Shark Tank

In a diversion from the standard chat around FSGs impending Enron style financial meltdown one thing occurred to me while watching the opening fixtures this week. The level of competition this season is going to be ferocious. Now I dont mean that there are 7 or 8 teams that can win the title, I believe thats probably going to be down to us and City, maybe Chelsea if they strike gold in terms of bedding in their squad.

What I mean is that you look at Chelsea, Utd, Wolves, Leicester, Arsenal and even Everton they all look stronger and better organised. I admit this prediction may not age well, and we havent seen Utd play yet, but all of those teams look capable of taking points from us City and each other. Im not suggesting they will all beat us, thats not gonna happen. But I think we will drop alot more points this year.

I dont think there will be any long unbeaten runs, nobody will get near 100 points, its going to be savage.

 

I think you're right. You also have to consider the season is more intense and both City and Liverpool have emotionally and physically exhausted themselves getting record-breaking points totals over the last few seasons. It only takes a drop of one or two percent in intensity for our system to become vulnerable and that becomes even more likely when the fans are absent.

I'm expecting the league to be much tighter. Whoever has fewer injuries out of us or City will likely win it.

The gap to third place and beyond will be a lot tighter than the last two seasons.

 

I’ve thought similar TBH given how the teams you’ve mentioned have strengthened/evolved. I think there are likely to be far more competitive games between those likely to finish in the top 6-8 places than usual.

I’ll make a prediction, that is likely to bite me on the arse, that the title winners will not get more than 87 points this year.

 

I agree but Id say maybe 90 will be the winning total. Im not suggesting Wolves or Arsenal will be challengers, that seems unlikely. But I could see them beating anybody in the top 7. In some ways I think thats a welcome return to the sort way the league used to be. Teams getting 100 points or close to it suggests a very uneven level of competition that used to be mocked when it happened in Spain or Scotland.

 

You're talking like us and City have been dominating for the last 20 years. The PL is not comparable to those leagues - if anything, it was more like comparable when Utd was winning every year with Arsenal (and later Chelsea) getting an occasional look in.

In the last ten years we've had five different winners and the last few have been the result of two freakishly good teams reaching their peak at about the same time.

 

Im not talking long term dominance, Im referring to the top teams just running over the opposition. But more specifically it feels like places 4th to 8th are much stronger than they have been for a long time

 

I think what also makes this season fascinating is the tactical variety on show. Crammed into one league you have Bielsa's uncompromising approach, different brands of pragmatism espoused by Ancelotti and Mourinho, Hodgson's and Bruce's unapologetically counter-attacking games, Wilder's and Rodgers's innovation, Sean Dyche's "old school" approach (which now seems positively exotic), Nuno Espirito Santo's unique transplant of Portuguese game onto the English soil, Arteta, Lampard and Scott Parker searching for their own unique style as managers (and in the case of the former two given ample to resources to do so), and finally Pep and Klopp at the forefront of tactical innovation and success...

All the best ideas, strategies and approaches are being tested against one another weekly; I feel it's going to even things out in general but also lead to a few shock results and unexpectedly crushing victories and losses. You just cannot afford to find one strategy and coast on it through the whole season, because what works against Leeds one week won't work against Palace the next.

 

The bookies will make a fortune. The only banker is going to be us. Because we’re boss.

 

Yes I think the unpredictability is going to be the death knell for most peoples accumulators

 

Should the buzz around Everton and arsenal turn into results I can see trouble ahead for Mourinho and Rodgers, although I'm not quite sure what Leicester's expectations are.

I agree there's no way in hell we're cruising through this season as comfortably as the last.

 

I don’t think we ever were going to cruise through after we had to cut down the caffeine intake to stop players spontaneously combusting.

 

I’ll be surprised if we don’t see some long unbeaten runs again.

Everyone is buying into the hype.

Most the league is still shite.

 

Mourinho is most definitely in trouble, you can tell because hes started the season slagging off players and lowering expectations. Spurs have lost all sense of momentum they had built during Pochetinos time. They have now reached the point in their cycle where they need to start selling players at peak prices before their value declines.

As for Rodgers, he missed top 4 last season but being realistic what is the goal for Leicester, top 6? Does anybody see a manager capable of getting Leicester into the CL places, I doubt it.

 

For who? Us, City? Not for me. Citys longest winning run in all of last season was 5 games, and that was at the tail end of the season when most teams werent bothered. Since February our best run is 2 wins back to back.

 

City were a shambles last year and we had the league won by Xmas.

 

Biggest problem for Rodgers is that he raised the expectations by doing so well most of the season and then played to reputation by failing in the end. I agree it's tough for Leicester to target more than 6th but the expectations may have been raised.

And yes,  Mourinho appears to be going off the rails already and taking Spurs with him. Fingers crossed.

 

I love a good Mourinho implosion, it doesnt usually happen this quickly but the half life of his mental stability seems to be droppi g with each club