General Premier League Thread 2022-23 - mod note in OP 12/03/23

It's going to be a strange season. With the shortened preseason it's affecting all teams.

No team looks great and there seems to plenty of injuries going around and I bet both are linked to the shorter preseason.

Now with the WC in the middle of the season have clubs adjusted how they want their teams to peak/hit their stride? Normally you say the team flying at Christmas (not points in the board but rather how they look on the field) is the one looking most likely but will they now adjust to peak in late October and then again in March?

Like I said the other day I don't really get as much enjoyment out of games anymore with all the time wasting and feigning head injuries. Add that to the inconsistency with VAR and some days I'd rather just go cut the grass or walk the dogs or something.

If I was an Arsenal supporter I'd be more worried how the team dropped of a cliff mentally after the second goal. They were brilliant in spells before that but just turned to dust

We literally don't know if he'll be great yet. We don't know what we're seeing.

The current turnaround has been phenomenal, but he's proved nothing about his greatness or whether he can get Utd to where they want to be. He could be that guy ... but getting results Ole got in his early days, playing the same style of football Ole played, still proves very little in the grand scheme of things.

But it's been a feel good run of results that Utd desperately needed.

I don't agree.

I think Arteta was unbelievably naive. He didn't adapt to the Rashford threat at all, and in fact doubled down leaving his CBs two on two with a high line.

If Rashford has a strength, it's beating high line and one-on-one with the keeper.

It was on the manager, not the players. He left them exposed to exactly what happened.

No, but I think the commentary after the game was more alluding to the fact that this is exactly where UTD were 3 years ago under Ole... playing a system where they're only comfortable out of possession against the better teams and playing a counter attacking style. It's obviously effective and works but it can only get you so far, so it will be interesting to see can Ten Hag get them to adopted to his actual style of football and play the game on the front foot. Eitherway it's way better than where they were 3 weeks ago losing by 4 to Brentford.

Just from reading all the comments in this thread yesterday I was under the impression that somehow winning playing counter attacking football was bad.

I will say the difference between now and Oles team is that Ten Hag will demand more from his team. Also the make up of the squad with Eriksen, Anthony, Casemiro and Sancho should help with teams playing a low block. Added to FBs that have clear direction and understanding of what their manager wants so while I get the easy comparison to Oles team, this squad is so far above that.

All that said, Utd are still nowhere near a finished team. We might have more results like Arsenal and Liverpool but we will definitely have more games like Brentford and Brighton.

City will absolutely win the league and I expect spurs to finish second. Beyond those two teams I have yet to see anyone that is guaranteed a top 4 spot.

It's nothing we haven't seen before from big teams who have fallen out of the top 4. Essentially the talent is there to raise it for the odd big game but not consistent over a season.

As you say the big test now is adjusting to having the ball. I wouldn't be too confident in this team to make that step up.

In 5th and only 3 off the top though so not exactly the crisis it seemed a week ago.

He made some big decisions with Maguire & Ronaldo and thus far its paying off so fair play to him,

The next obvious step is improving them attacking wise when they are possession dominate ,

I think its only fair to give him credit on turning things around after the first two fixtures,

He also took massive gamble on Martinez and Anthony , both these seam good signings (very early days).

I also think Cassemiro will be another good signing , given midfield was such a problem - I think he will help get the best out of Fred too, as they play together for Brazil.

Its very early days for Anthony but great start,

I'm not sold on Martinez not because of his height but because everything seems a struggle or a last stich tackle with him, Even the clearance when he got injured with he had to do a flying clearance, but he is certainly doing better than Maguire & time will tell if it is a struggle or if its just his style of play,

Cassemiro has been world class for years so can't see that changing , i think he is a super player,

VAR is broken - official.

Here is the order of sh*teness from the weekend.

1. West Ham     A goal all day long. Mendy should get the same length ban as the VAR person. Oh, sorry, that’ll be nothing then.
2. Newcastle    A goal, or, if called back, a penalty. How you can see one “foul” and not the real foul, I can’t understand.
3. Leeds Utd.     Denied two penalties, one as obvious as to beggar belief and gets Marsch sent off. Did nobody wonder why he was going nuts? 3-2 at the time as well
4. Arsenal          Great goal by Martinelli. Foul by Odegaard, but does the VAR rules state that you go back through the whole build up, or not? If VAR is being used for all mistakes by the referee, as this one, then can it be used to see Harry Maguire haul Saka to the ground in the box?
5. Aston Villa     Here the linesman is at fault. He should have kept his flag down. The whistle had blown so you could see 3 of the Man City players had stopped playing, so its not clear if Coutinho would not have been closed down better, but more than likely he would have.

Don't think the last two have much place on the list? One was a foul which led directly to the goal & the other was the linesman flagging incorrectly since Coutinho was onside.