Man City desperately need a proper Fernandinho replacement. Their midfield is fragile in his absence.

Liverpool have only conceded 7 league goals in 19 games - to be fair, that's impressive 

The Christmas period matches are getting as bad as it gets for us.  The only team that I can tolerate to win the league if it is not us, Man City, is going into a tailspin, leaving our two hated rivals, Tottenham and Liverpool, to fight it out for the title.  God, I cannot stand either team winning the league!    Also, ManU has awoken from their slumber, and if we do not get back on track, they will catch us for 4th or 5th by April.

I just hate this.

Edited December 26, 20187 yr by Phillip

1 hour ago, just said:

Tottenham ....... bollocks.

Never been more worried about Spurs in 30 years. If they win the league I would have to sell my house and move far, far away.

I agree - this is like the ballad of the bad guys! Bring back Chris Armstrong...

Even if we win tonight we're f**king 11 points behind Liverpool

I suppose that, the way the world is turning, we are heading towards Satan's victory

It's starting to look inevitable isn't it? Unless Liverpool have a dip like City are having, I just don't see them losing it from here. If a team gains a lead at Christmas in the Premier League, they tend to go on and win it.

Thank God I have a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of rum, and the love of a good woman

 

4 minutes ago, Phillip said:

The Christmas period matches are getting as bad as it gets for us.  The only team that I can tolerate to win the league if it is not us, Man City, is going into a tailspin, leaving our two hated rivals, Tottenham and Liverpool, to fight it out for the title.  God, I cannot st?and either team winning the league!    Also, ManU h?as awoken from their slumber, and if we do not get back on track, they will catch us for 4th or 5th by April.???

I just hate this.?

If United beat Spurs I'll start to take them seriously, but at the moment they're enjoying a new manager bounce and beating the likes of Cardiff and Huddersfield, both relegation candidates. More worried about Emery getting the chequebook out in Jan and buying a couple of centre halves.

Last time this happened we could at least rely on Leicester - let's be 'avin' you!

14 minutes ago, Charles Ryder said:

Looking like the long wait could well be over for the red scouse. 7 points clear of Citeh with the chance to extend it to 10 with a win at the Emptihad week after next.

 

Plenty of time left for them to bottle it, we saw what happened the last time they were close to a maiden Premier League title.

Even 10 points is nothing though. It only takes a couple injuries/suspensions or loss of form, lose a game, draw another one or two, then all of a sudden the race is back open. Cannot predict anything in football, and with the CL returning Liverpool will be tied up with that. I reckon City may take their eye off the league a little though and aim for CL.

5 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

It's starting to look inevitable isn't it? Unless Liverpool have a dip like City are having, I just don't see them losing it from here. If a team gains a lead at Christmas in the Premier League, they tend to go on and win it.

I heard that this morning, but then they want on to say except Liverpool lol. Would be incredible if they bottled the league if they beat City next week. 

None of this would have happened if the ref had allowed Everton's perfectly legitimate second goal

1 minute ago, enigma said:

Even 10 points is nothing though. It only takes a couple injuries/suspensions or loss of form, lose a game, draw another one or two, then all of a sudden the race is back open. Cannot predict anything in football, and with the CL returning Liverpool will be tied up with that. I reckon City may take their eye off the league a little though and aim for CL.

 

I'm always wary about CL first round predictions as so much can change between now and Feb. But Bayern's capacity for improvement is vastly superior to that of Schalke. Ditch Kovac, convince Jupp to come back for one last stint, make a few January purchases... 

Basically I can see a scenario where Liverpool are out of the CL at least a round earlier than City. 

Arsenal ahead thanks to Auba.

Arsenal one up already..........

Just woke up as the ball rolled in to the back of the net for 1-1. Time to see if I’m magic...

Come on Brighton 1-1

On 22/12/2018 at 13:27, Londonisblue said:

The despair on this forum is sometimes appalling ! We're halfway through the season, only 8 and 7 points behind dippers and sihtty, and considering they basically use cheatcodes at this point (unlimited cash, media support and refs going their way for both of them, although the dippers' deepthroat from media is worse than for sihtty), I think the team has been pretty good so far imo, despite our problems (no strikers, some subpar performances, the 2nd half recess, kovavic and his injuries etc..) . Although it is very likely either of them win the league, let's remember one or two things :

1- up until the 90th min, we would have been the first team to beat dippers in the PL and are the only ones to have defeated sihtty (and also the only english team this year to have defeated dippers in the league cup).

2 - A seven or eight point gap after 17/18 games has never been synonymous with the PL being over for us (remember 2011? Although Luiz cost us the game at OT back then, we had a chance to win the PL back to back after having been something like 12 or 15 points behind manure in MARCH of this year ...).

3- The team is playing good and at times fantastic offensive football, the results are more than decent, players seem to like this Sarri's football and we're still in the Europa League and favourites to win it and clinch a 6th european/international trophy, which would see us closing the gap with manure's total of 8 international trophies...

 

I totally get the hate for dippers and sihtty of course, but we'll be fine since none of these schmucks will overtake us in terms of PL won since the inception of the PL in 1992 (after all, it would only be dippers' first PL and Sihtty's fourth while we got 5 PL). Plus, that terrible gap of 7/8 points might be a thing of the past circa march when dippers would get stuffed (hopefully) or would get a hard time vs Bayern in the Ro16 of the UCL at least and Sihtty losing steam in the league because of it (or who knows, Schalke might actually show up).

Of course, there's some issues that need to be addressed :

We might/may miss top 4 if we don't have proper strikers or a goalscoring false 9 in addition to Hazard ! Otherwise, we may/might get fcuked. Pedro, Willian, Hazard, Morata, Giroud ... Amongst those 5, there will be two losers. If Hazard is obviously our best player, Giroud and Morata have been poor recently, Willian has been faithful to what he is : fantastic at times, poor at other times ... Also, Pedro seems ok but the dude is ageing ... We'll see.

Also, we must sort the midifield situation : too many midfield for 3 spots (Kanté, Jorginho, Kovavic, RLC, Barkley). Although the first two seem to be undisputed starters, the other 3 need to be sorted out imo. I'm not yet entirely convinced by Kovavic, Barkley has been going up and down in terms of form and RLC is still a young gun despite showing great things ...

 

But overall, imo, considering it's not 2007 anymore, that we don't have our old guard playing anymore + we've been restructuring more or less since the UCL win in 2012 and did more than ok by winning 2 PL, 1 LC, 1 UEL, 1 FA cup since 2012, I think that Patience is absolutely key !!! For sure, dippers could splash the money 100 times more than we did, and the same goes for sihtty, they will never be blamed and even be praised for that ! I think it is safe to say to avoid british media as a whole and only concentrate on paper media or other media sources to avoid becoming increasingly frustrated by all that sihtshow and maybe it's time to promote our own media like other fans have done ... Overall, we should all keep calm and appreciate what we have, while understanding that in order to claim the big prizes, we need to confide in Sarri and should give him all discretion as far as football is concerned ... Also, the board should stop thinking it's 2007 and realise that Chelsea is not, despite exceptionnal performances in very recent times, a big player à la Sihtty or Dippers ...

 

On 22/12/2018 at 13:27, Londonisblue said:

Patience is key guys !

I"ll add one or two things to the original post, but this post is very necessary for the current depression going on the forum .

 

 

Oh dear liverpool are 7 ahead? What have we done. Beating city has broken them. 2019 is going to be a horrible football year.

Still we have them on the 13th April, it would be nice to take 4 points off them in the season they won.

f**k me just saw that dive by salah......how the f**k did he get a pen for that? Lets see if he gets banned, lets see if motd brings it uo like they do with us. We would never ever get that.

56 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Just woke up as the ball rolled in to the back of the net for 1-1. Time to see if I’m magic...

I’m not magic 

Arsenal drops pts......lets see if we can take advantage.

3 hours ago, atomis said:

Arsenal drops pts......lets see if we can take advantage.

We did