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Serious relegation fears

If Chelsea do come back from their poor start, to secure top 4, they will be the first team in Premier League history to have had such a poor start to the season and yet still gone on to secure a top 4 place at the end of the season.

I can't see Chelsea finishing top 4. I think that their is a rotten core to their side. I think that a team cannot have a start as poor as Chelsea have had and then suddenly click their fingers and have league winning form. I certainly would expect them to recover, and have something of a winning streak, I just think that they'll struggle to leave all the problems behind and that this will keep dragging them back. I expect that they'll finish 6th this season.
 
SUIYHA said:
Already been picked up on by others in the thread - but that was a close two-legged tie that they narrowly won against our reserves. If we didn't have a cup final three days later (or if Soldado wasn't a bottle job) I have little doubt we'd have beaten them.
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I think that you are missing the point. @Gutter Boy has decided that we need to concentrate on the cups which means that he will do down league performance and the chances of qualifying for the Champions League through it at every opportunity. Facts or balanced opinion be damned.
 
El Guepardo said:
If Chel53a do come back from their poor start, to secure top 4, they will be the first team in Premier League history to have had such a poor start to the season and yet still gone on to secure a top 4 place at the end of the season.

I can't see Chel53a finishing top 4. I think that their is a rotten core to their side. I think that a team cannot have a start as poor as Chel53a have had and then suddenly click their fingers and have league winning form. I certainly would expect them to recover, and have something of a winning streak, I just think that they'll struggle to leave all the problems behind and that this will keep dragging them back. I expect that they'll finish 6th this season.
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The main reason for the "no team has ever secured 4th after a start like this" stat is that it's so extremely rare to see the top 4/super clubs start this poorly. Not that they're not capable of picking up enough points from here on in.

With 27 games to go Chelsea would need a point average of 2.19 ppg for the rest of the season to get to 70 points. If 67 points ends up being enough they would need 2.07 ppg.

For comparison Chelsea averaged 2.29 ppg last season when winning the title. City in second averaged 2.08. Season before that 3 clubs averaged 2.16 or better.

They still have a very strong group of players. If Mourinho or someone else can turn it around for them this season I don't know. But I wouldn't write them off just yet, even though they have looked awful.
 
braineclipse said:
The main reason for the "no team has ever secured 4th after a start like this" stat is that it's so extremely rare to see the top 4/super clubs start this poorly. Not that they're not capable of picking up enough points from here on in.

With 27 games to go Chel53a would need a point average of 2.19 ppg for the rest of the season to get to 70 points. If 67 points ends up being enough they would need 2.07 ppg.

For comparison Chel53a averaged 2.29 ppg last season when winning the title. City in second averaged 2.08. Season before that 3 clubs averaged 2.16 or better.

They still have a very strong group of players. If Mourinho or someone else can turn it around for them this season I don't know. But I wouldn't write them off just yet, even though they have looked awful.
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Exactly. They're 9 points off 4th with 27 games to go. Hardly out of contention and one should not assume they will continue on the same form, especially with the squad they have and the financial clout to bring in players in Jan to boost them.
 
Ok, so you believe that from this unstable, poor performing Chelsea, we will suddenly see league winning form? From a Chelsea team who have lost their talisman, as Terry has deteriorated due to age, and a side that seem to lack real depth in terms of squad quality. A side whose players are all playing under their ability will suddenly click?

Very likely that they'll get a run of good results. I just doubt that they have the character to bounce back sufficiently this season. Especially as Costa is playing the game of an oaf this season. So no reliable striker and a defence without cohesion and without their number one goalkeeper.

There are too many question marks over this Chelsea side. Then again the clams won the CL against all odds, so maybe I'm wrong and jumping on the 'all is wrong with Chelsea' band wagon. We'll see at Christmas where things stand and know either way where their future lays.
 
El Guepardo said:
Ok, so you believe that from this unstable, poor performing Chel53a, we will suddenly see league winning form? From a Chel53a team who have lost their talisman, as Terry has deteriorated due to age, and a side that seem to lack real depth in terms of squad quality. A side whose players are all playing under their ability will suddenly click?

Very likely that they'll get a run of good results. I just doubt that they have the character to bounce back sufficiently this season. Especially as Costa is playing the game of an oaf this season. So no reliable striker and a defence without cohesion and without their number one goalkeeper.

There are too many question marks over this Chel53a side. Then again the clams won the CL against all odds, so maybe I'm wrong and jumping on the 'all is wrong with Chel53a' band wagon. We'll see at Christmas where things stand and know either way where their future lays.
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Agreed that Christmas-ish is a much better time to start casting judgement... :)

I don't think it's likely that Chelsea will all of a sudden click and start performing at a title winning rate. But I don't think it's impossible for them to start grinding out some results, get a bit of confidence and build from there. Either with Mourinho or with someone else.
 
galeforce said:
personally, I think yes Chel53a will have a good run of results, not enough to catch city, united and Ar5ena1, but more than enough to get ahead of us, leicester, west ham, southampton and liverpool whilst we trip over ourselves and each other
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What is it about Manchester United that convinces everyone that they'll be top 3? Sure, they did it last season but again, are they really so convincing as to be almost guaranteed a place in everyone's top 3 teams?

For me, top two will be Arsenal & Emirates Marketing Project, sadly likely in that order. Then it will be a fight between Manchester United, Liverpool, ourselves and one other..be it an outsider, or more likely Chelsea. I feel as if people are arguing based on history rather than observing current performances. Am I the only person who thinks like this?
 
El Guepardo said:
What is it about Manchester United that convinces everyone that they'll be top 3? Sure, they did it last season but again, are they really so convincing as to be almost guaranteed a place in everyone's top 3 teams?

For me, top two will be Ar5ena1 & Emirates Marketing Project, sadly likely in that order. Then it will be a fight between Manchester United, Liverpool, ourselves and one other..be it an outsider, or more likely Chel53a. I feel as if people are arguing based on history rather than observing current performances. Am I the only person who thinks like this?
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I don't know, but I'm guessing people expect them to get better as their new players settle in. Meanwhile they've picked up points whilst not being particularly good.

Not a foregone conclusion that they will gel though. And LvG is coming under some pressure from the fans and he always has it in him to get into drawn-out conflicts with players and everyone else in a radius about the size of earth.

For me at least City and Arsenal are looking almost certain. Much closer after that...
 
I agree that City and Arsenal will be the top two.

Chelsea are showing no signs of turning their current form around but it would be very very sexy of us to underestimate them. They are currently only 6 points behind us, yes I know we have a game in hand but we can't guarantee we'll win that. They could halve our lead if they beat us next time we play.

As always we need to focus on our own games and getting as many points as we can, but when Chelsea look so brick, United look so mediocre and Liverpool having already dropped a fair few points it would be really sexy of us not to take advantage of other teams poor seasons and miss the opportunity of 4th again
 
I said, in another thread, a month ago or so that Champions League places, particularly 4th, was well up for grabs this season. Some people jumped on me and said that i should calm down etc etc but here we all our talking about it now. The league is really open this season and third place is the goal we should set. I can't see us stopping City and the Gooners but we should shoot for 3rd. It's doable. Very doable.
 
You know what really catches my eye when looking at Spurs at 5th in the PL table tonight? It's the +10 point goal differential.

I can't remember when our GD has been that high, even when our place in the table has been. I could be wrong, it could be my failing memory. And I know its down to a few lopsided results, but also to some strong defensive performances. But whatever the table looks like at the end of the season, I'd love to see that stat stay in or near positive double digits.
 
7percent said:
I agree that City and Ar5ena1 will be the top two.

Chel53a are showing no signs of turning their current form around but it would be very very sexy of us to underestimate them. They are currently only 6 points behind us, yes I know we have a game in hand but we can't guarantee we'll win that. They could halve our lead if they beat us next time we play.

As always we need to focus on our own games and getting as many points as we can, but when Chel53a look so bricke, United look so mediocre and Liverpool having already dropped a fair few points it would be really sexy of us not to take advantage of other teams poor seasons and miss the opportunity of 4th again
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Well, we won the game in hand, so that's a step in the right direction. 9 points above Chelsea now. I think Liverpool represent a bigger danger under Klopp, but not sure that they necessarily have the squad balance right just yet, at least to achieve the right results under Klopp's tactics. Whereas, our team seems to be balanced to Pochettino's liking predominantly as he has had time in charge to shuffle the pack in to his favour.

Still a long way to go but we can do this. Seems like the players believe too. If we can get a result against Arsenal, then that will be a large step in the right direction.
 
Dr Rosenrosen said:
You know what really catches my eye when looking at Spurs at 5th in the PL table tonight? It's the +10 point goal differential.

I can't remember when our GD has been that high, even when our place in the table has been. I could be wrong, it could be my failing memory. And I know its down to a few lopsided results, but also to some strong defensive performances. But whatever the table looks like at the end of the season, I'd love to see that stat stay in or near positive double digits.
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Agreed. Unless our memories are both failing on the same thing it's been quite a while since we've been doing this well with our GD.

Most good teams with solid GD have so partly because of a few lopsided results. "Putting teams to the sword" is something we've been lacking in recent years. It's almost become a cliche that we're never comfortable in the last 10-15 minutes regardless of what happens before that, but at least in some games this season that's no longer the case.
 
glorygloryeze said:
Please, MODS...lock this thread until February.

PLEASE
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We're 5th. A point off 4th and 4th out of the clubs expected to fight for a CL spot to the end. We're on a 10 game unbeaten run without having been particularly lucky or had a particularly soft fixture list.

Why shouldn't we talk about top 4? I understand that it's partly in jest, but it just seems to belittle us to say that we can't talk about it as if it will jinx us because we're such super underdogs.
 
I would prefer to target 75 points which would be our most successful season ever points wise in the PL. If we can achieve that then we'll likely get CL and if not then so be it, we'd still have had a good season.
 
P.D. said:
I would prefer to target 75 points which would be our most successful season ever points wise in the PL. If we can achieve that then we'll likely get CL and if not then so be it, we'd still have had a good season.
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I agree... if we keep accumulating points as we have for the first eleven games of the season we would be on about 69 points. We need to accumulate an average of 2.03 points a game to hit the 75 mark so we need to improve a tad, but 75 points would be an excellent target
 
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