Topic: The Title Race 2023/24- Jurgen's Last Dance

[Barneylfc∗]

How is our record against the big 6 this season?

Shit

2 points v Abu Dhabi
1 point v Arsenal
1 point v United
0 points v Spurs
4 points v Chelsea

Should have at least 5 more points but for scandalous refereeing decisions against Abu Dhabi, Arsenal and Spurs.

Probably 7 more actually. Forgot about the laughable decision not to award us a penalty away at Chelsea for one of theirs palming the ball out for a corner.

[elkun]

Shit

2 points v Abu Dhabi
1 point v Arsenal
1 point v United
0 points v Spurs
4 points v Chelsea

Should have at least 5 more points but for scandalous refereeing decisions against Abu Dhabi, Arsenal and Spurs.

Probably 7 more actually. Forgot about the laughable decision not to award us a penalty away at Chelsea for one of theirs palming the ball out for a corner.

agree 100% with but still something needs to be done about that because we cant afford to lose against United and Spurs

[killer-heels]

City have only beaten United and not beaten Arsenal, us, Spurs and Chelsea in 6 games.

We have to beat United and Spurs.

[Nick110581]

City have only beaten United and not beaten Arsenal, us, Spurs and Chelsea in 6 games.

We have to beat United and Spurs.

We need to win 8/9 of our last 10.

[elkun]

City have only beaten United and not beaten Arsenal, us, Spurs and Chelsea in 6 games.

We have to beat United and Spurs.

Thats interesting. How is the record of Arsenal against the big 6. I think those matches will decide the title

[Nick110581]

Thats interesting. How is the record of Arsenal against the big 6. I think those matches will decide the title

Arsenal have beaten us, City and United. Drew with Spurs.

[killer-heels]

Thats interesting. How is the record of Arsenal against the big 6. I think those matches will decide the title

3 wins out of 6 against City, us, United at home and draws to Spurs at home, Chelsea away and us at Anfield.

Ours is the poorest but its not one side swatting all. The united game at home continues to be the absolute shittest result. It was at the time and looks as much now.

[smicer07]

We need to win 8/9 of our last 10.

Can't see us doing that personally.

[Barneylfc∗]

Can't see us doing that personally.

Ever think of just logging off for a few hours?

[DelTrotter]

Can't see us doing that personally.

Sheff Utd is probably the only game we win and that'll be close.

[elkun]

Can't see us doing that personally.

i can see us doing it but as u can see the main problem are the big matches. In an ideal world we win both against united and spurs. Drawing one and winning one isnt bad either. We drawing both our losing one of the two it would mean losing the title am afraid

[smicer07]

Sheff Utd is probably the only game we win and that'll be close.

 

I think we will struggle at Old Trafford again and probably in the Derby.

[Nick110581]

3 wins out of 6 against City, us, United at home and draws to Spurs at home, Chelsea away and us at Anfield.

Ours is the poorest but its not one side swatting all. The united game at home continues to be the absolute shittest result. It was at the time and looks as much now.

We have done amazingly to be top after 28 matches.

It’s genuinely still on but it’s too close to predict a winner.

Maybe we can afford one / two draws but that could be fatal and we lose out by a point again.

[Haggis36]

How is our record against the big 6 this season?

Depends which big 6 you mean I suppose - if you mean the top 6 per the current table, we've won 1 of the 7 games we've played, drawing 4 and losing 2. If you swap Villa for Chelsea which has historically been the big 6 people mean, it worsens slightly to 1 win in 8.

I think it'll probably be the thing that costs us in the end - you obviously can't expect to win all your games against the big 6 obviously, but at home especially we should have done significantly better and I think failing to beat either of our two closest challengers in 4 attempts will ultimately prove to be very costly. We've taken 3 points of a possible 12 from City and Arsenal - that's basically half of the points we've dropped all season, as we've been nearly flawless against everyone else. All teams have dropped points, but given the points swing you achieve against your direct rivals, those dropped points count for more - even winning one of those home games could have made a huge difference to the run-in, and it's frustrating as we could and probably should have won both.

[kop306]

the away game at old trafford is our biggest league game of the season

we need a full team for that game

[Zlen]

Take a deep breath everyone and relax. We lost no league points today. We simply had a tired day at the office after a horrible schedule mared with injuries.

Spring is upon us. New life, new day, new energy for new battles. We’ll be fine. Believe.

[lionel_messias]

I think we will struggle at Old Trafford again and probably in the Derby.

Old Trafford is our destiny game, I think we'll rag-doll Everton, with a big score.

[Nick110581]

Depends which big 6 you mean I suppose - if you mean the top 6 per the current table, we've won 1 of the 7 games we've played, drawing 4 and losing 2. If you swap Villa for Chelsea which has historically been the big 6 people mean, it worsens slightly to 1 win in 8.

I think it'll probably be the thing that costs us in the end - you obviously can't expect to win all your games against the big 6 obviously, but at home especially we should have done significantly better and I think failing to beat either of our two closest challengers in 4 attempts will ultimately prove to be very costly. We've taken 3 points of a possible 12 from City and Arsenal - that's basically half of the points we've dropped all season, as we've been nearly flawless against everyone else. All teams have dropped points, but given the points swing you achieve against your direct rivals, those dropped points count for more - even winning one of those home games could have made a huge difference to the run-in, and it's frustrating as we could and probably should have won both.

It’s too close to call at moment so you can’t really pinpoint certain reasons why we won’t win it.

Arsenal have a better record against the big teams than us / City but are still level on points with us and not running away with it.

It should go down to the wire.

[Barneylfc∗]

the away game at old trafford is our biggest league game of the season

we need a full team for that game

Very unlikely we'll have it.
By then, Trent will more or less have been out for 3 months. Jota and Jones for 6/7 weeks.
If they're available they'll be fit for 10/15 minutes off the bench at best.
We'll only realistically have Gravenberch and Konate available and have to hope we don't lose anyone else until then.

[Nick110581]

the away game at old trafford is our biggest league game of the season

we need a full team for that game

Our biggest game of the season is Brighton at home.

Win that and our two rivals duke it out.

Things become clearer after that.

[Barneylfc∗]

It’s too close to call at moment so you can’t really pinpoint certain reasons why we won’t win it.

Arsenal have a better record against the big teams than us / City but are still level on points with us and not running away with it.

It should go down to the wire.

We can pinpoint 2 diabolical decisions in not awarding us a penalty in each of the home games against Arsenal and Abu Dhabi. Of course no guarantee they would be scored, but they're game changing, and possibly season changing decisions.

[Crosby Nick]

Thats interesting. How is the record of Arsenal against the big 6. I think those matches will decide the title

It doesn’t always work like that though. In 08/09 we took 12 points from our games with our closest challengers, United and Chelsea. But dropped too many against the poorer sides. So far this season we’ve been almost flawless against sides from the bottom half. It’s pretty hard to string a flawless season together against everyone and so far that’s been enough to get us into a very strong position.

I agree that we will certainly need to win one of United and Spurs. We might be able to afford a draw against one but Spurs at home we have to be winning. Although those big head to head games are a chance to take points off a direct rival, beating Sheff Utd still gets us the same amount of points.

Finally, don’t think today’s result will have much of a bearing on anything. We all get to switch off now, even if some of the players don’t. Take a breather, come back and beat Brighton and then sit back and watch the City/Arsenal game knowing any result can be spun as good for us and go from there.

[nerdster4]

Learning point from today

You score when you’re on top

[TheShanklyGates]

An awful lot less confident for the rest of the season that I was before today. Can't get over how badly we fucked it.

[Samie]

If your confidence drops so much after one game in which we were on our feet having played 8 more games than them, were you really a believer in the first place?

[newterp]

If your confidence drops so much after one game in which we were on our feet having played 8 more games than them, were you really a believer in the first place?

What's weirder is that some people don't seem to understand that result aside - ManU were dominated almost all game except the first 20.

[Number 7]

An awful lot less confident for the rest of the season that I was before today. Can't get over how badly we fucked it.

The result will have no bearing on the rest of our season. It won’t even impact our league form. If anything it probably comes at a good time. Everyone, including Klopp, will be pissed off for 2 weeks and we get some players back over the break.

We should be thankful that hasn’t happened in a league game. Can’t fathom how awful it would feel conceding in the 87th min and dropping 2 points. We 100% will learn something from that game and not make the same mistakes over there in April. I’m not worried because we were by far the better team in that match and just stupid decisions have cost us the game. We won’t make the same mistakes in April.

Come back after the break, do everything we can to beat Brighton and then we’ll see where we are at the end of  that weekend. If the chips fall in our favour and we win against Brighton and Shef Utd we could be top outight going in to the first weekend of April.

There is too much at stake and the players know that.

[alonsoisared]

We had the same problem in 18/19 with regards the big games. Obviously harsh to say that when we finished on 97 points but we lost at the Etihad and got held by far inferior Everton, United, Chelsea and Arsenal sides. No wins in any of our 5 biggest aways. I just really want to see us approach those games with no fear again, as we have done at times in the intervening period. After 18/19 we've stuffed a few of those teams on their grounds more than once so we know it can be done.

[please, I have my reasons for it but...]

Zero confidence for our game at Old Trafford after today. We have been really bad, results wise, against the big teams and today and at the Emirates we were shit or sloppy. I can see similar performance in three weeks again.

[Samie]

We will have players back for that game though. Also had we won today that doesn't mean we would;ve won in the league game.

[please, I have my reasons for it but...]

We will have players back for that game though. Also had we won today that doesn't mean we would;ve won in the league game.

There is also no guarantee that no one will get injured on international duty.

[Caston]

Zero confidence for our game at Old Trafford after today. We have been really bad, results wise, against the big teams and today and at the Emirates we were shit or sloppy. I can see similar performance in three weeks again.

They had a good 20 minutes and were complete shit after that. They had given up pretty much in the 2nd half and we had many opportunities for a 3rd goal but only ourselves to blame.

Need to learn to kill these games off as we aren’t as good defensively as we used to be. They used the long ball to Rashford or Garnacho effectively, our fullbacks need to be more switched on

[ValiantInstance]

There is a serious problem in the 'big games'. It's hard to pinpoint but I think it's a lack of clinicality. Forget Odegaard playing basketball in the box or Doku practising karate on Mac Allister's chest for a second, we had several golden chances to put those games to bed and we didn't.

Even against Everton we looked stale until the pen. If this doesn't change sharpish then we don't win the title, it's that simple.

[kavah]

It's going to be ok, with Trent, Jota, Alisson, Jones, and a fit Mo Salah

[Wool]

Old Trafford is such a weird ground for us. We either batter them or get Space Jam’d and lose the ability to play any kind of football - there’s no in between. That and Goodison (our record there under Klopp is genuinely horrific) will decide the title.

[Nick110581]

Old Trafford is such a weird ground for us. We either batter them or get Space Jam’d and lose the ability to play any kind of football - there’s no in between. That and Goodison (our record there under Klopp is genuinely horrific) will decide the title.

Need a repeat of two seasons ago.

[Knight]

I never expected us to do that, if he can go strong he goes strong. I'm not sure why you are not getting this, he's been our manager for how long?

And yet he also rotates and rests a lot too. But yes, in so far as he always goes strong if he can go strong, perhaps he shouldn't and should allow the rest and rotating principle to be stronger in his decision making when it comes to effective or actual dead rubbers.

[Nick110581]

And yet he also rotates and rests a lot too. But yes, in so far as he always goes strong if he can go strong, he shouldn't. He's not perfect.

Yesterday had nothing to do with tired players though.

We should have won that in 90 minutes.

[Knight]

Yesterday had nothing to do with tired players though.

We should have won that in 90 minutes.

Fair point, but it didn't have nothing to do with it did it, didn't Klopp himself say Nunez got knackered and shouldn't have been on the pitch.

[Nick110581]

Fair point, but it didn't have nothing to do with it did it, didn't Klopp himself say Nunez got knackered and shouldn't have been on the pitch.

It didn’t help in ET but that should haven’t happened.

Only ourselves to blame.