The 6th Place Trophy - The 2017/18 Premier League Thread

[Dolphin Ziggler]

First topic message reminder :

The fixtures have been released, players have been signed and summer is already a bit boring, so here's the Premier League 2017/18 season thread.

Opening fixtures:

Arsenal v Leicester City
Brighton & Hove Albion v Manchester City
Chelsea v Burnley
Crystal Palace v Huddersfield Town
Everton v Stoke City
Manchester United v West Ham United
Newcastle United v Tottenham Hotspur
Southampton v Swansea City
Watford v Liverpool
West Bromwich Albion v Bournemouth

[Duty281]

Stoke hiring Paul Lambert

Fourth choice Paul.

[compelling and rich]

very underwhelming appointment

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

I still believe in him. I'm dying on this hill

[Guest]

Back before you was Golly, Olly, you was rather Jolly when Lambert was pushing that Norwich trolley.

Paddy Power have already paid out on Stoke going down. The swines.

[Duty281]

Pretty much guarantees Stoke's survival, then!

[Guest]

Yeah, when they first came up and lost 3-1 at Bolton on the first match day Paddy paid out. They love that publicity.

[Ent]

Saves them having to take any more bets either.

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Looks like Sanchez to united could be confirmed after tonight's match against Stoke.Reported salary off 350,000 per week. Mourinho's welcome to him

[Guest]

Brighton 0-4 Chelsea - Hazard, Moses & Willian (fantastic goal)

[GSC]

Watford have sacked Marco Silva for some reason

[Guest]

Watford have sacked Marco Silva for some reason

1 win in 10 games

[Ent]

Watford blaming Everton hard.

[Guest]

Not sure why. If Silva has downed tools himself, and behind the scenes has made it clear he’s unhappy, then there is only one person to blame. Pretty unprofessional from Silva to prolong his disappointment at not getting the Everton job. He should of moved on, and got back to focusing on Watford. Instead, Watford have moved him on.

[Guest]

Watford blaming Everton hard.

Sky Sports News are going all in on Everton.

Not naming Everton but naming Everton.

[Ent]

Agreed, but that is the statement Watford have come out with.

[GSC]

Don't really think Watford can be particularly outraged about a lack of loyalty to managers

[Ent]

Don't really think Watford can be particularly outraged about a lack of loyalty to managers

[No name Bertie]

Watford's poor run of results followed Watford's home win against Arsenal on the 14th October, and Troy Deeney's well publicised nationwide comments that he and Watford physical intimidate the opposition who lack cajones.

Everton may have been a contributory factor, but it was a minor effect.  From Deeney's comments opposition teams refused to be intimidated by their physical approach while referees were given warning and began carding and sending off Watford players.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/watford/scores-fixtures/2017-10

Here's Troy Deeney explaining the Watford tactic - skip to 1:45

[Guest]

Watford to appoint Javier Gracia. He’s managed eight different clubs in ten years, so you can see why he’s a perfect fit.

[No name Bertie]

I suppose on present form Tottenham are likely to beat Southampton and then Southampton will sack Pellegrino.  

So far during the current 2017/18 premiership season eight clubs have sacked their manager:
Everton, Watford, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Stoke, WBA, Swansea, Leicester.

[GSC]

Beat City, lose to Swansea. The Liverpool way

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Klopp wastes £75m on van Dijk and on league debut his dreadful clearance results in the goal that lost the match. van Dijk isn't worth £15m let alone £75m

[GSC]

Defending is more about the unit than the individual and VVD will need time to settle. Defenders get remembered for mistakes as much as attackers for memorable goals.

[Ent]

Mourinho extends deal to 2020, with an option for another year.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Did he play the piano to tell everyone?

[GSC]

No he just wore a don't tread on me Conte t shirt

[Dolphin Ziggler]

It's German for The Pep, The

[Ent]

I see Sanchez has missed a drugs test from the day of his move.

I hope things have moved on from handing out 8 month bans for this type of thing.

[GSC]

Considering City and Bournemouth got fined for it last year I would assume so

[Ent]

I thought those were whereabouts violations rather than missed tests - happy to be corrected.

[GSC]

This was also reportedly a whereabouts violation when I read it earlier though could be wrong.

[Guest]

Sad news today about Paul Alcock. Died after a long battle with cancer.

Best remembered for his little episode with Di Canio but a top ref nonetheless.

RIP Ref

[No name Bertie]

Condolences to his family

Swansea having beaten Liverpool 1-0 at home in their last premiership match are in the process of trying to beat Arsenal (currently 2-1 to Swansea).  Not sure if they will be able to hold on, but if they do they will climb out of the relegation zone at least temporarily.  Swansea from looking like certainties for relegation have now been transformed into a side capable of avoiding the drop under Carvalhal.  This year's relegation battle is becoming highly congested.

[No name Bertie]

Swansea win 3-1 and are out of the relegation zone at least until tomorrow. 6 points against Liverpool & Arsenal.

[Guest]

Aubameyang deal won’t alter anything at Arsenal. Issues are everywhere else.

[No name Bertie]

Regarding: Swansea 3 - Arsenal 1,  the BBC quote Arsene Wenger pre-match as follows:

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger on taking heed of Swansea's 1-0 win over Liverpool: "What is a good warning for us is that Liverpool are an attacking team - you cannot criticise them for not attacking, they are very dangerous going forward and they didn't manage to score against Swansea.  That is a good warning for us that we have to produce an absolute total offensive performance."

There are two ways of looking at that
a) yes it was a performance to offend your supporters ... or
b) in relying totally on offence you completely neglected the defence.

[Breadvan]

Surprised how bad Arsenal were last night. Lots of possession but did little with it. Fabianski only made one decent save all night and Ozil was anonymous. Thoroughly deserved victory for us.

[Ent]

Shocking from united last night.

Who would have thought a midfield would be required away to spurs...

[GSC]

Odd team from Mourinho, usually he has a plan to nullify opponents away in big games, yesterday he just named his stars. Balance was completely off, Pogba has many talents, but Herrera would've been a better choice next to Matic in midfield in yesterday's game.

[Ent]

Tottenham have been lost without eriksen the last few weeks. Let's him run about doing whatever he wants.

[GSC]

Would've thought Herrera instead of Lingard would have more sense.

[compelling and rich]

yeah lots of round pegs in square holes last night. i really dont understand mourinhos thinking in terms of what he's trying to build, you look at citys and spurs and while we may have better players on paper in certain postions they have players playing a lot better in a system that suits them. worse performance ive seen for a while that

pogba never has had the discipline for playing the deeper cm postion. he needs license to roam and not worry about sitting. he's been playing really well with that protection and then he changes it to shoe horn sanchez in. he basically played 5 attackers last night who dont defend against spurs away. baffling

[sirfredperry]

Was at Wembley on Wednesday night. Shocked at the Man U team selection. No midfield and just a bunch of attackers who hardly mustered a shot all evening.
   Twenty minutes from the end, the guy behind me said United seemed to have given up. There were long periods when they hardly touched the ball. They were lucky it was not three or four nil.

[Ent]

yeah lots of round pegs in square holes last night. i really dont understand mourinhos thinking in terms of what he's trying to build, you look at citys and spurs and while we may have better players on paper in certain postions they have players playing a lot better in a system that suits them. worse performance ive seen for a while that

pogba never has had the discipline for playing the deeper cm postion. he needs license to roam and not worry about sitting. he's been playing really well with that protection and then he changes it to shoe horn sanchez in. he basically played 5 attackers last night who dont defend against spurs away. baffling

Pogba doesn't offer enough to be given a free role, he needs to learn how to play in midfield properly and people need to stop making excuses for him.

Unfortunately he is brainless.

[BamBam]

I think if he was bought to be a sitting midfielder, that was clearly a mistake. Its just not his game

He's proven time after time that if you put him in a team with a free role to the left of a midfield 3, he looks like the best player on the pitch. I don't see why Mourinho would go away from that against that Spurs team

[Ent]

I would dispute that one can have a free role on the left of a midfield 3, that pogba has played there regularly and that he has been the best player on the pitch regularly.

He's a big time Charlie, has one good game in every 5 or so and does nothing against the bi sides. His inability to show any sort of brain and adjust to games by altering his position or what he is doing is on him and people should stop making excuses for him.

[Guest]

Burnley 1-1 Man City FT

Sterling with the miss of the season, followed by a weird delayed flop. Pep making great use of the academy today too.

[No name Bertie]

Michy Batshuayi on loan from Chelsea to Dortmund, scores twice and provides an assist in his first game for Dortmund, as Dortmund win away 2-3 at FC Koln.  Maybe Dortmund are going to get the best out of him.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/42926545

[No name Bertie]

Big home loss for WBA against relegation rivals Southampton.  They are now four points adrift at the bottom of the table and it looks like they have become the first "certainties" for relegation.

ps: however their remaining games are not too difficult on paper (only 4 out of 12 against top 6 sides and none against Man City).

[Guest]

I'd imagine that most games are difficult when you're the worst side in the division.

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