General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

Ah now I get some of the anti-alternative comms nonsense posted in the United thread. Goldbridge motivated it, explains a lot.

So Slot is a done deal now.

He has a lot to live up to. Liverpool will be hoping he changes the fortune of recent Dutch managers in the EPL.

Pep has to get moty if they win four in a row end of. Losing Mahrez, Gundongon, Palmer and even Laporte would set anyone back too. Factor in Haalands indifferent form in big matches and it will be a serious achievement to close this one out.

If city win the league it has to be Pep. That’s all I said. Everything else is irrelevant really. If arsenal win it then Arteta deserves it.

Surely you have to look at the team expectations at the start. City were expected to win the league. There's a high chance they'll do that but they've not been as good as the last few years so it's easily arguable that Pep hasn't done a great job.

Arteta has arsenal around where they were expected. If they win it then he'll have exceeded expectations so will probably win it.

I'm not sure anyone had Villa qualifying for the champions league so Emery has exceeded expectations.

Liverpool battered expectations?

I could never buy into the idea of Liverpool overachieving this season. It's less than 2 years since they were 2 results away from winning the the quadruple and many thought they were the best team in the world. Any Liverpool fan will tell you that they have the best manager in the world, and most Pool fans would argue (at least up until a few weeks ago in the case of Salah and VVD) that they have the best GK, CB and Forward in the world. Add to that their world class full backs, a striker that has cost £76m, and a new midfielder that looks like one of the best transfers this season, it just seems crazy to me that fans claim that anything more than top 4 from this team is an overachievement.

I find the midfield overhaul thing being cited as a negative utterly bizzare. The impoved midfield should naturally have led to an improvement in performances.

Refereeing just gets worse by the week

I think it’s a refereeing standards thing. Someone in their mind got the idea that less refereeing is better, but it boggles my brain.

Is the handball for this deemed a new phase of play or housed within the original phase of play, that the offside is part of?

Edit: part of the original phase of play

To be fair a lot of those 3/4 players have missed large chunks of this season. I know that doesn't really affect pre-season expectations but it does affect actual performance. Personally, I predicted Liverpool to finish 2nd to Man City. I thought we could be there or there abouts but fall up short down the line. I didn't expect the situation we were in in March with the cup runs etc. I thought we would go deep in Europa alright but not the domestic cups. I didn't think Arsenal would do as well as they have done (and finish 3rd) because of the added pressure with CL but then Arsenal basically not playing any domestic cup games has negated that and they had an easier schedule which allowed them to do well in the league.

1 of those earlier mentioned players in particular seems to be analysed differently, and a lot more magnified, than other players in his position too. 1 person might say that he is the best player in his position in the league and the next will say that he is championship level and overrated.