We're nearly a third of the way through the season now and the table is starting to settle down a little bit. So I feel it's a good time to start this thread. How many spots in the league are allocated for Europe depends on a few variables: - a team finishing top 4 wins the Carabao - a team finishing top wins the FA Cup - the Premier League's performance in Europe in general - a club winning one of the European trophies and finishing outside the qualifying spots If we work on the assumption a top 4 team wins the cups and England do perform in Europe, we're going to have 8 spots again this season (5 in the CL, 2 in the Europa, 1 in the Europa Conference).....I think At the moment, we have two groups battling it out: First group: City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Villa Second group: Man Utd, Newcastle, West Ham, Brighton, Chelsea Even the likes of Brentford, Wolves and Palace are hanging around too. My first couple of questions to put to the masses are this: Do Chelsea have too much work to do to make the CL spots? And can Brentford, Wolves or Palace actually crack the top 8?
If 5th is a CL spot then Chelsea are still in with a shot, if not then they're not. And imo that shot is still slim since other sides are better placed for it. Villa, Manchester United, Newcastle United. + I don't think any of those 3 will finish in the top 8. Ultimately all lack the goals.
The scummies will win another asterisk, and it's then about 2nd. I reckon we're favourite currently but it's early and a lot can happen. But right now for me:- 1st Scummies 2nd Liverpool 3rd Arsenal 4th Villa 5th Spurs 6th Chelsea Villa and Spurs could swap around.
As things stand I think the additional slot goes to the Premier League given 4 English clubs make the Top 7 in European Coefficients. Currently 9 points adrift from 5th and even with Nkunku, Lavia, Broja, and Badiashile back I don't think we can overcome the inconsistency we see against sides that are difficult to break down.
As things stand, it's actually Turkey and Belgium getting those extra spots Germany and Italy are also outperforming England right now. We won't really know until the end of the season if it will be allocated or not. Seeing similar things between our full season under Emery and Villa's. We didn't lose a home match in the league for 8 months (including winning 10 straight home games), we had a stress free European group and we were sitting 5th at this exact point in the season on the back of a 10 match unbeaten run. In a rather boring answer, the proof around Villa will be next April (if they are still in Europe). That's when it completely fell apart for us under Emery. We also had a losing away record that season (W7 D4 L8) and Villa's away record right now is also a losing one (W2 D1 L3) so there's really weird similarities going on. A third of the season is gone already and after this break there won't be another one until the end of March. A lot of shit is going to get decided in the next 4-5 months. How boring would this site be if we didn't talk about anything regarding league positions until the final 8 games?
I was far more confident re the 5 spots going to England at the start of the season, but seems the sides outside of the Champions League will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
I wouldn't over worry about 5th place. until the finals are played the full coefficients will not be known. I think we are ticking over right now on a lot of fronts and some sides are doing better than others. everyone should be pushing for 4th anyway. I like the fact that villa are now putting it up to everyone and it's not just newcastle and utd and Chelsea being miles off after 12 games.
Indeed, would be the first time since 2012-13 that fewer than 3 English sides made the knockouts if they both fail to do it. Even Leicester City managed through the groups and they finished in the bottom half that season. tsktsktsk.
9 points? Difficult, but wouldn't say miles off. Heading into the most congested period where everyone (bar City) will be dropping points.
The average points for 4th over the past 5 seasons has been 69. The average points for 5th over the past 5 seasons has been 66/67.
it's only miles off as its over just 12 games. yes you are quite right that it's more than recover over the following 26.
There's no evidence Chelsea can find the consistency to make the points differences up. When was the last time they put anything like a proper run of form together? Even looking back at 2021-22 under Tuchel and they had a lot of patchy periods.
I like how the media have done their best to give Chelsea a big old boost after two results and make a pochettino love in story. the reality is its 1 win v 9 men and three draws in the "big 6" according to sky. While better than a disaster like man utd's form there it then ignores what they've had done to them by the so called lesser sides. As I said after 12 games to be 9 points off 4th is indeed miles off as if they continue that trend they'd be 28 points off by the end. Obviously nobody expects that but its very similar to what they ended up with as a gap last season. 9 points is more than recoverable as long as you can find consistent form so the point above is well made. the consistency in every game has to be there. to put this in context chelsea have played 8 against the non top 6 sides and lost 4 of them, with one draw so 10 points from 8 games really has been shambolic. IMO the next step for Chelsea is to put that right and ignore 4-4 draws with city.
We might lack goals now but Toney’s back in Jan. I think it’s a tall order still but wouldn’t write us off, even with all our injuries.
Just a crowded field for me. The top 10 currently is all made up of sides people would most likely predict to make up the top half of the table at the start of the season. 8 of the 10 are in Europe, and the 2 that aren't usually are. Whereas last season you had Chelsea and West Ham both in a proper slump in the league.
