3 minutes ago, dkw said:

As for the 21 version trashing us, I can only imagine this is some kind of hilarious joke.

Why would that be a joke? We were the best team in Europe in 2021.

We aren't anywhere near that level now.

1 hour ago, Droy said:

It's a step back though.

Unless you can control the possession and thus the games you will not be competing for the biggest trophies in this day and age. That's how we won the Champions League in '21 and that's why Manchester City are so utterly dominant.

Despite the good result I think the '21 version of our side would have trashed us yesterday if we were facing eachother.

It isn't lots of possession that makes city so dominant, if it was that simple we would be level with them.

Our possession was stagnant, stalling, stuttering, backwards, City on the other hand is free flowing, fast, direct, constant and above all successful at obliterating the opposition.

 

 

12 minutes ago, coco said:

It isn't lots of possession that makes city so dominant, if it was that simple we would be level with them.

Our possession was stagnant, stalling, stuttering, backwards, City on the other hand is free flowing, fast, direct, constant and above all successful at obliterating the opposition.

 

 

Adding Haaland to what they had already is like adding their own deathstar.

1 hour ago, Droy said:

Why would that be a joke? We were the best team in Europe in 2021.

We aren't anywhere near that level now.

We were not even close. Scraped 4th in the league some 19 points behind City and even behind an Oli Utd. 
CL is a cup competition which gives probably 6/8 teams a good possibility of winning.

7 minutes ago, goose said:

We were not even close. Scraped 4th in the league some 19 points behind City and even behind an Oli Utd. 
CL is a cup competition which gives probably 6/8 teams a good possibility of winning.

We may not have been consistent but at our very best we comfortably beat the top clubs in Europe. 

1 hour ago, goose said:

We were not even close. Scraped 4th in the league some 19 points behind City and even behind an Oli Utd. 
CL is a cup competition which gives probably 6/8 teams a good possibility of winning.

 

53 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

We may not have been consistent but at our very best we comfortably beat the top clubs in Europe. 

Both correct, on our day we could beat any team in the World under Tuchel, not just 20/21 but also 21/22 we did great and basically gave it away to RM.

1 hour ago, goose said:

We were not even close. Scraped 4th in the league some 19 points behind City and even behind an Oli Utd. 
CL is a cup competition which gives probably 6/8 teams a good possibility of winning.

We were 14 points behind them when Tuchel started. So we almost kept up with their pace in the league while beating the best sides in Europe on our way to the title.

You can make a great f**king case for us being the best side in Europe in 2021.

It essentially why I have such high standards and why I think finishing outside Top 4 will be an utter failure, despite Potter coming in. 

This squad is good enough for a lot of things. 

No chance we finish outside of the Top 4.

We've been absolute dross in the PL and are still 5th.  When things pick up I expect us to improve to at least 3rd.

1 minute ago, Sexyfootball said:

No chance we finish outside of the Top 4.

We've been absolute dross in the PL and are still 5th.  When things pick up I expect us to improve to at least 3rd.

Tbf we've only played dross.  We've probably had the easiest run of fixtures aside from Arsenal and our hardest game on paper got cancelled.

Still a lot of football to be played, anywhere from 2nd to 7th wouldn't surprise me.

7 hours ago, Droy said:

It's a step back though.

Unless you can control the possession and thus the games you will not be competing for the biggest trophies in this day and age. That's how we won the Champions League in '21 and that's why Manchester City are so utterly dominant.

Despite the good result I think the '21 version of our side would have trashed us yesterday if we were facing eachother.

Our possession is nearly always unproductive though, usually ending up with less shots on goal than the opposition.

It's slow, predictable, unproductive, and fecking dull !

50 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

No chance we finish outside of the Top 4.

We've been absolute dross in the PL and are still 5th.  When things pick up I expect us to improve to at least 3rd.

Yeah but look at the teams we have played , mostly last year's relegation survivors and a team we usually beat in Tottenham. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

We may not have been consistent but at our very best we comfortably beat the top clubs in Europe. 

Yeah basically a decent cup team. 

6 hours ago, Droy said:

Why would that be a joke? We were the best team in Europe in 2021.

We aren't anywhere near that level now.

Do you think winning the FA cup makes you the best team in England ?

the CL is a great trophy to win, but it's a Cup competition at the end of the day.

when Liverpool beat Spurs in the final, they were both no where near the best in Europe. Between them they hadn't even won a league title for about 90 years !

10 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Yeah basically a decent cup team. 

Wouldn’t say beating Atletico, Porto, Real and City with absolute ease, along with making it to 4 finals of an available 5 under Tuchel makes us a ‘decent’ cup team. 

15 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Wouldn’t say beating Atletico, Porto, Real and City with absolute ease, along with making it to 4 finals of an available 5 under Tuchel makes us a ‘decent’ cup team. 

Don't get me wrong the CL was fantastic, but you can't ignore the finals we keep losing..

I wouldn't mind a Cup this season

2 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

No chance we finish outside of the Top 4.

We've been absolute dross in the PL and are still 5th.  When things pick up I expect us to improve to at least 3rd.

Could happen. City have top spot locked down, so that leaves 3. Arsenal appear to be a lot better, Spurs are a lot better, then there is Liverpool and United.

1 hour ago, The Rising Sun said:

Yeah but look at the teams we have played , mostly last year's relegation survivors and a team we usually beat in Tottenham. 

We often lose at Everton, Southampton very regularly take top six scalps, Palace beat both Arsenal and Spurs 3-0 (two teams supposedly better than us) at Selhurst Park last year, Leicester we went down to ten men.

It's not the hardest run in the world but it wasn't a rollover either.

3 hours ago, The Rising Sun said:

Yeah but look at the teams we have played , mostly last year's relegation survivors and a team we usually beat in Tottenham. 

We are only three points down vs the corresponding fixtures last season. That can very easily be made up now that we are starting to look a bit more cohesive !

11 hours ago, The Rising Sun said:

Do you think winning the FA cup makes you the best team in England ?

the CL is a great trophy to win, but it's a Cup competition at the end of the day.

when Liverpool beat Spurs in the final, they were both no where near the best in Europe. Between them they hadn't even won a league title for about 90 years !

It's slightly different though, because it's over two legs in the round of 16, the quarter finals and the semi finals. Takes away more of the luck factor and makes it likelier the better team is going to come out on top. 

11 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Could happen. City have top spot locked down, so that leaves 3. Arsenal appear to be a lot better, Spurs are a lot better, then there is Liverpool and United.

Arsenal at the moment are playing better, yes, let's wait and see until they start playing Thursday and weekend every week. But Spurs, really? I don't know where this year's love for the spuds come from, but they've been playing sh*te and have only been lucky. I'd say they are no more entertaining or playing better football than us.

Winning the Champions League in 2021 was great, and in a way I found it more satisfying than the 2012 victory.

Although 2012 will always be special, being the first, written in the stars and all that, and that we had better and more likeable players in 2012 we rode our luck at various times, where as in 2021 I thought we thoroughly deserved every single victory and outplayed our opponents every time, including the final against City.

But, IMO it’s still a cup competition with a league format containing the elite teams in Europe.

It’s a difficult competition to win because of the other teams you face but I don’t think you can claim to be the best team in Europe if you don’t even win your own domestic league. Win both in the same season like Real Madrid did last season and it’s difficult to argue the claim that you are the best team in Europe. To me winning the Champions League make you European champions, very different IMO.

Anyway, getting back on topic, of course I’m hoping for a top 4 finish with Potter but don’t think it’s a given that we will finish in the top 4 as realistically there are probably 6 teams going for 4 spaces and City will 100% claim one of those.

My hopes is that we play better football, not be overly cautious against City this time round and give players (including youth players) a fair chance of game time if they deserve it.

And hopefully the board give Potter the time and patience to build something here.

I’m optimistic given time we will be challenging for the title again soon but we have to be realistic and patient as this won’t happen overnight and there will be some bumps in the road along the way.

I truly think Potter could be the right man for this rebuild and I’m personally happy we’ve gone down this route rather than the usual suspects of managers.

Time will tell I suppose…

 

 

20 hours ago, coco said:

It isn't lots of possession that makes city so dominant, if it was that simple we would be level with them.

Our possession was stagnant, stalling, stuttering, backwards, City on the other hand is free flowing, fast, direct, constant and above all successful at obliterating the opposition.

 

 

That goes without saying. That was our entire problem with TT, the basic structure was in place but we just didn't have the players to execute. Those problems still remain as we saw against Palace. That was every bit as much sidways and backwards as we experience with Tuchel. 

 

2 hours ago, 2211 said:

Winning the Champions League in 2021 was great, and in a way I found it more satisfying than the 2012 victory

Can't agree with that at all the drama against Napoli and Barcelona even the Benfica game was tight the Napoli game was the best atmosphere at the Bridge for years. The final well I don't need to say anything we all know what that was like. 2021 pretty comfortable from the knockout stage played in empty stadiums and the final was in front of 14,000 compared to beating Bayern in their own backyard.

For fans my age as well from being on the pitch against Boro in 83 celebrating not being relegated to the old third division to European Champions 30 years later was frankly laughable. And also no parade 2012 was off the scale brilliant the best we've ever had although 97 was great as well.

Edited October 7, 20223 yr by bluehaze

2021 was more satisfying for me also. We completely dominated Atletico Madrid who went on to win La Liga that year, comfortably put away a good Porto side over 2 legs and pretty much destroyed Madrid at the Bridge. Was only 2-0 but could and maybe should've been 6 - then in the final, we went on to not only beat but pretty much dominate this City side who are one of the best ever premier league teams. The only point in that game I was the slightest bit concerned was the Mahrez shot in the 97th minute!

I enjoyed 2012, but looking back it felt like we rode our luck massively. I don't think at the time I actually enjoyed watching any of those games until the final whistle went and then it was more relief than anything else. I enjoyed and obviously celebrated both, but the convincing manner that we won it in 2021 just tips it for me.

Let's just all be grateful that we have 2 European Cup triumphs to reflect on and compare. Compare to those in North London that haven't even got 1 between them 😉