Just read no team has ever finished above 5th after only 8 points from 1st 8 games.

Really worrying statistic although, has a team with as much quality as ours ever started so badly?

I think arsenal, United and city will be impossible to catch at this point. I'm hoping Liverpools new gaffer picks up from where rodgers left and they have a poor season. It's going to be difficult but not impossible to pinch 4th place, we realistically need to put a decent winning streak together of 4 or 5 wins, to put us back in contention.

Guess we'll just have to go and win the European cup then

Guess we'll just have to go and win the European cup then

That would be fantastic!

Now the board have backed Jose, I'm certain we'll finish inside the top 20.

Everyone here talking about "top four" if England lose the CL spot (looking likely right now!) Do we lose it for next year?

 

If so it's top three we're after.

Everyone here talking about "top four" if England lose the CL spot (looking likely right now!) Do we lose it for next year?

 

If so it's top three we're after.

 

It will take effect in the 2017/18 season if we do lose it.

I voted for top half at the moment but if things pick up and whatever problems we have are solved, hopefully there will be a couple of big signings in the next transfer window. I'm hoping for another decent striker and another go at Stones and or Pogba. If this happens we should make top 6. Oh and we'll win the CL so league position wont matter too much !!

As a fan I am not worried whether or not we make the CL.....it would be nice but why is it everyone thinks that we have a given right to be in the top 4? If Roman wants a top 4 spot every year then he needs to look at the Arsenal model, win something now and then but focus on the top 4; winning the league or a trophy every year for any of the top teams isn't realistic any longer...so get used to it. Maybe just qualifying for the CL has now become the focus of the top clubs...actually winning the league has become secondary and a 'nice to have'.  We are not the only big money spenders any longer, but with the players we have we should be able to make the top half...put this down as a bad season, learn from it and move on...

Top 4 is realistically the target now and I am sure the board have said as much to Jose.

Anything less would be catastrophic failure of David Moyes proportions.

 

It looks bleak now because there is nothing positive to cling onto. The performances have been as bad as the results would suggest and it appears to be getting worse.

 

If we can string a few league wins together then even a title challenge could be back on; the problem for me is not the points difference as it's really not that much, it's the fact we don't look like getting any better.

Edited October 6, 201510 yr by mclovin83

Top 4 is realistically the target now and I am sure the board have said as much to Jose.

Anything less would be catastrophic failure of David Moyes proportions.

It looks bleak now because there is nothing positive to cling onto. The performances have been as bad as the results would suggest and it appears to be getting worse.

If we can string a few league wins together then even a title challenge could be back on; the problem for me is not the points difference as it's really not that much, it's the fact we don't look like getting any better.

Agreed there

Ever the optimist I went for winners.

I don't think we have improved much on last season, we weren't great at all toward the end, I honestly think we will struggle for 4th place, but maybe we'll win the champions league again :p

Of the 23 teams in Premier League history to have claimed eight points from their opening eight games, 12 have gone on to be relegated to the second tier of English football.

 

On a more optimistic note for Chelsea fans, the Blues would make history this season if they were to finish in the Champions League spaces come May.

 

Everton's fifth-place finish in 2008/09 season, having begun the season in identical fashion to Chelsea this year, is the closest any team has come after such a start, while the 63 points they gained is greatest a team in Chelsea's position have mustered.

 

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12038/10019811/martin-tylers-stats-what-can-chelsea-realistically-achieve-this-season

Let's fluke the Champions League and not worry about league position. The rule is back, isn't it?

As a fan I am not worried whether or not we make the CL.....it would be nice but why is it everyone thinks that we have a given right to be in the top 4? If Roman wants a top 4 spot every year then he needs to look at the Arsenal model, win something now and then but focus on the top 4; winning the league or a trophy every year for any of the top teams isn't realistic any longer...so get used to it. Maybe just qualifying for the CL has now become the focus of the top clubs...actually winning the league has become secondary and a 'nice to have'.  We are not the only big money spenders any longer, but with the players we have we should be able to make the top half...put this down as a bad season, learn from it and move on...

 

Think from the the players percpective.. hazard was on the brink of joining spurs..  mu couldn't attract top players, when they did, they got lucky with mata and dimaria but we know it's more like a circumstances driven and payiing over the odd.. maybe ya should be worried a little..

 

As for the God given right, having the 1 of the best squad and so called 1 of the best manager in the world, we're expected to at the very least make top 4.. 

Let's fluke the Champions League and not worry about league position. The rule is back, isn't it?

It never went anywhere

Have they changed the rule regarding a side finishing outside the top four but winning the Champions League? As in, is what happened in 2012, when we screwed Tottenham out of a CL place in 2012 despite finishing sixth still the rule?

Have they changed the rule regarding a side finishing outside the top four but winning the Champions League? As in, is what happened in 2012, when we screwed Tottenham out of a CL place in 2012 despite finishing sixth still the rule?

 

Think 4th placed and the winners go into now and a side from a league with low points (however they work it out) misses out. 

Think 4th placed and the winners go into now and a side from a league with low points (however they work it out) misses out.

Yup that rule actually came in the year after we won it. It's funny cause now it would take an Englush side to win the CL and an English side to also win the EL that wasn't in the top four to take away the CL spot from the 4th placed team.

I was under the impression the rules were changed after 2005 when Liverpool won it despite coming fifth, and the Premier League were given an extra CL place to avoid an intensifying of already unbearable smugness from the Liverpool fans if they won the Champions League and were able to screw Everton out of a spot.

 

Just read through the rulebook, turns out you're right:

 

Article 3.08: Exceptionally, an association may be represented by five clubs in the competition if the UEFA Champions League and/or UEFA Europa League titleholder does not also qualify through its domestic championship.

About 7th or 8th. 

 

Optimism, Val! Only seven points off fourth as it is.

Yup that rule actually came in the year after we won it. It's funny cause now it would take an Englush side to win the CL and an English side to also win the EL that wasn't in the top four to take away the CL spot from the 4th placed team.

 

Imagine the faces of Arsenal fans if that happens!

 

(If they win their 4th place trophy again)