Lodatz
23 days ago
Aww, thanks quik! Talk about saving an otherwise awful season.
You lot are looking pretty great, and showed your level against Madrid. Let's go next season!
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Lodatz
23 days ago
Aww, thanks quik! Talk about saving an otherwise awful season.
You lot are looking pretty great, and showed your level against Madrid. Let's go next season!
quikzyyy
22 days ago
yeah, specially against united haha.
our season was disappointing, got some good results like against Madrid, but sadly knew it straight after transfer window that the season will be failure after not signing any attacker yet again. and the amount of injuries was just too much, but what can you expect with such a small squad and amount of matches they have to play.. let's hope for better season!
Emobot7
21 days ago
Very good to see you Lodatz! Congratulation on Spurs win in the Europa League Final.
As for the thread itself, I have to agree English teams have consistently managed to make it far in Europe in the last couple of years. There no doubt in my mind that PL has shown some of the best overall quality recently. If a team in Spain, Italy or Germany would finish in the middle of the table in their own league, they would propably have trouble to stay up in the PL imho.
Lets not forget that the PL however has more economic power compared to the other leagues, which obviously help a bit with their teams success over other countries in Europe. Still shouldn't serve as a way to disregard English teams performance imo, after all, its also in part thank to those teams that the PL is such a massive commercial success.
So, I was taking a look at the current Top 6 of the Premier League, and I decided to go find out how they've actually been faring against just each other; I figured it would be fun to compare to actual league position, so here goes:
Here are the results of the Top 6 mini-table, for 2016/17 only:
As we can see, it looks rather similar to how the league table itself looks right now, which is:
Obviously Chelsea and Tottenham have one game extra over the others, but it's still pretty stable, and pretty close. Liverpool have been outstanding against their direct rivals, whereas everyone else has had mixed fortunes -- very competitive indeed!
But then I wondered: how does this pan out in a longer period? Say, if I were to include last season's results too, and see if anything changes in the hierarchy? Well, let's take a look:
It's... pretty close to the first, and pretty tight. The only real changes/surprises is how well United did against the others last year, and how poorly City did. But, isn't it also interesting that 3 of the of the top 4 teams in that mini-table... failed to even make the Top 4 last season. So, clearly that dominance did NOT translate into true league position, last season.
Liverpool came 7th, despite this prowess against their rivals, so clearly they were not performing so well against teams down the rest of the table. Have they learned something new this season, which is helping them, or is it the lack of European football to distract them from avoiding losses to the strong teams in the bottom half of the table?
What about Chelsea? From 10th to (runaway) 1st at Christmas. How much of it is down to a new system under Conte? How much of it again is due to having no distractions in Europe, allowing them to field their first XI more often against smaller teams? Or is there something else going on?
United have had EL action both seasons, and remained in roughly the same place. Is this coincidence? Will the second half of the season run along the same lines as this first?
Discuss.
So, I was taking a look at the current Top 6 of the Premier League, and I decided to go find out how they've actually been faring against just each other; I figured it would be fun to compare to actual league position, so here goes:
Here are the results of the Top 6 mini-table, for 2016/17 only:
As we can see, it looks rather similar to how the league table itself looks right now, which is:
Obviously Chelsea and Tottenham have one game extra over the others, but it's still pretty stable, and pretty close. Liverpool have been outstanding against their direct rivals, whereas everyone else has had mixed fortunes -- very competitive indeed!
But then I wondered: how does this pan out in a longer period? Say, if I were to include last season's results too, and see if anything changes in the hierarchy? Well, let's take a look:
It's... virtually identical. The only real change/surprise is how well United did against the others last year. But, isn't it also interesting that all 3 of the top teams in that mini-table... failed to even make the Top 4 last season. So, clearly that dominance did NOT translate into true league position, last season.
So what's made the difference? Can we say that the largest chunk is the lack of European football, since all 3 teams did have CL and/or EL campaigns last season, and only United has it this year (and is correspondingly 6th)? Or is there more going on?
Discuss.
So, I was taking a look at the current Top 6 of the Premier League, and I decided to go find out how they've actually been faring against just each other; I figured it would be fun to compare to actual league position, so here goes:
Here are the results of the Top 6 mini-table, for 2016/17 only:
As we can see, it looks rather similar to how the league table itself looks right now, which is:
Obviously Chelsea and Tottenham have one game extra over the others, but it's still pretty stable, and pretty close. Liverpool have been outstanding against their direct rivals, whereas everyone else has had mixed fortunes -- very competitive indeed!
But then I wondered: how does this pan out in a longer period? Say, if I were to include last season's results too, and see if anything changes in the hierarchy? Well, let's take a look:
It's... pretty close to the first, and pretty tight. The only real changes/surprises is how well United did against the others last year, and how poorly City did. But, isn't it also interesting that all 3 of the top teams in that mini-table... failed to even make the Top 4 last season. So, clearly that dominance did NOT translate into true league position, last season.
So what's made the difference? Can we say that the largest chunk is the lack of European football, since all 3 teams did have CL and/or EL campaigns last season, and only United has it this year (and is correspondingly 6th)? Or is there more going on?
Discuss.
So, I was taking a look at the current Top 6 of the Premier League, and I decided to go find out how they've actually been faring against just each other; I figured it would be fun to compare to actual league position, so here goes:
Here are the results of the Top 6 mini-table, for 2016/17 only:
As we can see, it looks rather similar to how the league table itself looks right now, which is:
Obviously Chelsea and Tottenham have one game extra over the others, but it's still pretty stable, and pretty close. Liverpool have been outstanding against their direct rivals, whereas everyone else has had mixed fortunes -- very competitive indeed!
But then I wondered: how does this pan out in a longer period? Say, if I were to include last season's results too, and see if anything changes in the hierarchy? Well, let's take a look:
It's... pretty close to the first, and pretty tight. The only real changes/surprises is how well United did against the others last year, and how poorly City did. But, isn't it also interesting that all 3 of the top teams in that mini-table... failed to even make the Top 4 last season. So, clearly that dominance did NOT translate into true league position, last season.
Liverpool came 7th, despite this prowess against their rivals, so clarly they were not performing so well against teams down the rest of the table. Have they learned something new this season, which is helping them, or is it the lack of European football to distract them from avoiding losses to the strong teams in the bottom half of the table?
What about Chelsea? How much of it is down to a new system under Conte? How much of it again is due to having no distractions in Europe, allowing them to field their first XI more often against smaller teams? Or is there something else going on?
United have had EL action both seasons, and remained in roughly the same place. Is this coincidence? Will the second half of the season run along the same lines as this first?
Discuss.