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

If Arsenal lose to Bayern tonight, the additional Champions League spot for next season won't be going to the Premier League. Dortmund winning last night moved the Bundesliga into second spot in the rankings.

He's playing week in and week out at a higher standard in the PL and standing out. I think we are vastly over estimating international football at this stage..

Rice, Bellingham and Maddison midfield is moving Bellingham back deeper and is not using him in the position which he has excelled at this season. You are moving potentially the best attacking midfielder / 10 in the world on form to accommodate Maddison. Why?

If England don't want to throw Mainoo in then they still need to fill that position with a player who can complement Rice and Bellingham. Not changing those 2 around to accommodate a lesser player.

If we are honest JWP is fairly average in general play. He's a set piece machine but in open play he isn't a standout player.

You'd bring him and play him later on in games that are tight for the chance of a free-kick. He'd also be a handy option to throw on in extra-time if game is heading towards Pens.

So Tottenham will have to cheer for their rivals against their home grown hero ?

Watkins is the obvious one but I hear a lot say Douglas Luiz

I've a lot of time for McGinn

Douglas Luiz is who I said but four said Watkins. For me it's Luiz with Watkins and Martinez just behind him.

McGinn is a great one too.

I'd say the same about Douglas Luiz.

All 3 teams are capable of dropping further points for sure and I expect they will.
The question is do they drop less than City from here?

Liverpool and Arsenal have just had a couple of highly disappointing back-to-back results. Picking themselves back up is the real task. Arsenal especially haven't shown they can bounce back from these setbacks just yet.

So yeah, these next couple of games are key. If Pool & Arsenal drop further points then you just give City too much wiggle room in terms of error. They won't drop that many points all the same.

Win the games and maybe a bit of pressure can be applied to City

Both Liverpool & Arsenal look tired, Liverpool moreso, due to differing reasons.

I'm not sure they have the physical capabilities to rally another charge again. Arsenal lost out last season and haven't shown yet that they can go toe-to-toe with Man City over the course of a full season. Arsenal's xG over the last month doesn't look too good, bar the odd exception, so there are doubts over the creativity now too.

Liverpool's schedule now is very tough with the 3 away games in 6 days and quick turnaround to the 12.30 KO, to add to the tiredness. Liverpool were creating too many chances in recent games, but the finishing was not there. Against Atalanta, there were basically no chances created and that is the real worry.

Don't think you can blame one player in this case. Granted Nunez is at best average but it is definitely not just him that has cost Liverpool

Yup… now, we might still be ahead if he was in better form over recent weeks, which of course can be said of most of the team, but we certainly wouldn't have even been in the title race to begin with without Nunez' contributions.

And even with his more recent struggles for form - the consistency of his goal contributions has been nuts, very rarely goes more than a game without a goal or assist.

I know he has cult like status but his lack of finishing clearly affects the team. Hes great at everything else but any striker whose actual weakness is finishing isn't gunna lead a team to a quad.

Its fair to ask if 11 goals was enough to sustain a title race from our most expensive forward purchase ever.

He plays from the left quite often, no?

Nunez is the most expensive signing alright, but he's not the primary forward at Liverpool. That is Salah, and Liverpool play towards/through Salah the majority of the time so he will be the primary source of goals, and take penalties etc. Nunez's numbers would look differently if he was the primary forward, was first choice on penalties etc. Liverpool have been awarded 6 pens this season. I think Nunez took and missed 1 of those 6. Hypothetically and for arguments sake, let's say he scored 4 of the 6, his goals scored would look a whole lot different.

Some context is needed.

Liverpool paid a similar fee for Nunez to Newcastle paid for Isak and their records are similar enough this season. I would classify Isak as the primary Newcastle attacker, and he was lauded as "a superstar" by a poster in this thread a week or two ago. The 2 players have started the same number of games with similar enough minutes played overall. Nunez has 11 non-pen PL goals, but Isak has 13 non-pen PL goals. Similar enough record there from open play if you ask me. Including penalties, Nunez remains the same but Isak jumps up to 17. if you add in assists, Nunez's total PL goal contributions would be larger than Isak's. PL goal contributions this season stands at 19 Nunez, 18 Isak, including penalties. Excluding penalties, so basically open play, Nunez has 19 PL goal contributions and Isak has 14. One is regarded as "a superstar" but one is constantly called a flop, rubbish, the reason why Liverpool won't win the league etc.

And if we go through the top 6/7 PL clubs and compare Nunez vs the secondary goal scorer in each club it is a similar story. Going by total goals scored in the PL, and taking the secondary player at each club, the ranking looks like this (penalties included);

Foden 14

Nunez 11

Richarlison 10

Gordon 10

Havertz 9

Bailey/Luiz 9

Garnacho/Hojlund/Rashford/McTominay 7

Some amount of hoops being jumped through here. If Salah leaves in the summer who is the “primary forward” at Liverpool?

And what hoops are they exactly? Because people are trying to compare Nunez to Haaland et al and just pretend that Salah doesn't exist?

If Salah leaves next season, and Liverpool line up with Nunez as their primary forward, then you can compare Nunez to the primary forwards at others clubs on how they also do next season. Because there is no manager at the club next season, we don't know how Liverpool will set up, and what players will be there etc.

Can't make head nor tail of it, its Kloppesque.

Simple fact whether 4th 5th 6th choice Nunez has the worst feckin big chance conversion rate in the the top 5 European league at 20%.

The chances are falling to Nunez and he hasn't a bulls notion how to finish them. Someone should really tell Jurgen not to keep giving the non-primary forward the primary chances he cant take.