General Premier League Thread 2024-25

It's bad luck alright for Arsenal alright. Especially when Arsenal are lower on numbers in terms of forwards at the club anyways.

I listened to a podcast recently with a sport scientist that was talking about using AI to predict and prevent injuries etc. It was an interesting discussion and used alot of Newcastle examples such as one of their players reinjuring himself after coming back from a matatarsel injury by training too much himself away from the club that they were unaware of. He was trying to get fit himself and didn't realise he was being counterproductive. As a result, every single bit of Newcastle players training is tracked and monitored, including sleep. All external fitness work, even jogging, has to be logged so that their official team training workload is managed. Another example was Tyrone Mings ACL injury basically being because he trained too much in a short period of time before his non-contact injury.

One very interesting aspect of the conversation was the workload amount over a full season for players. Arsenal had a largely excellent record for the last 2 years with injuries. Players like White Gabriel Saliba Rice Odegaard Saka Havertz Martinelli etc basically were fit for every single game, and as a result, they played all of the minutes for 2 full seasons. Their bodies then happened to break down this year as they can't do it for 3 full seasons. The workload caught up with them.

It's happening Man City this year too. Rodri broke down, all their defenders have been injured at some point and John Stones had the choice of surgery and being out for the season or severely limiting his minutes and availablity, and chose the latter. He'll need that surgery eventually though.

arteta wanted a forward player bought in the window. He’s made poor choices with the attackers recruited but it’s incorrect to say he doesn’t want forward players bought in the last window

you also said that arteta didn’t want to fix it which is untrue in the context of the window just past

he could have signed a player if he used his own money.

Let’s be clear about this: managers at elite clubs dont sign players anymore. That day is long gone. At Arsenal it was Edu who signed players. Not sure who does now. Arteta can tell Edu what he needs and can suggest a player he really wants or edu can suggest to arteta about a player available or suggest a player Edu or Edu’s scouts really rates….but it’s a cooperative process and the nuts and bolts of signing players is not arteta’s job.

The idea that arteta could have signed a player unilaterally (deciding who to sign, what to bid, what wages to offer) is not consistent with how modern elite football works. So when you say actions speak louder than words, you dont what the words are because the words are going on behind the scenes between a collective.

no one seems to have mentioned that arsenals highest paid player is Havertz so I’ll leave that there

Bidding 40m with add ons up to 60for Watkins wasn’t a serious bid.

Ok, that’s not mikel artetas department. He controls the football part and would be informed about budgets but actually submitting bids would be Edu’s (or his replacement) job. So if you are angry at that bid, you are angry at edu.

No you’re still not following despite my repetitions, for the latest window I wouldn’t blame Arteta. You would and I deem that unfair.

For sanctioning and reportedly being fixated on having Havertz as their top earner I would squarely blame arteta.

My first reply to you last night

“Arteta wanted a forward player bought in the window. He’s made poor choices with the attackers recruited but it’s incorrect to say he doesn’t want forward players bought in the last window”

your last reply to me this morning

“Arteta has not dealt with the glaring problem at Arsenal - over several years. 

You wouldn't proportion any blame on him - that's fine.”

Hence my repetitions. Have a good one.

Havertz could be a very important player for Arsenal. In some ways he’s like Firmino type player. Firmino’s max goals scored in the league was 15 I think. But he was about much more than goals. Havertz is only 25 - I wouldn’t be writing him off yet as a top player for a title winning team.

(Critism of the normally excellent TG4 here), TG4 still found time to show full live coverage of a South African club rugby game..... Talk about priorities for a station being subsidized heavily to promote and foster the Irish language and Irish culture.

While true, they've only drawn against each other twice in that period, 1967 and 1973, and one of those went to a replay.

Bit of a random one. TG4 have the rights to the URC, a league that includes 4 Irish teams, so there will be some people with interest in how other teams get on in the league. Why not show games if they have the rights? It was on at about 11 or 12 in the morning/afternoon. Hardly peak viewing time and it turned out to be a cracking game. Would you prefer if they just threw on another Hector repeat instead?

Is there any truth in rumours that he's done a hamstring in Dubai? I wouldn't trust Arteta or the club to be honest about it so likely nothing or just a minor thing but hopefully Liverpool are ignoring rumours and just concentrating on their own games

Everton being safe and being on a great run with a new manager now has me thinking that maybe we would have been better off playing this in December. Though we wouldn't have had Konaté or Alisson (I think?) or Jota as an option off the bench so it's good that bar maybe Trent we'll be full strength tonight with a strong bench (Trent still likely to be in the squad at least). And Calvert-Lewin would have played the original fixture and now he's out so that's a plus I think.

7.30pm kickoff is going to mean Goodison will be hopping - I'm kind of looking forward to that aspect. It's a great ground, a proper throwback, and amazingly both Liverpool and Everton have won 41 games a piece there. So it's incredibly well set up as the last derby there!

Sad to see the place go - a really special place with a lot of history that is a dying breed these days