2023-2024 EPL Season

[JPBolts]

5th place with 5 points separating us and Newcastle in 6th. Closer to Spurs in 1st. All that with 4 starting XI players combined who have less than 100 minutes this season out injured. Unai is the man

 

[King Makar19]

I knew Dec. Rice was good....but his being World-Class right now. ABSOLUTE BALLLER!!!

 

[S E P H]

Jesus and Partey out for a couple of weeks. I guess you can find some conspiracies in there if you take a closer look.

Partey is injured just sitting on the bench at this point LMAO.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

Chelsea investigated over Willian and Samuel Eto’o transfers

Premier League inquiry into Abramovich era will include alleged payments made to Russian entities after two players signed from Anzhi Makhachkala in 2013

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

I would hope the fact that the new ownership group self-reported the discrepancies in question would have some bearing on outcome here.

 

[hatterson]

I would hope the fact that the new ownership group self-reported the discrepancies in question would have some bearing on outcome here.

Also, the fact that they occurred 10 years ago at this point.

 

[maclean]

I knew Dec. Rice was good....but his being World-Class right now. ABSOLUTE BALLLER!!!

Yeah, he's definitely stepped it up / settled in better these past few games and I'm loving it

 

[cgf]

Can I get a Schade, Janelt, Dahoud, Groß, and Beyer update?

 

[Jussi]

 

[hatterson]

I remember when touches in the area per penalty was a major Liverpool conspiracy.

Good times.

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

I remember when touches in the area per penalty was a major Liverpool conspiracy.

Good times.

Ironically, given that Stevie G scored THIRTEEN penalties in 2013-14, entirely owed to Luis Suarez being a menace in the box

 

[Savant]

Ironically, given that Stevie G scored THIRTEEN penalties in 2013-14, entirely owed to Luis Suarez being a menace in the box

Suarez was ridiculous that season. He won so many PKs on handballs where he was just aiming at defenders hands and hitting them. Unreal; it was either get megged or get the ball kicked at your palm

I remember when touches in the area per penalty was a major Liverpool conspiracy.

Good times.

I mean, you would think there would be a correlation. Also good times were people discounting it because of attack angles and what not; which to me at least was way more silly

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

Suarez was ridiculous that season. He won so many PKs on handballs where he was just aiming at defenders hands and hitting them. Unreal; it was either get megged or get the ball kicked at your palm


I mean, you would think there would be a correlation. Also good times were people discounting it because of attack angles and what not; which to me at least was way more silly

Stand by that Suarez season being the best in PL history.

 

[Savant]

Stand by that Suarez season being the best in PL history.

If LFC won the league I don’t even think it would be an argument besides the fact that everyone hates him. But no one remembers second place I guess

 

[S E P H]

Can I get a Schade, Janelt, Dahoud, Groß, and Beyer update?

Gross is a beast, I had him as one of the most underrated players like 4-5 years ago and that has not changed. He's not very good defensively and started to make some "arrogant" plays this season which have led to some goals against on Brighton, but is a very technically gifted player with a high IQ. Not sure if he's a player you want to start on the National Team, but would be a brilliant off-the-bench option like Trossard is to Arsenal or Giroud is to France/Chelsea. Pascal reminds me a lot of Sigurðsson, but is more of a complete player with more tools to work with (not a very agile or fast player though).

Beyer has been okay on a bad team and now he's injured. Hard to really give an update on somebody whose club has won just one game all season. He's pretty good on set pieces (both offensive and defensive), but I question how much intelligence he has in his game during the normal field of play.

Dahoud has looked okay in his appearances, but he isn't getting any starting role. He's very slow and can be clumsy at times, but he has good anticipation of the play. Don't expect much from him, I don't really see how he can improve at this point in time.

Janelt is a solid player, but he sort of runs around too much for my liking and gets caught in no-man land constantly. When he plays a very disciplined structured game, he's more useful. Not sure how high his potential is though. I admit I haven't focused much on Schade, so this will be less accurate, but of the very little I've seen of him, he has some real ability but needs seasoning and more strength. If I remember correctly, he's a very agile player who can change directions on a dime to go along with a certain amount of craftiness.

Surprised that you didn't want a Kai update? He actually has been pretty good in the past two games when being used as a false 9, which was his undoing at Chelsea. Nonetheless, he looks a lot more comfortable there than playing him as a BxB role as Arteta did with Xhaka last season. His vision and playmaking ability is actually top-notch, but the main problem is that you have players like Tomiyasu who are scoring goals before him and the main reason why is that he doesn't go to the dirty areas. He likes being around the edge of the box on set pieces and it is worse during the field of play. He would be so much more useful if he just went into the box more, but he tends to be the last bloke of the forwards in the box due to the speed of his overall game.

 

[cgf]

[snip]

Thanks, sounds about what I expected for the most part...Schade's still very raw, Groß is still Groß, while Janelt & Beyer I've never been high on...but hasn't Dahoud started in 4 of Brighton's 10 league matches? With them yet to lose in a match that Mo featured in?



I appreciate it, but tbh I don't really care about Kai's club form anymore. He keeps playing well for the NT...not just producing but getting involved all over the pitch & asserting himself in duels...regardless of how he's doing in London. And at this point the only thing that could really change his potential roles for the NT would be if he suddenly started scoring like Haaland...which I'm not holding my breath on lol.

Glad Arteta has finally realized that Kai is better as a false 9 than an 8 though, getting him for that deeper role never made sense to me. His best performances for both Leverkusen & Chelsea came as a false 9 with a wide forward on one of his flanks threatening to run in behind (Volland / Werner) and a 10 behind him (Wirtz / Mount) creating from the space Kai opened up.

In another universe Havertz & Nkunku are just dominating together for Chelsea because their games are so perfectly complementary on paper.

 

[S E P H]

.but hasn't Dahoud started in 4 of Brighton's 10 league matches? With them yet to lose in a match that Mo featured in?

Yeah he's been starting here and there, but isn't getting the big matches even if RdZ has been rotating the squad around constantly. I want to see him against some of the bigger clubs because he only started against Marseille in Europa, he didn't see any minutes against LFC or Man City. He did play against Man United or Chelsea, but hard to call those clubs big clubs at this point. They lost to Chelsea in the Carabou Cup.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

I don't think there's that much correlation. Spurs are first by a decent margin in terms of touches in the opposition box this season. They've gotten zero penalties.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

I don't think there's that much correlation. Spurs are first by a decent margin in terms of touches in the opposition box this season. They've gotten zero penalties.

Spurs have 39 more touches in the box than any other club, bigger gap between 1st and 2nd than between 2nd and 6th.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Player of the month Nominees:

Douglas Luiz
Bryan Mbeumo
Pedro Neto
Declan Rice
Cristian Romero
Mohamed Salah

Has to be Salah here.

Weird how they nominated Romero over Van de Ven. Romero has been great, no doubt, but Van de Ven has been amazing. Game winner against Luton and looked impossible to get past.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Manager of the Month nominees:

Arteta
Emery
Klopp
Postecoglou

Would be cool to see Ange winning three straight. But I think Mr. Blockhead gets this one.

 

[JeffreyLFC]

Player of the month Nominees:

Douglas Luiz
Bryan Mbeumo
Pedro Neto
Declan Rice
Cristian Romero
Mohamed Salah

Has to be Salah here.

Weird how they nominated Romero over Van de Ven. Romero has been great, no doubt, but Van de Ven has been amazing. Game winner against Luton and looked impossible to get past.

Based on the stats I think it is between Douglas Luiz(2 goals 1 assist), Mbeumo (2goals 1 assist), Salah (5 goals) or Neto (3 assists)

 

[spintheblackcircle]

I'd take Luiz.

 

[S E P H]

Some more data on the Chelsea probe reports.

- Chelsea was fined 10 million Euros by UEFA when they submitted incomplete financial information on transfers between 2012 and 2019.

- This discovery happened when Boehly had to publish financial reports for him to take over the team.

- EPL is investigating two possible breaches of FFP all the way back in 2013 with them signing Willian and Eto'o.

OMFG please let them get transfer banned and have to keep this current squad of theirs.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Imagine our winter spending if we anticipate a summer transfer ban. I'd be mostly fine with a transfer ban anyway, sometimes you just have to take the bottle away from the drunk.