The 2021-22 Premier League Thread - Dem Thicc Lines

[Dolphin Ziggler]

First topic message reminder :

Opening Fixtures:

Brentford v Arsenal
Burnley v Brighton
Chelsea v Crystal Palace
Everton v Southampton
Leicester City v Wolverhampton
Manchester United v Leeds United
Newcastle United v West Ham United
Norwich City v Liverpool
Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City
Watford v Aston Villa

[Duty281]

End of an era at Chelsea. The greatest era in their history.

[Guest]

Everton 0-1 Manchester City. The champions scrape past the Merseysiders. Foden took advantage of a fortune deflection. Everton robbed of a blatant penalty when Rodri handed. Ridiculous VAR

[Soul Requiem]

Football is so blatantly bent.

[Duty281]

It wasn't given as handball because, I think, there was an offside in the build up. This is why viewers should be able to hear the communication of the video referee, like in cricket/rugby union/rugby league.

[JDizzle]

End of an era at Chelsea. The greatest era in their history.

Be interesting to see whether this encourages any bids for Chelsea or whether it is just a cynical move to avoid sanctions.

[Guest]

End of an era at Chelsea. The greatest era in their history.

Be interesting to see whether this encourages any bids for Chelsea or whether it is just a cynical move to avoid sanctions.

Club isn’t for sale according to the reports I’ve just read.

[Soul Requiem]

It wasn't given as handball because, I think, there was an offside in the build up. This is why viewers should be able to hear the communication of the video referee, like in cricket/rugby union/rugby league.

It doesn't even look like offside, taking into account the lines on the pitch he looks on.

[Guest]

Marcelo Bielsa to leave Leeds United as per David Ornstein

[Lowlandbrit]

The tricky thing about Leeds is that they feel like such a classic 'second season' team that, if they do survive this season, I could easily see them being a top half side next year without major changes.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Yes I think they might be overreacting to some poor results against good sides - Phillips, Cooper and maybe Bamford should be back soon, and they have easier fixtures coming up where his style of play is more suited…I think it’s a massive risk to get rid of him now.

[Duty281]

Bielsa has shown a complete unwillingness to adapt his tactics, leading to the concession of 20 goals in their last five games, so I can see why Leeds pulled the trigger. It's a bit late in the day to make sackings and hope it saves the season, however.

It's really tough to identify who's going down. Brentford, Leeds, Everton, Watford and Norwich all look completely hopeless...but they can't all go down!

[Guest]

Pep has a meltdown when asked about the Rodri penalty incident today. Sometimes I wonder why managers don’t just say ‘yeah we got lucky’.

[Sgt_Pooly]

Bielsa has shown a complete unwillingness to adapt his tactics, leading to the concession of 20 goals in their last five games, so I can see why Leeds pulled the trigger. It's a bit late in the day to make sackings and hope it saves the season, however.

It's really tough to identify who's going down. Brentford, Leeds, Everton, Watford and Norwich all look completely hopeless...but they can't all go down!

He sees football as an entertainment so will always want to attack, it's just his way. I've been a Leeds fan since a boy and the way he has transformed the football/club/culture is quite something. He's made bang average players like Phillips, Ayling, Cooper, Dallas into genuine premiership players and he will always be loved.

I personally would have stuck with him. We've had a torrid run of injuries through the spine of the team and his stubbornness with recruitment (my one criticism of him tbh) has led to us fielding too many players out of position or kids that just aren't up to the task. With Phillips and Bamford back, he would have certainly picked up wins outside of the top 6 teams and we would have been safe by a decent distance imo.

I'm still in a very sad place regarding him going.

[Guest]

Manchester City 4-1 Manchester United. City dominated the derby and ruthlessly exposed the hapless United defence. Aside from a good goal by Sancho, United where pathetic.

[GSC]

Nothing new to really say about United. They're a million miles off the top teams until the owners get serious about more than milking the club for cash and commit to having the best people possible populating the structure

[Guest]

Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned. Chelsea seized. Club can’t sell any match day tickets. Merchandise store closed.

[Guest]

Manchester United 3-2 Tottenham. Cristiano Ronaldo registered second ever PL hat trick as Manchester won a thrilling game.
United 50pts 2 clear of arsenal, but the Londoners have 4 games in hand.

[dummy_half]

Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned. Chelsea seized. Club can’t sell any match day tickets. Merchandise store closed.

I do wonder if over the next few weeks there will be some changes to the rules as applied to Chelsea, permitting them to operate in line with normal football club operations, but with any revenue raised only being permitted to go back into the club's operational budget. All to be overseen by an independent controller, similar to an Administrator.

Otherwise, could Abramovich just give the club away? If there is neither a change in the rules of operation nor of ownership, there won't be a Chelsea FC worth the name in a few months.

[Guest]

Crystal Palace 0-0 Manchester City. City huffed and puffed but couldn’t find a goal. Bizarrely Sterling and G Jesus stayed on the bench as Guardiola made no changes.

City lead by 4pts but Liverpool have a game in hand.

[Duty281]

Everton odds-on to go down. Lampard no clue how to organise a side and his managerial career has gone from failure to failure. Could be a severe, Sunderland-esque, financial hit to Everton if they drop to the Championship.

Dyche is a master of survival. He'll be forever typecast by what he's done at Burnley, but I'd love to see him work at a club with more money and ambition.

[Galted]

Everton odds-on to go down. Lampard no clue how to organise a side and his managerial career has gone from failure to failure. Could be a severe, Sunderland-esque, financial hit to Everton if they drop to the Championship.

Dyche is a master of survival. He'll be forever typecast by what he's done at Burnley, but I'd love to see him work at a club with more money and ambition.

Everton have a b*stard of a run-in as well.  They, along with Liverpool, United, Arsenal and Spurs are the only teams I've never seen in a division lower than the top flight.

[westisbest]

Looking at Everton’s remaining games, I think they could get 6/7 points.
Point at home to Leicester.
Then then wins against Watford away and Brentford home. Ah who knows.
Even 7 points would only get them 32 points.

Burnley have the slightly easier run in. Could well get a couple of wins.
They play us twice, so am expecting one win for them there.
Norwich and Watford they could get wins.

Who knows. Will be interesting to see.

[Duty281]

Burnley should be safe. They have quite a few winnable games left - away to Norwich, home to Southampton, Wolves and Villa (all on their holidays), and away to Watford, plus the final game where they're home to Newcastle. They should get at least three wins from that.

Everton's fixture list is a horror show. They do have three games which they should target, away to Watford and home to Brentford and
Palace, but by then they'll probably be in the relegation zone, as their next five games are United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Leicester x2, and the pressure will be enormous.

Having Dyche instead of Lampard, and a squad packed with experience in these type of battles, is also a big boost.

Actually Burnley may face a greater threat to their survival from Watford. Watford's fixture list is quite kind with four/five winnable games left.

And Leeds may get dragged back into the relegation threat if they lose to Watford on Saturday. If Leeds get zero points v Watford and Palace, they'll be in trouble, as it's only City/Arsenal/Chelsea/home to Brighton/away to Brentford left after that.

Even Newcastle aren't definitely safe. Fun times.

[Afro]

I'm not confident at all.

We actually played better yesterday, but it was mistakes gifting goals that yet again were our undoing.

If we can cut those out, then we have a chance, but if we go into every game needing to chase a goal or two being given away we have no chance.

Funnily enough I can see us getting something against United.

[Afro]

I did do a Premier League predictor this morning and ended with Burnley, Everton and Leeds all on 34 points, with Leeds going down on GD.

Which is not a good sign given my likely bias towards Everton!!

Also Brighton were only 2 points further ahead, City won the league and Spurs finished 4th

[Guest]

Manchester United slump to another woeful loss, losing 1-0 to relegation threatened to Everton at Goodison Park

Not to be outdone, Arsenal lost 2-1 to Brighton at the Emirates.

Tottenham meanwhile battered Aston Villa 4-0 as Son grabbed a hat trick.

[GSC]

United are toast I think. Barely look like they even care at this point. Good luck to ten Hag, because the problems there are still far above the manager's office.

Arsenal look like inactive in Jan might doom them as they're running out of players while Spurs have hit a vein of form until Conte. Still time but not much of it

[westisbest]

Ings needs to goal back to learning how to score.
Two brilliant chances yesterday. We played so well in the first half, then the exact opposite in the second.
If we had taken a couple of those chances it would have been a different game.

Play like we did in the first half for the remainder of the season, we should finish strong(if we actually take our chances). Play like we did second half, we will struggle to win another game.

Just goes to show. You don’t take your chances, you get punished.

[Duty281]

United are in such a mess. They've got so many bang average and/or over the hill players on enormous wages (Maguire, AWB, Fred, McTominay, Rashford, Martial, Ronaldo, Matic, Jones, Mata, Lingard) that's it going to take years to sort. No surprise to see Arsenal running out of steam after their terrible January, it's probably cost them top four, but they've got a good nucleus in their team to have a real good go next season. Tottenham, despite their propensity to be Spursy, should get top four, with an easier run-in than Arsenal.

Wins for Leeds and Newcastle yesterday should be enough to keep them up. Fair play to Newcastle, I wrote them off, but they've had a strong second half of the season.

[Guest]

Manchester City 2-2 Liverpool. Decent game. City maintain their 1pt lead at the top.

[GSC]

In a late April fools, Burnley have sacked Dyche

[Duty281]

What a stupid decision.

[GSC]

Even if they were parting ways at the end of the season who gives them a better chance to stay up

[Duty281]

Wayne Rooney and Sam Allardyce the leading favourites to take over.

One day the twenty clubs of the Premier League will all be managed by members of England's 2006 World Cup squad.

[GSC]

Big Sam can't be a realistic prospect, can he make an impact in 8 games when it's clear he won't be the permanent manager past that?

Rooney probably be more of a sign they expect to be a championship side I think, hes had relatively tame ending to both seasons he's managed

[Lowlandbrit]

No idea what they're doing unless they've already lined someone up that they think can keep them up. And even then it's probably still a bad move.

[Guest]

The race for top 4 tightening up again after Saturdays action.
Tottenham 0-1 Brighton - the Seagulls feasting on the North London clubs lol
Southampton 1-0 Arsenal - not replacing Aubameyang seems to be biting the Gunners
Manchester United 3-2 Norwich - CR7 bagged another hat trick. United did their best to bottle it with horrific defending. But CR7 won it with a free kick.

[Sgt_Pooly]

Wayne Rooney and Sam Allardyce the leading favourites to take over.

What a time to be a Burnley fan!

[Guest]

Erik ten Hag looks like he’s going to be Manchester United’s next manager.

[Guest]

Erik ten Hag looks like he’s going to be Manchester United’s next manager.

This has now been confirmed, 3+1 year deal for the Dutchman.
Talks of a major overhaul of the squad as well.

[Duty281]

Absolute manic game between Arsenal and United. Arsenal winning 3-1 and ending United's top four hopes. Really enjoyed Arsenal this season, they've got an excellent young core to their side and should kick on to greater things over the next few years, even if they don't reach top four this year.

Manic game because near enough everything that could happen did happen. United denied what looked a clear penalty in the first half, only to get one in the second half from VAR (fairly), then Fernandes misses it off the post. Arsenal denied a goal on an incredibly narrow offside call, only to get a penalty on the same incident. Fernandes somehow escaping a clear red. Xhaka scored from a long-range effort that could (should?) have been offside. High number of yellows. Elanga could have had two penalties. Ronaldo had a goal narrowly disallowed due to offside.

[Duty281]

Wayne Rooney and Sam Allardyce the leading favourites to take over.

What a time to be a Burnley fan!

Still looks like they'll escape the drop. If they draw/win at home to Wolves tomorrow, they should be up to 17th, but still madness to ditch Dyche.

[Duty281]

Burnley win and Everton upset Chelsea, such a strange season for Chelsea. Leeds are in big trouble now.

[GSC]

If Chelsea aren't careful they'll end up in this fight for fourth

[Guest]

Manchester City move 3pts clear at the top after seeing off Newcastle with a 5-0 trashing.
Liverpool could only draw 1-1 with Tottenham.
City also has the better goal difference + 4
3 matches to go

[GSC]

They will have to do it without Dias, Stones and Walker.

[Guest]

Liverpool edged past Aston Villa last night 2-1.
Manchester City hammered Wolverhampton 5-1.

City maintains 3pt lead but their goal difference is now +7.

[Duty281]

City should be fine for the title, though Pep will still be disappointed about missing out on the CL. Never mind, chuck another hundred million at it.

After a long battle between Everton and Burnley for the final relegation spot, it looks as though Leeds will claim it.

[Lowlandbrit]

After a long battle between Everton and Burnley for the final relegation spot, it looks as though Leeds will claim it.

Feel a bit for Marsch, who's never going to shake the Ted Lasso thing now.

[Guest]

Tottenham beat Arsenal 3-0 in the North London Derby to maintain their CL hopes. Kanex2 and Son the scorers. Arsenal lost Holding in the first half for two bookings.

Arsenal 66pts - remaining matches Newcastle(a) and Everton(h)
Tottenham 65pts - remaining matches Burnley(h) and Norwich(a)

Spurs has +12 goal difference advantage as well

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