I think there is also the likelihood that Brighton is a well-run club with a harmonized approach to developing their side, which he benefited greatly from. Chelsea has repeatedly seen friction not just between their director of football and manager positions, but even with other factions in the football department that somehow have a channel to the owners. The open question is whether or not Potter suffers from the Brendan Rodgers ailment of attributing everything good happening around him to his own efforts.
4 Likes
100%. I made the comparison the other day. Potter is not just an uninspiring guy. He is negatively inspiring with his faux insight and philosophizing. When youâre in a situation of needing to make hard decisions, having some friction to work through that shit grates. When things are positive you can overlook it, focus on how fun and good the training sessions are, and it all goes swimmingly.
Itâs kind the managerial equivalent of Kloppâs train analogy. If you have a manager who just good at the football stuff you can get a lot of mileage out them if everything is already going ok. When there are other things at the club to work through then the football stuff is just a tiny part of what is needed to be successful.
2 Likes
:0)
*Former Everton striker Dominic Calvert Lewin had a terrible debut for Leeds.
*After missing an open goal and a few other good chances he finally missed the last penalty in a shootout against Sheffield Wednesday last night in the league cup with many people blaming his choice of football boots.
Hard road ahead for DCL now.
6 Likes
Over the weekend, I talked with my LFC-supporting friends and we couldnât remember the last team Liverpool beat Arsenal in the league. Then I read this from Carraâs article above:
âHe has not lost to Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur in the last 22 games.â
This could be worrying, though my guess is that majority of those results were actually draws.
3 Likes
1.Shithouse a borderline illegal setpiece goal.
2. Park the bus with meaningless possession play with no end product
3. Keep looking like Stoke irrespective of the fact that heâs thrown billions at the players.
2 Likes
Four draws and a loss for LFC in the last 5 league games.
Record against City over the last 5 W2, D2, L1, which actually surprised me because the two matches in 2024 were both gutless displays that ended up costing Arsenal greatly in the hunt for the league. In he one about a year ago in particular, City was there for the taking.
2 Likes
I think out of those 4 draws , we should have been winning 2 of them were it not for fuck ups by the referee.
2 Likes
Yeah odegaard played basketball in the penalty area, plus that game last year we had been on holiday the week before after winning it.
They donât need a massive tactical shift because this is there set up now. In fact Gyokeres is pretty pointless to that, Chris Wood could do this job.
I would say they are favourites but they need to start beating those teams 6-14 in the league. They could have put massive pressure on Liverpool ahead of the City game last year and then they lost to West Ham and we beat City.
There title challenge wasnât a challenge, itâs even questionable if this kind of football wins titles anymore or just achieves 60-70pts. We will see, they are favourites due to our influx situation.
2 Likes
Itâs really only a 2 season run. In 22-23, the first year they were seen as real contenders, they lost to Utd and had City do the double over them. They won 1 and drew 1 with us
The next 2 seasons, ignoring spurs because they are shit, they went 8 and 8 against us, Utd, City, and Chelsea
It is credit worthy but not something to be scared of
4 Likes
Iâll be the first to say that we shouldnât be expecting to win the league this year.
But we can get better with more playing time.
Arsenal despite their bench strength seem to have a self imposed (arteta driven) limit.
1 Like
It is such a bizarre situation. I still think LFC had no business winning the title last year, but between City imploding and Arsenal playing it safe at every opportunity, we simply did. That in turn creates somewhat unfair expectations for this side, which looks to me like it should be better.
6 Likes
Yup. I think itâs the transistion, but I do think the skys the limit. In fact I think the CL might be where we nail it this season, maybe not win but a final if we do well early doors.
However saying all this if we can stay in it I do think we can be champions. Itâs this early period. And we both have wins in games where teams will struggle to pick up points. After all we are +2 on last season already.
A win feels like itâs needed at the weekend but we will see, a draw might be fine, at least Spurs look good this season so their derbies wonât be a formality.
3 Likes
Our league season does seem quite frontloaded, by our 10th match we will have played all 5 of last yearâs Top 6. That is not ideal for a team still very obviously coming together, but it should mean the second quarter of the season is a softer run. It also means that Arteta should be going for the jugular on Sunday.
2 Likes
Yeah, totally agree. I see us having a patchy start, but getting stronger and stronger as the season goes on and really coming into our own after Xmas.
Of course, a lot depends on what happens in the next couple of days.
2 Likes
That is always my hope but we almost always have a sticky patch just after Christmas and sort to unsteadily stagger through to MayâŚ
It could also just be that my view changes as the seasonâs competitions start to conclude - due to the games in the second half of the season usually meaning a bit more.
1 Like
We donât though, we did on a couple of seasons but one of those patches went on towards late March.
1 Like
If we beat these on Sunday then by the time we start our tricky run of fixtures (Palace away) we could already have 15pts from 5 games and there would be daylight between us and our rivals. Weâd be on a roll by then and suddenly those difficult fixtures donât look quite so tricky.
I really donât get how Arsenal are suddenly favourites after signing a dummy up front.
2 Likes
Arsenalâs biggest problem is Arteta.
He ainât a League winning manager until he is, and until then I reckon the self-doubt will be one of our biggest advantages.
3 Likes
I donât think heâs that great a manager, this is also the issue here. Yeah he could win the title but is he elite not sure and thatâs probably what will ultimately lead to him not winning major honour after major honour.
Lose on Sunday they will probably call for his head as is the fickle fan base.
2 Likes
Because they only missed out last year because of the injuries (not true). Now the injuries are sorted (not true) they should be considered favourites again (wouldnt be true even if the previous one was true).
Havertz and Jesus are still out with undetermined return. Saka is out for a couple of months at least. White unexpectedly missed last week and so with Timber have a couple of important players with the physical reliability of Naby.
But their pub league striker who runs fast scored against Leeds last week. So theyâre favourites.
5 Likes