Topic: It's just a battle for the order of the first 4 spots now between 5 teams...

[GregCharrua]

Looking at the overall picture, I honestly believe that Chelsea are the favourites for the title.  They have by far the easier run of games remaining and while they haven't been superb in a lot of games they have won when it matters.  Man City, on paper, should win the title, but I am sure they will drop points in some of those tough away matches.

Arsenal will drop away when Europe restarts and they face a nightmare 4 game stretch that involves visits to Chelsea, Spurs and Everton and a home tie against City.

Our final 16 games are easier than any of our rivals, but with things being so close there is little room for slip-ups at home.  The away games should be easier but that doesn't mean we won't have off days.

Man Utd are in a similar position to us in Kenny's full season back.  Outside the top 4 but only a few points back.  The difficulty is that they have to overtake 3 teams and out perform all 3 of them between now and the end of the season to finish 4th.  It can certainly be done, but it is very unlikely.

Spurs have a season defining period right now with Man City (H), Hull (A), Everton (H) and Newcastle (A) in their next 4.  That's a tough run and how they do in those home games will tell us a lot about whether their form to date is simply 'new manager syndrome' or whether they will last the pace.

Everton for me are the big threat to us and they have amazed me at how well they have played both home and away.  I fully expect them to win tonight and move 4th meaning we need to be winning in the home tie against them in a week.  Key to their season is the period up to the beginning of March.  Their toughest away matches all come in the next few weeks with (after WBA tonight) trips to Anfield, WHL, Stamford Bridge and St James Park making up their next 4 away games.  After that they have a run of very easy games and their only tough matches are at home (Arsenal, Man U and Man City).  I'll put my neck out here, but if Everton are above us on 9th March then I think they'll stay above us.

Pressure is on...

This is a much clearer picture of what I was trying to paint in my previous post. Agree 100% and we'll see, but I feel confident about reaching for 3rd or 4th.  I do believe City and Chelsea are going to start adding space between the rest, and Arsenal will slowly drop into the "race for fourth" pack, but be near the top of it until the end of the season. Really hard to see them not getting into top 4.

[The 5th Benitle]

At the moment there is not a single LFC player that would get into their back 4.

Yes, but that's because Koscielny and Mertesacker have developed a partnership together.

Is Koscielny actually a better centreback than Agger or Sakho? No I don't think so.


So you're right IMO but that doesn't mean they have the better players, more that they have a settled partnership working well.

[steveeastend]

Mertsenacker has his best season for ages, it won't last long though, he isn't really that good.

The secret of Arsenal this season has all to do with the manager, the passing maching works and it's not that the personell has changed in their defense. It's their new signings in midifield which make the difference and the defending an easy job for the center backs at the moment.
 

[helmboy_nige]

This is a much clearer picture of what I was trying to paint in my previous post. Agree 100% and we'll see, but I feel confident about reaching for 3rd or 4th.  I do believe City and Chelsea are going to start adding space between the rest, and Arsenal will slowly drop into the "race for fourth" pack, but be near the top of it until the end of the season. Really hard to see them not getting into top 4.

Thanks... I am one of those sad people with a spreadsheet with everyones games in it 

Completely agree about Arsenal. They have surprised me this season in that they've shown resilience in games that they have historically slipped up in.  I still expect City and Chelsea to overtake them and build a gap, but I'd be stunning if Arsenal don't finish top 4.  I think there is a chance that we could finish 3rd, but we really need to be winning all those 'six pointers' against Chelsea, Spurs, Everton and City at home.  I can't imagine us not dropping points against a couple of those teams.

Way I look at it.  We need 76 points for 2ppg.  That's 33 points from 16 matches or:

10-3-3 // 9-6-1

Here's our remaining games:

Everton (H)
WBA (A)
Arsenal (H)
Fulham (A)
Swansea (H)
Southampton (A)
Sunderland (H)
Man Utd (A)
Cardiff (A)
Tottenham (H)
West Ham (A)
Man City (H)
Norwich (A)
Chelsea (H)
Crystal Palace (A)
Newcastle (H)

[Digger2God]

Yes, but that's because Koscielny and Mertesacker have developed a partnership together.

Is Koscielny actually a better centreback than Agger or Sakho? No I don't think so.


So you're right IMO but that doesn't mean they have the better players, more that they have a settled partnership working well.

I think the perceived wealth of CBs has hurt us to some degree (ignoring injuries). I think having the ability to tinker with the CBs has probably contributed to the lack of cohesion of the back 4. Our CBs are as good as any in the league (bar City). We just did not stick with a preferred two and given them the opportunity to develop a partnership. Look at the Arsenal two CBs -- they were atrocious at the start of the season but have grown in strength.

[Coolie High]

Yes, but that's because Koscielny and Mertesacker have developed a partnership together.

Is Koscielny actually a better centreback than Agger or Sakho? No I don't think so.


So you're right IMO but that doesn't mean they have the better players, more that they have a settled partnership working well.

Yes, he has been for the last two years.

[elpistolero7]

It'll end up being us vs spurs. I just don't think Everton will last the pace.

Terrible feeling that Spurs squad strength will tell in the end.

[elpistolero7]

Yes, but that's because Koscielny and Mertesacker have developed a partnership together.

Is Koscielny actually a better centreback than Agger or Sakho? No I don't think so.


So you're right IMO but that doesn't mean they have the better players, more that they have a settled partnership working well.

Than Sakho? He's around the same level IMO, but slightly ahead of Sakho. Than Agger? Over the last 2 years , he's been comfortably bette.

[The 5th Benitle]

I think the perceived wealth of CBs has hurt us to some degree (ignoring injuries). I think having the ability to tinker with the CBs has probably contributed to the lack of cohesion of the back 4. Our CBs are as good as any in the league (bar City). We just did not stick with a preferred two and given them the opportunity to develop a partnership. Look at the Arsenal two CBs -- they were atrocious at the start of the season but have grown in strength.

Agreed. But you can't ignore injuries. If you could, I suspect we'd see a settled partnership of Agger and Sakho or perhaps even Skrtel and Sakho or Skrtel and Agger.

[GG8]

I think the perceived wealth of CBs has hurt us to some degree (ignoring injuries). I think having the ability to tinker with the CBs has probably contributed to the lack of cohesion of the back 4. Our CBs are as good as any in the league (bar City). We just did not stick with a preferred two and given them the opportunity to develop a partnership. Look at the Arsenal two CBs -- they were atrocious at the start of the season but have grown in strength.

Thats just wrong. They have been great since the start of 2013.

[The 5th Benitle]

Than Sakho? He's around the same level IMO, but slightly ahead of Sakho. Than Agger? Over the last 2 years , he's been comfortably bette.

Only if you're one of those folk who pick the bones put of every Agger mistake and never do the same for others.
Agger's a fantastic player and it's no coincidence that we get clean sheets far more often when he's in the side than when he is not.

[Macedonian Red Reborn]

Yes, he has been for the last two years.

I love when our fans are over-hyping opposition defenders.

It will be so much fun when Suarez and Sturridge drill him a new one on February 8th.

[GG8]

Yes, he has been for the last two years.

Than Sakho? He's around the same level IMO, but slightly ahead of Sakho. Than Agger? Over the last 2 years , he's been comfortably bette.

Yep.

[GG8]

I love when our fans are over-hyping opposition defenders.

It will be so much fun when Suarez and Sturridge drill him a new one on February 8th.

Distinctly remember you saying this before the last time we played you, how'd that turn out?

[Macedonian Red Reborn]

Distinctly remember you saying this before the last time we played you, how'd that turn out?

You seriously think you will get lucky against us again? We will have your arse handed to you at Anfield.

[The 5th Benitle]

You seriously think you will get lucky against us again? We will have your arse handed to you at Anfield.

So you know how you've agreed to stop posting in the Arsenal thread as you were antagonising the Arsenal fans? Doesn't mean you can do so in other threads!

[johnny74]

Top four for us depends on fixing two problems 1) Defence, 2) Recurrent injuries

Until we fix those our aspirations depend on Everton and Spurs dropping points.


 

[Macedonian Red Reborn]

So you know how you've agreed to stop posting in the Arsenal thread as you were antagonising the Arsenal fans? Doesn't mean you can do so in other threads!

To be honest, it is not the Arsenal fans that are pissing me off. Pretty soon there will be no thread at RAWK to post in, since there is an Arsenal/Tottenham wankfest everywhere  ...

[Wiss_LFC]

its between us, tottenham, everton and man utd

all it takes is a couple of straight defeats/wins and you could be either out of the race or within a shout, its vital we dont lose to the teams above us when they come to anfield. a win against everton next week would be great start

[GG8]

You seriously think you will get lucky against us again? We will have your arse handed to you at Anfield.

Ah right, sorry I didnt realise it was just luck that stopped you from hammering us the first time around.

I hope I dont offend you, but after hearing you predict such clinkers as "Steve Clarke has shown the league how to stop Ozil, the bad results will follow", "Their poor run of form will start in Novemeber and end in December", "Arsenal will be lucky to qualify for the Europa League this year" and the very familiar sounding "Their defence is average - Imagine what will happen when they face Suarez and Sturridge." I will take your Arsenal related predictions with a pinch of salt.

[Sally]

its between us, tottenham, everton and man utd

all it takes is a couple of straight defeats/wins and you could be either out of the race or within a shout, its vital we dont lose to the teams above us when they come to anfield. a win against everton next week would be great start

It was unfortunate for us to draw the 2 hardest away games in the league back to back and lose both of them which winded us, but here's hoping we can bounce back, Sometimes you need a little bit of luck and results to go our way and looking at our remaining fixtures, i believe if we can regain our momentum if Front 3 and Holding midfielders can stay fit

[Digger2God]

Agreed. But you can't ignore injuries. If you could, I suspect we'd see a settled partnership of Agger and Sakho or perhaps even Skrtel and Sakho or Skrtel and Agger.

Agree, we have to deal with the reality of injuries. But I feel that we had periods in the season where we had the full compliment of CBs, and BR still was tinkering with it. To some extent, a manager has to experiment in a game. But I still feel like it was not doing any favors to alleviate the defensive problems. To some extent, the potency of our attack has masked these issues.

[ChaChaMooMoo]

No, it's more than that. The fact is that they succeeded by the strength of will and influence of the best manager in English football in the last 27 years, and now that presence is gone. So players who looked like world beaters the last few years now play at their actual normal level. The 10% extra is gone. Plus the squad is ageing, the key players are injured (and that doesn't change just because a new manager comes in mid-season - the damage is already done), and their aura of invincibility which was created by their previous manager, is gone, and gone for good. They are lurching from confidence crisis to confidence crisis, their fans are becoming disillusioned, and it will start to show on the terraces soon enough. They might have little runs here and there, but ultimately, those runs will always end abruptly, because their manager is not a positive influence on the team, and has a safety-first mentality that will never change. Bringing in a manager the opposite of that might give the place a short-term lift, but it will fade rapidly as the physical realities of their situation return to the fore.

The manager is changed, the ex-manager who stood heroically for everything a modern football should be, is no longer there, The confidence is slowly sinking. The players are playing at their "original" level. The invincibility aura has vanished. Teams are attacking at OT without a fear. The fans are disillusioned. The new manager has a safety first policy instead of a attack until the whistle policy etc etc etc. But would you count them out of the race for the 4th place? Mathematically, even if they need 2.16 ppg to get 73 points, which is seen as a benchmark for the 4th place, it would be terribly foolish to disregard them.

It might seem difficult and Moyes is incharge (hahahahahhahahaa!). But we will implode if we lose on a weekend, and United win on the same (Not our game at OT!). I dread the post match thread that weekend. But until then.... hahahahahaaa.. Moyes is STILL the manager of United!

[Ferg]

Can't see why we can't push for higher. The 3 above us and the 2 below us have still yet to come to Anfield.

[LFC77]

We were NEVER going to challenge for the title - anyone who thought that is totally deluded. We'll be lucky to get 4th at this rate imo. The manager keeps tinkering with the formation, picking the wrong starting line up & that in the end will mean no 4th place. (I really hope I'm wrong tho but I just can't see it…)

[joe ®]

Not sure if it's been posted already but the Cann table of the current PL standings shows how much we'd have to make up to challenge for the title.

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/iane/cannyclubs.php

Also as much as we'd all love it Man Utd aren't quite out of the picture yet.

[Walk On]

We were NEVER going to challenge for the title - anyone who thought that is totally deluded. We'll be lucky to get 4th at this rate imo. The manager keeps tinkering with the formation, picking the wrong starting line up & that in the end will mean no 4th place. (I really hope I'm wrong tho but I just can't see it…)

Really hope you wouldn't be so optimistic....

Seriously, a title challenge was a nice incentive given the form we had in the first half of the season and the way those around us with much stronger squads were dropping points.  It's worthwhile having something to aim for like a title challenge and then eventually have to settle for 4th (in a worst case scenario).  If you aim for 4th, there is every possibility that you could fall short.

[CHOPPER]

Not sure if it's been posted already but the Cann table of the current PL standings shows how much we'd have to make up to challenge for the title.

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/iane/cannyclubs.php

Also as much as we'd all love it Man Utd aren't quite out of the picture yet.

I maybe a massive bell here, but what is that actually telling me?....That Arsenal are 8 points ahead of us, City 7 and Chelsea 6?

[Halcyon Lissome]

Agreed. But you can't ignore injuries. If you could, I suspect we'd see a settled partnership of Agger and Sakho or perhaps even Skrtel and Sakho or Skrtel and Agger.

Agree with this. It's probably the most important area of the pitch to have continuity because a great defence is down to a unit of players being in sync rather than stand out individuals.

[Funky_Gibbons]

We were NEVER going to challenge for the title - anyone who thought that is totally deluded. We'll be lucky to get 4th at this rate imo. The manager keeps tinkering with the formation, picking the wrong starting line up & that in the end will mean no 4th place. (I really hope I'm wrong tho but I just can't see it…)

Can't believe that formation tinkering, wrong starting line-up choosing fucker had us top of the league at Christmas.

[Halcyon Lissome]

It was going to be an ask to challenge for the title, but we're not really out of the running just yet. We basically need to win our matches against the top 3 (and we're facing them at home) and just be a bit better than them against the rest of the teams.

We have 16 games left, that's almost half a season

[joe ®]

I maybe a massive bell here, but what is that actually telling me?....That Arsenal are 8 points ahead of us, City 7 and Chelsea 6?

That's exactly what it tells us. Some people (such as myself) have difficulty visualising numbers and find it easier to to use spacing as a visual clue to appreciate how far away the teams really are from each other.

[Funky_Gibbons]

It was going to be an ask to challenge for the title, but we're not really out of the running just yet. We basically need to win our matches against the top 3 (and we're facing them at home) and just be a bit better than them against the rest of the teams.

We have 16 games left, that's almost half a season

I think the only team around us we have to play away is United.

[helmboy_nige]

The gap in terms of points to the top (and in the same vein the gap Man U have up to 4th) is not the issue.  As I said in a previous post, the issue is in the number of teams we have to leapfrog.

In 2011 Kenny joined us and we started to put results together. We quickly got ourselves stabilised and found ourselves up from 13th to 7th. We were 9 points and 3 places off 4th with 14 games to go and lots of people were talking about how we could snatch CL footie.  Making up 9 points on one team over 14 games is more than doable. But making up points on 3 teams during the business end of the season is very improbable as it relies on all 3 of those teams to drop points and you to not to.

This is why Man U are very much in trouble in the race for CL.  They need to gain 6 points (plus a huge GD) AND overtake 3 teams while not dropping too many points themselves.  For the same reason this is why a title win is very unlikely now. We need to gain 8 points AND overtake 3 teams.  It is more realistic should we go on a good run that we can finish 3rd as overtaking one team is more likely.  The chance of the 3 leading teams in the league all dropping 8 more points than us in the remaining 16 games is remote.  Doesn't mean it's impossible, but we would need to go on one hell of a run of form.

There are still 16 games, so I'd be more confident about the above when we hit 12 games.  If Man U still have 3 teams and 6+ points to gain with 12 games to play then I'd right them off for CL footie.  Same with us in the title.

[B0151?]

We were NEVER going to challenge for the title - anyone who thought that is totally deluded. We'll be lucky to get 4th at this rate imo. The manager keeps tinkering with the formation, picking the wrong starting line up & that in the end will mean no 4th place. (I really hope I'm wrong tho but I just can't see it…)

Don't know why they don't just put you in charge lad. Brendan could at least delegate the picking of the team to you. Utter joke it is.

[BazC]

It doesn't really matter much that we have the top teams to come to Anfield - if we don't sort our defence out (and I'm praying for some Agger or Sakho in the derby) we'll have a big job beating them. And that goes for the lower league teams who we face away from home. If Lucas is out for a lengthy time, we'll find it even harder (even if we get a new CM in, we're hoping he's able to slot in straight away).

The big advantage we have is that the teams around us have Europe to contend with - Spurs and Man Utd will see their squad's stretched as will Arsenal (although they're not around us at the moment, I think they'll fall away). Saying that, Arsenal are up against Bayern, so they've probably only got 2 European games left this season.

Our squad is incredibly stretched - Lucas, Sakho, Agger, Enrique, Flanagan. Sturridge and Gerrard have only just come back. Hopefully Lucas isn't out for more than a few weeks, and we get Sakho, Agger and Flanagan back. We really need them back to push on - we've lost a fair bit of ground in the last month and used our points buffer up. We're still in the driving seat though. A win against Everton is pretty important, as we also have Arsenal to come up - it would be good to go into that Arsenal game with a few points over the 5th place team.

[Owl]

I have this awful feeling we will miss out on CL footy in the last 3-4 games of the season.

Many people go on how we have all the top teams to play at Anfield, but there is no guarantee we will win those.

Especially if we don't buy 1-2 players and continue with the injury problems we are having. Which makes me wonder, with FSG being so desperate for CL footy, why don't they go the extra mile to get players in, especially since we struggle big time with fullbacks and DM.

[gorwar61]

We have had three really poor games, Southampton, Hull away and A. Villa at home; we cannot afford another slip up against teams below us.  The defence needs to stop leaking goals and hopefully we can keep scoring enough to win games.  I see it there four teams fighting for 4th place and we need to beat them all if we want to finish fourth.

[Hollywood Balls]

Realistically I think we are out of the fight for the top spot however we are still in there for third assuming we can sign someone to replace Lucas iN January.

Well I have won as many trophies as Rodgers so why not?

And lo, they were wummed...

[OldBloke]

I'll feel a lot more comfortable if we beat Everton next week.
I expect Everton to then fall away as players get injured.
United's fate is in the hands of Rooney and Van Persie, who are good enough to win games whatever crap they play in front of. However, am I the only one who has a suspicion that Van Persie has his eyes on Brazil? This is his last chance to be a World Cup winner. United also have a LOT of extra games to fit in.
Spurs are a worry, now they have a decent manager.
If we can get all our players fit again, I still think we are in with a really good shout. We are at a disadvantage at the moment because the shitty weather suits cloggers and launch it into the box merchants more than "proper footballers", but once it warms up I'm hopeful that we can finish as strongly as last season.