This is a sad finish to a great career. Brilliant player. I wish he had played for us.
6 Likes
Perhaps, but the odds of actually losing out on goal difference are pretty remote.
Those rumours before he went to AtleticoâŚI remember seeing him live at the FIFA U-20 in 2007, so frustrating that he was as close as that to joining.
3 Likes
It is, but at least he retired at 34 from heart issues, rather than at 24 from heart issues. He had a full career.
5 Likes
Do we have a top 10 striker in PL history thread? Yes I know there was football before.
1 Like
No
We had much more opportunity in the Utd, Everton games.
We had chances vs West Ham, to draw or win which is better than GD.
But purely on GD, its realistic to think we xould be a bit better off in those games.
Not as sure of that as you are to be honest.
City v Utd and Arsenal v Liverpool are the only two examples I remember in England. There might be others from before then.
Pretty sure its happened only twice (technically once, as the Michael Thomas title was really won on GS after being level of GD). Importantly, the main thing that swing the other title was Cityâs thrashing of their direct rivals, resulting in a 10 goal swing in 1 game. Keeping that early season thrashing down to just 3-1 would have seen Utd beat City on GD.
2 Likes
Itâs unlikely the league will be decided on goal difference. And if it is, the first place to look wonât be at the goals column but it will be at the points column. Rather than wondering why we didnât score seven against Man Utd, my mind will go back to the points dropped against Brighton and Brentford, maybe West Ham, etc.
Still, to play along for a moment, letâs say we could have scored more against Man Utd. My recollection of the match is that they started to kick us, beyond the rules and beyond the usual hustle and bustle of a Liverpool-Man Utd game, because they were a distant second best. Out of simple frustration, they stuck the boot in. Itâs all they had left, and as ever, itâs up to the ref to intervene, but it was starting to look a bit dangerous to my eyes.
I remember after the game being frustrated we didnât score 8 or so, as that would have been one to live in the memory for a long, long time. But in the hypothetical example, letâs imagine we scored 2-3 more, and letâs imagine their frustration boiled over and a key player of ours suffered a long term injury. That outcome was looking increasingly likely as they were embarrassed. So in the end, while it very much looked like we took our foot off the pedal and passed it around for the last half an hour, we came away with three points, a large victory, and crucially, no injuries and energy conserved for a very busy schedule.
Over the course of a season, were our prospects boosted or hindered by the approach we took?
Probably boosted.
4 Likes
I mean this season
At the moment very little seperating three teams
There usually is very little separating title challengers. Thatâs why theyâre called title challengers. There was very little separating us and City in 2018-19.
2 Likes
Yes, Iâm sure that having two or three teams close near the halfway point is the case in lots of seasons too, but it rarely ever makes that much of a difference by the end of the season. If the above two examples are the only cases in English football, that will have been out of around 140 years of topflight football. The Utd/City example, the only one in nearly 30 years of the Premier League.
Of course it might happen this season, but the odds of it actually happening based on historical occurances are remote.
1 Like
Surely the obvious answer would be to have scored 1 more goal in a game that we drew�
The whole GD thing seems like not seeing the forest for the trees.
5 Likes
1 Like
The amount of pedantry is unbelievable.
Simple
If and its a big if we lose the title on goal difference then we will rue the opportunities missed to rack up goals vs Utd, Everton, Southampton etc.
The chances of it happening is remote, but nonetheless exists.
Does the comment merit such correction?
Not sure.
I get where youâre coming from. But in the scenario you mentioned, the possibility of scoring just a single goal to win when we were drawing is bigger aspect of missing an opportunity than racking up goals when we have already won. The former is more of an expectation than the latter in general.
3 Likes
Not worried by goal difference
The nearer the end of season, if we are close to man city,
Pep will crack up under the pressure of the title race,
Mind what he was like the season we won the league,
He was a mess during press conferences.
Heâs not used to been challenged, and doesnât handle it very well
2 Likes
Exactly.
We donât even have to be top too early.
Just be close when the CL restarts.
2 Likes
Like the season we went head to head and City won the league?