2024/2025 English Premier League Thread

[Senator Clay Davis]

Man City have been scrapping out results without looking particularly great, so on the surface them losing this might look surprising, but it really isn't, especially with their injury issues.

[Matty81]

Bournemouth were a bit lucky there at the end, playing 11 guys in your own box for 10 minutes is not a brilliant strategy but they brought it home.


Still weird to me basically seeing what is naturally a league one or two team in a crappy little stadium like that beating the champions. Once Foley is gone they are going to drop like a stone

[Locke]

Arsenal loss, City loss, Everton loss and Liverpool dig out the Win!

Thats a nice matchday.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Bournemouth are kind of Brighton-lite, very well run club who scouts well and finds quality managers.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Bournemouth are kind of Brighton-lite, very well run club who scouts well and finds quality managers.

Yep, pretty much. And Brighton aren't anything to sniff at, like I've said before this ain't your Grand-Pappy's old Hove Albion...they are a damned good team.

Bournemouth are a mid-table Premier-League club run on a Championship budget. Thats pretty impressive.

[Senator Clay Davis]

How about Forrest top four right now? If nothing else their fans won't be sweating a relegation battle this season.

[Matty81]

Brighton and Bournemouth are similar for sure... both bankrolled well beyond their means by sugar daddies. Great teams on the field but spending like CL teams on pretty limited matchday revenue

Brighton owe 400 million pounds or 800 million bucks in debt... they are on a tightrope, if they ever went down they would be into administration

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Arsenal were awful today, was hard to watch.
No Odegaard, no title chance.
Better win the Champions League I guess.

I think Arsenal have already peaked under Arteta. A lot of that seems as though it was down to Odegaard. We’ve looked average at best since his injury, even in games we won.

The performance against Kyiv in the CL is likely to be repeated a lot there. As soon as the knockout phase starts, Arsenal are likely to be booted out.

Who knows, maybe if we sign another keeper, we’ll get more goals?

[Winsor_Pilates]

You might be right.
Stubbornness to not get a true striker and coverage in the creative mid have been obvious forever.
We don't know all the ins & outs of transfer windows but Arsenal's problems are never surprising.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

You might be right.
Stubbornness to not get a true striker and coverage in the creative mid have been obvious forever.
We don't know all the ins & outs of transfer windows but Arsenal's problems are never surprising.

The thing is, I think football is reverting to that point where you need 'that guy' who, deservedly or not, will net you a goal or two.

Spurs did it for years with Kane, Bayern have done with a plethora of top men, you just need that one guy who will net one to keep you in the game.

Even if its just 'Plan B' its better than..."passing it around is getting us nowhere, they've parked the bus...can we hit a target man?"

[M*A*S*H 4077]

It seems to me that as soon as Odegaard got hurt Arteta just gave up on trying to play football and would rather grind out results with 4CBs 3 DMs and try and hope Saka or Havertz can have an individual moment of brilliance.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by M*A*S*H 4077

It seems to me that as soon as Odegaard got hurt Arteta just gave up on trying to play football and would rather grind out results with 4CBs 3 DMs and try and hope Saka or Havertz can have an individual moment of brilliance.

Odegaard was the engine room.

[Locke]

Arsenal just cant win the Premier League. He just has too much hair.

We all know it.

Its between Pep and Slot, the PL will be won by a bald man and unless Arteta gets with the program he's going to be in trouble.

[Slava]

They’ve become set-piece FC and that’s only going to get you so far. The game against Spurs for example, was an undeserved win. They weren’t the better team, but Spurs let them off. They got a corner, pushed Romero in the back and got their goal. That kind of thing is fine to steal a game here or there between great performances, but it’s not a week in, week out strategy.

And I’m sure I’m about to get flamed as “just a Spurs fan who hates them”, but I don’t think that changes the reality.

[Locke]

Its a shame that Spurs won but I cant help but be happy for Solanke. I'm glad he's doing well.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Slava

They’ve become set-piece FC and that’s only going to get you so far. The game against Spurs for example, was an undeserved win. They weren’t the better team, but Spurs let them off. They got a corner, pushed Romero in the back and got their goal. That kind of thing is fine to steal a game here or there between great performances, but it’s not a week in, week out strategy.

And I’m sure I’m about to get flamed as “just a Spurs fan who hates them”, but I don’t think that changes the reality.

I'll only flame you for the undeserved win part; that's obviously Spurs coloured glasses.
However I actually agree with the rest; they've become overly reliant on set piece goals and that it's not enough to win week in, week out.

[Locke]

Arsenal sporting director Edu Gaspar has resigned from his post, the club confirmed in a statement on Monday.

Edu joined Arsenal in July 2019 as technical director and led a culture shift at the club that saw Mikel Arteta hired as manager and the side battle for the Premier League title in the past two seasons. Edu was later promoted to become the club's first-ever sporting director in November 2022.

Sources have told ESPN that Edu has been approached by Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis to lead their multi-club group with an offer that would include a considerably increased salary.

Bye Edu...seems like someone noticed his good work...

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/...et-exit-source

[Locke]

Dammit West Ham. You had 1 job.

Now...up the Albion!

[Senator Clay Davis]

Now that I see Man City have a guy whose last name is Pusey I need him to score an amazing goal and I need the announcer to say "What a Pusey banger!"

[Barnet Flame]

That was a hard tackle on Pusey.