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

Does the title botch job take it away from Arteta? City could finish 13 points ahead while United/Newcastle could only be 6 points short of them.

Pep has city finishing yet again with 90+ points and likely close to 100 goals

The issue with the time wasting now is that it starts earlier in the match and wastes even more time. The players have so got so good at it. They keep the process of taking a goal kick moving, but slowly. A change I’d make in the morning is that a keeper can only have the ball in his hand for 10 seconds. It’s ridiculous, they hold it for 20-30 seconds and seem to just be allowed to do this non stop. ,

Bizarre team. Ramsdale ahead of Allison or Pope? Estupinan isn't a CB, Almiron isn't a central midfielder and Watkins isn't a patch on Kane who's put up amazing numbers (just not as amazing as Haaland).

The only games were you could say we did that would be the following:

Away to Arsenal (gained a point)

Away to United (gained a point)

Away to Liverpool (robbed of an onside goal when 1-0 up)

Imagine going away to all these big teams and doing some time wasting.

A bit like when Palace, Leeds, Leicester came to St James'.

51 mins of for the most part attacking high intensity football or 53 mins of turgid long hoof ball defensive shite. Which is gonna be more entertaining i wonder.

He'll probably try to weasel his way into the England set up at underage level hoping to get the senior job.

Ability wise, Lampard's next job should be on Question of Sport or BT.

The only balls he should be anywhere near are the kangaroo variety on I'm a Celebrity.

Conceding less while playing in a more settled defence who are playing deeper and don't have marauding full backs to the extent Liverpool do.

While Newcastle are not setting up the same way that Burnley did when Pope played there, there is a certain amount of extra protection still being given. Pope doesn't have to face a high number of good quality chances. He may face more shots, but can tend to be long range shots out of frustration because the opposition can't breach the defence for example. Or lower quality chances in general.

Alisson seems to come out on top in 1v1 battles more often than not. I think he is by far the best in the league at that. Rushes out and makes himself big, decreasing the chance of a goal. There was one example recently where Vardy got a chance at 0-0 against Liverpool on the edge of the 6 yard box. One you would expect a striker like him to score from. Allison made it look like a routine save.

When comparing the psXG on fbref, Alisson has a score of +10.1. Pope is +0.3. (positive being good)

psXG is different to XG in that XG measures the quality of the chance before it leaves the boot of the attacker. So they could scuff it, blaze it over the bar, miss it etc. Whereas psXG measures the quality of the finish, did they place it exactly into the corner etc.

Those numbers suggest that Pope performed as expected but Alisson stopped 10 goals more being scored than were expected.

It will have to pass the tests introduced last season by the Premier League so you would expect that it will have to be above board.

certainly looks like a company with billions to spend.

PIF own Newcastle.

PIF own Sela.

PIF will pump money into Newcastle through one of their side companies to skirt around the whole FFP thing and make it look like it's just your average commercial deal. It's not your average commercial deal. It will be extremely over-inflated for a club who's last PL finishes were 11th, 12th, 13th, 10th, x, 18th, 15th, 10th, 16th. The x represents being in the lower division. No European football in that timeframe either, obviously.

Is that not the (somewhat) aim of Man City (and before them, Chelsea)? In the long run, it will bankrupt a lot of clubs if they try to compete with City & Newcastle.

Clubs can spend money to match Man City's (and Newcastle) transfer spending for a year or two and build one big team to match them for a few seasons, especially when wages are factored in. The sustained spending power is not there for the majority of other clubs. They have to prioritize, and the money cannot be spent everywhere at the same time.

Spurs choose to build a stadium, and had to sacrifice the team for a number of years, because they could not afford the big names. Liverpool built 2 new stands and a training ground and couldn't match the sustained transfer spending of other clubs so now have dropped out of CL spots. They had to pick and chose one player per summer. They also had to chose between giving the large contract to either Salah or Mane, not both. Arsenal have built a new stadium and they missed out on CL for years as the transfer spend was not readily available. They built their current team over the last 2 years with a very large amount of spending. I'd predict that they won't be doing that for too long more, certainly not for 5/6/7 years in a row needed to remain at the top table. They just gave Saka a ridiculously large contract that has set a new precedent at the club that may come back to haunt them. Man Utd have learned the hard way with Sanchez / DDG / Pogba, even Luke Shaw. Old Trafford is rotting more every passing season as they are neglecting it, even though a new stadium is needed. Their money is going on transfer spending and wages to match that of Man City and keep up with the jones, even if they are spending it badly.

Man City are buying players, dishing out the very large wages, and they are comfortable. They can casually throw in an unneeded amount of extra seats to the stadium now, just because they feel like. Man City's infrastructure development is not needed, whereas the likes of Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool were all heavily justified.