle, Chelsea?

 

[Trix]

I think ManU will be much more consistent now, no Europe. I actually have them losing only once to Citeh.
7 wins and 6 draws. So 68 points. You can guarantee me that won't happen Trix?
Then for us it's 5 5 4 so 67 points. We have had some very lucky wins lately and I don't fancy us in 4 of those games.
OK so this is probably on the pessimistic side but it's still why I'm hoping for that 5th place to be CL.
Villa, I agree we'll stay above.

Yeah, tell me which games both ourselves and United win, lose and draw and I'll guarantee you are wrong. Predicting 28 matches in a very unpredictable league is nigh on impossible. To be predicting 28 matches stretching 3 months without knowing the state of the squads and form plus injuries suspensions, var decisions, etc would be even more difficult still.

 

[wpmcg]

Yeah, tell me which games both ourselves and United win, lose and draw and I'll guarantee you are wrong.

Of course I'll be wrong in some predictions. I suppose my point is I still think ManU can catch us.

 

[GioW]

Of course I'll be wrong in some predictions. I suppose my point is I still think ManU can catch us.

Well I'm a proper glass half empty type when it comes to Spurs but I've got us finishing above them.

Probably best to just wait and see how it pans out

 

[Trix]

Of course I'll be wrong in some predictions. I suppose my point is I still think ManU can catch us.

Of course they can.

You should have just said that rather than you've worked out how many points we will both take because that's the part everyone has straight out dismissed as rubbish.

 

[ajspurs]

United only losing one game from now until the end of the season? That is quite a remarkable take.