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The Other 14


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Forest and Bournemouth are bankers to go down for me, the other side will be one of Villa, Fulham, Brentford or Leeds.

I know three of those four are playing well at the moment but we always see teams collapse after good starts and I expect it to be Fulham if I'm honest.

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1 hour ago, 6666 said:

Still early. Teams that are supposed to threaten the top 6 spots have shit themselves so far though. Everton, West Ham, Leicester. Newcastle seem like a much more solid team but they need to back that up with wins rather than draws.

 

We don't really deserve to be mentioned in that category and won't be back in it for at least a couple more seasons, maybe longer. We've signed a lot of players this summer in order to re-establish a balanced squad, which I think has been largely successful, so credit to the club for that, but in order to do so we have had to compromise on quality in some areas. We've ended up with less players that worry me out on the pitch but also less players that I'd be worried about losing to a big club now that Richarlison has left.

Back on topic, Newcastle do seem to have a certain steadiness to their performance levels over the course of more than half a season now. Brighton should be near the top of this group unless they have a massive drop-off without Potter. Palace and Brighton seem to "look" the best out of the remaining teams but only have 1 and 2 wins respectively as of yet. Palace have played three of the top six to be fair though. The rest, uninspiring. If I forced to put money on it now, those four teams would probably be my most likely to fill 7th-10th.

I still can't see Leicester getting relegated. It's hard to identify obvious alternatives though. Bournemouth are your obvious pick but they've actually picked up some decent points despite having a pretty horrible start facing Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City in their first seven. I still think they'll ultimately struggle. Fulham seem to have something about them though, I don't think they'll stay up where they are but they have a good chance of hovering just above the scrap for me. I'd say the same about Leeds potentially. Forest should be really worried in my opinion. Four points from the first five games including Spurs and City looked alright but the back to back home defeats to Bournemouth and Fulham really put a different complexion on things as does West Ham's poor form when you factor in that's their only victory. West Ham themselves should be fine. Enough quality in that squad to put enough points on the board even if they end up having to sack Moyes to kickstart their season.

If you're a Leicester fan and things don't improve, you're probably looking at the Everton, Wolves, Southampton, Leeds, Aston Villa group and hoping that one of them starts looking really and consistently shit but all of those sides seem to have at least some grit and consistency about them to pick up results. I can't believe they haven't kicked Rodgers out already really looking at the last two defeats and the manner of them. A poor result against Forest next could be disastrous for them.

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I agree with the original post that last year's top 6 will be this year's big 6 now United have their act together.

What will be panicking a lot of teams is that Fulham have started the season incredibly well (Silva doesn't get nearly enough credit), Bournemouth are picking up wins against the teams around them and Forest, although likely to go down, are putting up a pretty big fight rather than going out with a whimper like Norwich and Watford did. I think Leicester and Wolves are the teams with the most to be worried about. I actually don't see Everton badly struggling, I just think mid-table for them. Villa are a bit more of an enigma.

 

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On 21/09/2022 at 18:16, CaaC (John) said:

I will go by what I picked in Stans PL Prediction Thread.

1. Spurs
2. Man City
3. Liverpool
4. Man United
-------
5. Chelsea
6. West Ham
-------
7. Arsenal
---------------
18. Bournemouth
19. Nottingham Forest
20. Brentford

Nearly everyone was predicting a City/Liverpool battle for the top spot but I will pick Spurs to come good as they have a serial winner as a coach in Conte.

If United's ET Hag keeps Maguire out of the first 11 and doesn't give him the captain's armband back then I fancy us just squeezing into the 4th spot.

John you know I love you but that is the worst leagie table prediction  I have ever seen xD

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I think Nottingham forest and Bournemouth go down. After that I dont know. Would of gone for fulham  but they look good. I don't think it will be Leicester or west ham I think they have good squads and if they don't start winning a managerial change will probably see either stay up. Newcastle should get 7th at least. I did fancy them to finish above us but we have been good so far this season. Of topic but I think spurs may get second. I think Chelsea will decline now over  the coming seasons. I'm not fishing I just dont think their owners seem to know what they are doing. 

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On 21/09/2022 at 21:01, Dr. Gonzo said:

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting about the mid-season World Cup that FIFA has gifted us :thumbdown: - cunts.

Okay then I guess we'd have to move my deadline for when Rodgers has to be out for you to be alright to November then. My worry is if he's left too long to oversee the rot happening at Leicester, you keep seeing the same shit performances and results and it starts to negatively impact too many of your players confidence in a way I'm not sure can be turned around in half a season.

Having said that, stranger things have happened than a quick turnaround of fortunes after someone's been at the helm for too long and entrusted to stop a rot they started.

Honestly, I can sort of understand the thinking of the Leicester board. Let's not forget: you're not too far removed from when you won the FA Cup. You've still got good players. It's easy for owners of a club to think Rodgers has the unlimited potential to grow a club - Rodgers is probably telling them that every time he talks to them (because he lives up his own arse) and he's had a decent track record with Leicester before he's lost the plot.

If you look at it from the angle of: he's been at 5 clubs now and only really lost the plot once - he doesn't have a big track record of things going tits up... it doesn't look so bad for him. If you look at it from the angle of: at the one club where things went very stale and he had absolutely no answers other than throwing his players under the bus and refusing to take any responsibility - and he's moved before that could happen anywhere else... I think it paints a pretty different picture.

And even then, I'm not sure that description is that accurate because I think he ran out of ideas pretty quickly at Reading and was sacked there pretty promptly before making his way to Swansea.

I think Rodgers is a decent short-term manager, but he's not someone you want overseeing a long-term project and once he's out of ideas at a club it's time for him to be let go promptly. He didn't build his best sides (Swansea & Suarez-era Liverpool & Leicester), he did add to them, but he didn't build them. And once it was time to properly rebuild for the future... he just doesn't know what to do next. He'll try square pegs in round holes and then blame the square pegs for not fitting into those holes.

Idk if you've got a DOF or not... but for your sake, I hope he's a good one because I think he's got quite a bit of work to do to try to salvage this season for you. He's got to find the right manager to replace Rodgers and work with your current squad... as well as prepare for the signings of the future, because the last few transfer windows have been quite poor for you in all honestly.

We have a deadly combination of what I'm increasingly to believe a naive owner, and a manager who is a master of spin. I think our owners heart is in the right place and I don't like slating him, but I do think he's demonstrated some naivety since taking over and I think you're starting to see the price being paid for it now.

I've no doubt Rodgers will get a decent job again once he leaves us. I said it in the summer that he's no fool with these kinds of things and he's a master of framing a situation to protect his own reputation. He's already got a substantial proportion of the footballing world convinced that he hasn't been backed here so even if we go down, he will escape blame in many people's eyes. Now while that is true for this season, it conveniently misses out the part where he's a large reason for that. Last summer was the biggest net spend in our history. For that we got Soumare, Vestergaard, Daka, Lookman (on loan) and Bertrand, although while this isn't so eye catching the main reason is that we usually make a big sale and last summer, we didn't. So he has been backed, and he ultimately failed to deliver. It wasn't a disaster of a season but it was underwhelming and the big takeaway for me was that his time should be coming to an end fairly soon.

We have a director of football but I've never been convinced by him to be honest. The more time goes on the more I look and think people like him were overcredited for the work of previous regimes. He's been here for years but he's ultimately overseen all of this, and if he was up to much we would never have allowed things to get to this situation, nor would we have been foolish enough to give a man with a pretty shoddy track record of 'building' a club near enough free reigns to do so. We have clawed back some of that power from him I feel, but it might be too late. I don't think we're a big enough or powerful enough club to withstand the hit of such shoddy recruitment, and while people point to last year I think it started before then. I don't think we've had a better than average transfer window since summer 2018. Some successes within it but more failures than successes. I've a strong belief that a teams recruitment dictates probably 90% of their progress and their managers a part of the remaining 10%, unless you have a truly elite manager like Klopp or Guardiola. Well our board thought we had one and they've paid the price.

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On 21/09/2022 at 22:17, RandoEFC said:

We don't really deserve to be mentioned in that category and won't be back in it for at least a couple more seasons, maybe longer. We've signed a lot of players this summer in order to re-establish a balanced squad, which I think has been largely successful, so credit to the club for that, but in order to do so we have had to compromise on quality in some areas. We've ended up with less players that worry me out on the pitch but also less players that I'd be worried about losing to a big club now that Richarlison has left.

Back on topic, Newcastle do seem to have a certain steadiness to their performance levels over the course of more than half a season now. Brighton should be near the top of this group unless they have a massive drop-off without Potter. Palace and Brighton seem to "look" the best out of the remaining teams but only have 1 and 2 wins respectively as of yet. Palace have played three of the top six to be fair though. The rest, uninspiring. If I forced to put money on it now, those four teams would probably be my most likely to fill 7th-10th.

I still can't see Leicester getting relegated. It's hard to identify obvious alternatives though. Bournemouth are your obvious pick but they've actually picked up some decent points despite having a pretty horrible start facing Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City in their first seven. I still think they'll ultimately struggle. Fulham seem to have something about them though, I don't think they'll stay up where they are but they have a good chance of hovering just above the scrap for me. I'd say the same about Leeds potentially. Forest should be really worried in my opinion. Four points from the first five games including Spurs and City looked alright but the back to back home defeats to Bournemouth and Fulham really put a different complexion on things as does West Ham's poor form when you factor in that's their only victory. West Ham themselves should be fine. Enough quality in that squad to put enough points on the board even if they end up having to sack Moyes to kickstart their season.

If you're a Leicester fan and things don't improve, you're probably looking at the Everton, Wolves, Southampton, Leeds, Aston Villa group and hoping that one of them starts looking really and consistently shit but all of those sides seem to have at least some grit and consistency about them to pick up results. I can't believe they haven't kicked Rodgers out already really looking at the last two defeats and the manner of them. A poor result against Forest next could be disastrous for them.

That above all is what scares me. You haven't got the Norwich / Watford safety net. I think Bournemouth will go and I think Forest probably will too, but even those two I put a level above Watford or Norwich. You made a point a while ago about us which was true, in that we've timed our good years almost perfectly. Well I fear we may have timed our bad year equally as badly. I really don't see anybody obvious dropping. I think if we didn't have such credit in the bank many would write us off.

I keep flicking between thinking this has all the hallmarks of a relegation season and that we've got enough quality in the side to pull well clear. I think what's so infuriating about him not going over this break is our next five games are excellent. They would've been perfect for a new man to come in and pull us well clear. Now though all I think we're going to do is hand Forest and Bournemouth, the only two sides the bookies deem likelier to drop than us, extra points and put ourselves further in the shit. They've massively dropped the ball here. That Forest game could be the most toxic of all time for us I think. If we collapse there it's going to be really, really ugly. Frankly they deserve it.

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I think three main things.

1. Poor recruitment but largely putting players on silly wages - we overpay our squad fillers to a point we can't shift them.

2. Covid has probably hit us as hard as anybody because Asian travel still hasn't fully returned to normal, and our owners' wealth was primarily made through duty free in Thailand.

3. Infrastructure improvements like the training ground and stadium expansion. We have been weirdly shit at football since that training ground was built mind.

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45 minutes ago, Dan said:

I think three main things.

1. Poor recruitment but largely putting players on silly wages - we overpay our squad fillers to a point we can't shift them.

2. Covid has probably hit us as hard as anybody because Asian travel still hasn't fully returned to normal, and our owners' wealth was primarily made through duty free in Thailand.

3. Infrastructure improvements like the training ground and stadium expansion. We have been weirdly shit at football since that training ground was built mind.

1. surprises me with Leicester due to the long running reputation for food recruitment that underpinned the last decade of progress. We're just coming out of that difficult patch ourselves by getting rid of Delph, Tosun, Gomes and some others off the wage bill but it takes time for the reasons you've said.

2. is unfortunate and 3. is one of those things clubs have to go through which is quite cyclical. Got to take those hits every so often to maintain good facilities.

I was under the impression it was more of an FFP thing than actual lack of money which is why I was a bit confused because Leicester have signed some duds of late but not close to the scale I'd have thought necessary to put you in our boots from last summer and the start of this one.

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