Top 4 race 2016/17

tangent said:
is treble winning still saying Chelsea will implode?
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The title race is now between Chelsea and Spurs, with Chelsea having the edge. I didn't want us to give up on the title in January, but as it is now March, we should focus on winning the EL and securing a top three finish.

I will grudgingly admit that I've been impressed by the fact that Chelsea have not yet imploded. Especially given that they imploded last season. Let's see if they can keep it up in Conte's second season with European football and more fixtures.
 
Liverpool will finish top 4 unfortunately. Even if they keep up their patchy form against the lesser teams the other big teams will drop enough points (especially with so many teams playing each other) for them to just about squeeze in.
 
Akash said:
Liverpool will finish top 4 unfortunately. Even if they keep up their patchy form against the lesser teams the other big teams will drop enough points (especially with so many teams playing each other) for them to just about squeeze in.
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It is logical to think Liverpool will finish fourth yet if you win your next few games and Liverpool don't win all theirs, it's 'squeaky bum time' as a well known person used to say. In that scenario how will Liverpool react? Additionally Liverpool's squad is not that big and injuries can occur at any time.
 
The Outsider said:
It is logical to think Liverpool will finish fourth yet if you win your next few games and Liverpool don't win all theirs, it's 'squeaky bum time' as a well known person used to say. In that scenario how will Liverpool react? Additionally Liverpool's squad is not that big and injuries can occur at any time.
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Those words do not belong together.

Liverpool's next two games are at home to Everton and Bournemouth, if they win both they are massive favourites (less than a 45% chance of a catastrophe) because the wave of confidence plus weekly rests should see them through. If they lose one of those games anxiety will start creeping in and who knows what could happen.
 
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Yeah, it's Chelsea's title. Has been for a while and I'm surprised anyone is still thinking otherwise. Chelsea only need to go W4 | D3 | L3 in their last 10 fixtures in order to win the title pretty comfortably IMO. They won't even lose three games, though.
 
Havak said:
Yeah, it's Chelsea's title. Has been for a while and I'm surprised anyone is still thinking otherwise. Chelsea only need to go W4 | D3 | L3 in their last 10 fixtures in order to win the title pretty comfortably IMO. They won't even lose three games, though.
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It is just one person to be fair who should not be taken seriously on anything Chelsea related.
 
vadimivich said:
I'm a Spurs fan and even I find this laughable. There's no title race, Chelsea has won it ... it's just a formality of playing out the last few matches now.
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Yes of course Chelsea are huge favourites but I am someone who prefers not to declare something to be over until it is mathematically over. Everybody said that the US election was over and the only question was how large Hillary Clinton's margin would be - and whether the Dems would take the senate as well. Look what happened!

That said, I believe that the only two clubs who are still in the race for the title are Chelsea and Spurs. With Chelsea having a very substantial edge.

But I also believe that the true test of Chelsea's credentials will come next season when they will experience fixture congestion much like we are going through right now. Can they cope?
 
Treble_Winning said:
Yes of course Chelsea are huge favourites but I am someone who prefers not to declare something to be over until it is mathematically over. Everybody said that the US election was over and the only question was how large Hillary Clinton's margin would be - and whether the Dems would take the senate as well. Look what happened!

That said, I believe that the only two clubs who are still in the race for the title are Chelsea and Spurs. With Chelsea having a very substantial edge.

But I also believe that the true test of Chelsea's credentials will come next season when they will experience fixture congestion much like we are going through right now. Can they cope?
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Im wondering how you will cope if they do.I think your ego will finally IMPLODE.
 
At the end of the day it doesn't matter what Liverpool if we keep winning.
 
Treble_Winning said:
The title race is now between Chelsea and Spurs, with Chelsea having the edge. I didn't want us to give up on the title in January, but as it is now March, we should focus on winning the EL and securing a top three finish.

I will grudgingly admit that I've been impressed by the fact that Chelsea have not yet imploded. Especially given that they imploded last season. Let's see if they can keep it up in Conte's second season with European football and more fixtures.
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Thought you were leaving the forum for good? Typical attention seeker.
 
markorm said:
If we win EL and are in Top 4, what happens to our PL positioned CL placed, does it drop down one?
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No. It would be just the top 4 representing England.

If we finish 5th, win the Europa, and Leicester win the UCL, then Leicester, us, and the top 3 will qualify to the CL. The team in 4th will miss out.
 
AlecHDR said:
No. It would be just the top 4 representing England.

If we finish 5th, win the Europa, and Leicester win the UCL, then Leicester, us, and the top 3 will qualify to the CL. The team in 4th will miss out.
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Leicester City winning the CL hahahahaha :nervous:
 
ruskyline said:
Just can't see us getting top 4 this season...
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Why? We are already above Liverpool if we win our games in hand. And we are also above Arsenal with the same number of games played. City have insanely tough fixtures coming up. I just don't understand this pessimism. We are doing well! We should be aiming for top 3!
 
Treble_Winning said:
Why? We are already above Liverpool if we win our games in hand. And we are also above Arsenal with the same number of games played. City have insanely tough fixtures coming up. I just don't understand this pessimism. We are doing well! We should be aiming for top 3!
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It's not unreasonable pessimism. You have the toughest fixture list among the top 6. You have Everton (H), Chelsea (H), Spurs (A), Burnley (A), Man City (A), Arsenal (A), Spurs (A) within the next 10 weeks (which is basically till the end of the season). You're definitely not steamrolling your way past all those teams. You will drop a lot of points. Plus there's also your Europa Thursday night fixtures. You play 9 matches in April alone. It's a very valid concern. If I were Jose, I'd make Europa the priority.
 
Blue Barrett said:
It's not unreasonable pessimism. You have the toughest fixture list among the top 6. You have Everton (H), Chelsea (H), Spurs (A), Burnley (A), Man City (A), Arsenal (A), Spurs (A) within the next 10 weeks (which is basically till the end of the season). You're definitely not steamrolling your way past all those teams. You will drop a lot of points. Plus there's also your Europa Thursday night fixtures. You play 9 matches in April alone. It's a very valid concern. If I were Jose, I'd make Europa the priority.
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Six pointers work both ways. If we manage to beat City and Spurs we will be in a position to challenge for 2nd place never mind 4th.

I really think that there is too much pessimism on here, to say that Manchester United, a team that were champions just 3 seasons ago, and with some of the world's best players and worlds best manager, should be completely written off for TOP FOUR (not even trophies) and that it is somehow "out of our reach" is really very pessimistic and disappointing thinking.
 
Treble_Winning said:
Six pointers work both ways. If we manage to beat City and Spurs we will be in a position to challenge for 2nd place never mind 4th.

I really think that there is too much pessimism on here, to say that Manchester United, a team that were champions just 3 seasons ago, and with some of the world's best players and worlds best manager, should be completely written off for TOP FOUR (not even trophies) and that it is somehow "out of our reach" is really very pessimistic and disappointing thinking.
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I've never written you lads off for top 4, I've thought all season that Jose would pull it off. That said however, 'champions 3 seasons ago' doesn't exactly mean a lot these days.
 
I admire peoples optimism, but it's just not very logical to think we'll put the run of wins together needed to get top 4 now. We've got too many tough games, and even the not so tough ones, I can't see us not having a couple more bad days at the office, like we have time and time again when at home to teams we should have easily put away.
 
Treble_Winning said:
Six pointers work both ways. If we manage to beat City and Spurs we will be in a position to challenge for 2nd place never mind 4th.

I really think that there is too much pessimism on here, to say that Manchester United, a team that were champions just 3 seasons ago, and with some of the world's best players and worlds best manager, should be completely written off for TOP FOUR (not even trophies) and that it is somehow "out of our reach" is really very pessimistic and disappointing thinking.
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Not sure many people are writing you off, but I believe you are an outsider for top 4 places at the moment, and what you did with Fergie three years ago (nearly four) isn't gonna change my mind. I agree, it is absolutely not out of reach, far from it, and it's still all to play for, but the way I see it is that there are at least 4 teams in better positions than you at the moment.

Always good with some optimism though!
 
hellohello said:
Not sure many people are writing you off, but I believe you are an outsider for top 4 places at the moment, and what you did with Fergie three years ago (nearly four) isn't gonna change my mind. I agree, it is absolutely not out of reach, far from it, and it's still all to play for, but the way I see it is that there are at least 4 teams in better positions than you at the moment.

Always good with some optimism though!
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Yes that's fair. Of the current top 5 sides, we are surely the least-likely to finish in the top 4. It's not over, but our run-in is just brutal, we're going to drop a lot of points and we'll need Liverpool to regress back to their Jan/Feb form if we're to make it over the line.
 
Would be interesting what would happen if Wenger somehow galvanizes his team and finish in the top 4. Wonder what the majority of fans would say.
 
hellohello said:
Would be interesting what would happen if Wenger somehow galvanizes his team and finish in the top 4. Wonder what the majority of fans would say.
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Wouldn't be surprising to me in the least bit. There have been seasons where I've doubted Wenger's ability to do that and he's proven me wrong. He's ridiculously good at galvanizing his teams to put such runs together towards the end of a season. The kind of runs that give Arsenal fans false hope for the next season.

That said, this is going to be his most difficult season doing that. He's fighting against top teams now. We'll see.
 
You can get 6/4 and 3/1 on Utd and Arsenal respectively, both are reasonably good value.

On the other hand Spurs at 1/7 is a joke.
 
I don't know what people keep mentioning our games in hand. They're against Southampton away and City away. I don't expect more than a point from those two games.
 
Now that this farce is over we can finally concentrate on winning a trophy that secures us CL next year
 
So to level with Liverpool, United would need to win both games in hand. Also if Arsenal win, they go above United because of GD. A win today against WBA was so crucial but meh.
 
The bad news is we have lost 2 points in the race for top 4 but the good news is we have gained one point in the race for the title ;)
 
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