Premier League 2024/25: Hamstrung Race

[Red London]

Will people call it "expected" and a "horrible mismanagement" if Liverpool attackers start dropping like flies to injury in the next few weeks? They have a similar amount of bodies upfront and from what I saw a similar distribution of minutes, does that mean is it inevitable? Or maybe there is a certain element of luck involved

Don't get me wrong, there is a decent amount of human error involved in our crisis, but to pretend it was inevitable or completely predictable is silly to me.

Keep in mind the accumulated fatigue is a huge snowball growing from the start of the season and not of our own making entirely, we lost Merino to a definitionally unlucky injury and then Ødegaard for a while, which meant we had to keep using players like Trossard and Havertz at 8 when they would normally be rested, which in turn made us overreliant on the rest of the attackers. I'd argue a part of the snowball was getting Sterling instead of a player we trusted to rotate and getting rid of both of Ode's backups, which is where the human error comes in, but let's not go full captain hindsight and pretend there's no luck involved in these situations.

Nuance and logic? Nooo please, that’s like garlic to a vampire for some of the posters in the last few pages.

 

[High Elbow]

In 2008 we had a thin squad. We were always an injury away from disaster. I.e. Eduardo who was the most clinical cf I'd seen since Wright.

Rob holding was the reason why we bottled it a couple of years ago. We completely had to change our style play without saliba and couldn't play a high line. Arteta wasn't able to adapt to the loss of Salina, but holding was always a liability in the back 4.

Is he really though? Did we not go 2-0 up at anfield only to forget that we could actually play football and actually lucky to walk away with a point? Did saka not miss a penalty the next against west ham in another game we should've easily won? Did we not have saliba when we confortably lost 3-1 to city at home? I know holding got toyed with by halaand at the etihad but they were so much better than us that game you guys really think saliba woud've made a difference in the result? Is saliba the difference between us winning and losing 3-0 at home to brighton to put the final nail in our title challenge? Come one guys..I see this argument brought up all the time and i just think it's ridiculous

 

[Red London]

The amount of strawmanning I’ve seen by various posters over the last few weeks has been embarrassing.

 

[Makingtrax]

Is he really though? Did we not go 2-0 up at anfield only to forget that we could actually play football and actually lucky to walk away with a point? Did saka not miss a penalty the next against west ham in another game we should've easily won? Did we not have saliba when we confortably lost 3-1 to city at home? I know holding got toyed with by halaand at the etihad but they were so much better than us that game you guys really think saliba woud've made a difference in the result? Is saliba the difference between us winning and losing 3-0 at home to brighton to put the final nail in our title challenge? Come one guys..I see this argument brought up all the time and i just think it's ridiculous

Fans substituted Holding for bottling.

 

[Hleb's Sirush]

It's not even hard to find stuff to criticise Arteta for. As a relatively newbie to management he has made plenty of mistakes. But no, some posters would rather change the definition of a word so they can use that to criticise him or come up with contradictory accusations that can't both be true.

 

[High Elbow]

Fans substituted Holding for bottling.

We were just up against one of the greatest teams to ever exist who with a bit of luck probably have another CL or 2 to their name. They held their nerve through numerous challenges that went right down to the wire from liverpool and arsenal. We simply didnt have the nous, experience or personell to handle the pressure. Sure, a degree of bottling also helped but i think thats taking away from the ridicoulous standards that city have set over the years

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Of course we should all ignore it, let me translate your post according to your definition:
"We finished in 2nd place on the last 2 seasons"

That's it, that's how little substance your post has when your definitions are this stupid. The above is just a statement in fact we all agree on, it says nothing about the mentality of the team because in your mind every single second place is a bottler no matter how good they were mentally.

Now we're extolling the mental toughness of these weaklings?!!

I wouldn't trust them in a two-horse race with Accrington Stanley, let alone Liverpool

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Let's try this again.

DEFINE bottling, then APPLY that definition.

Sorry, boyo. I'm not quite up to the level of @A_G PT yet.

 

[Makingtrax]

We had a game in hand

But it was April not mid February. That’s a huge difference in bottle job statistics.

 

[Gooner Zig]

But it was April not mid February. That’s a huge difference in bottle job statistics.

Would agree with you if we hadn't lost Tomi and Saliba for the rest of that season at the same time and not have to play Holdini.

 

[Makingtrax]

Would agree with you if we hadn't lost Tomi and Saliba for the rest of that season at the same time and not have to play Holdini.

We had a greater injury record in 15/16 and you were frothing bro. Can’t remember you once excusing our 2nd place to injuries. Maybe my memory is the problem!

 

[Dennis_Bergkamp_10]

Talking about the biggest bottle jobs of them all and to give us some hope, this was the table in April 2013/2014. And people call us bottle jobs after a 16-1-1 run

Liverpool	35	52	80
Chelsea	35	41	75
Man City	34	56	74

 

[Sanchez11]

Talking about the biggest bottle jobs of them all and to give us some hope, this was the table in April 2013/2014. And people call us bottle jobs after a 16-1-1 run

Liverpool	35	52	80
Chelsea	35	41	75
Man City	34	56	74

This is why i want us todo it, to shut these idiots up.

 

[Sanchez11]

Who is opening the West Ham game thread?

 

[MikelHadADream]

Talking about the biggest bottle jobs of them all and to give us some hope, this was the table in April 2013/2014. And people call us bottle jobs after a 16-1-1 run

Liverpool	35	52	80
Chelsea	35	41	75
Man City	34	56	74

Liverpool just had to avoid defeat to a depleted Chelsea and they’d have won the league.

 

[AberGooner]

Talking about the biggest bottle jobs of them all and to give us some hope, this was the table in April 2013/2014. And people call us bottle jobs after a 16-1-1 run

Liverpool	35	52	80
Chelsea	35	41	75
Man City	34	56	74

Ah brilliant memories. Any excuse to see one of the greatest PL moments of all time again, never gets old.

 

[db10_therza]

We had a greater injury record in 15/16 and you were frothing bro. Can’t remember you once excusing our 2nd place to injuries. Maybe my memory is the problem!

Relevance to an objective assessment of what’s happening now = None

 

[Dennis_Bergkamp_10]

Liverpool just had to avoid defeat to a depleted Chelsea and they’d have won the league.

Chelsea that played a B-team without Cech en Terry, naming Thomas Kalas in the ****ing starting line-up.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

I wouldn't even be paying too much mind to what Liverpool do.

We have to be focused solely on ourselves and we cannot afford to be dropping ANY points against lesser sides. That'll be a killer for us.

The match against Liverpool won't mean anything unless we get there with basically a 100% record.

 

[Sanchez11]

The next 5 games are crucial