Bald cunt and cigarettes guy are warned :kos2:
It would require a decent away form, thatās all.
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Realistically, we will likely finish somewhere between 3rd and 5th and hopefully catch some luck and do some damage in the cups. It takes time to implement a new system. We also have a squad with a lot of younger players, that has experienced a lot of turnover, and that simply doesnāt have enough talent to compete for the league. Talent wise, we are somewhere in the 4th-6th bracket (way behind City, clearly behind Liverpool and United, and perhaps behind Chelsea depending on who leaves). Auba and Ozil are world class attackers. But look at our defense and midfield for fuckās sake. Those units are full of young players who could improve - and this will be a big indicator of whether Emery is a successful manager - but theyāre young, raw, and largely unproven.
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Ceteris paribis, yes.
I see a huge gulf between City and the rest of the league but I donāt think any of the rest are significantly better than us. I think there are 6 teams who can all expect at least 70 points but Iām not looking at anyone outside of City and thinking theyāre likely to go over 80 points.
Iām not so worried about league position right now because a lot of that depends on other teams decline so may not tell the full story but if we can go over 75 points Iāll be happy with that as a first attempt.
Wenger managed 75 points 2 seasons ago and players like Walcott, Chamberlain, Coquelin and Gabriel featured a lot. If Wenger was so shit, at least matching that should be achievable.
My biggest worry was too much of the squad not knowing what to do without Wenger but Leno, Sokratis, Torreira, Auba, Mkhi I would assume were starters but not what I would consider Wenger players so thereās enough there to not just be mourning his loss. Maybe thatās part of why we were happy to chase older players.
I think this years league is going to be way more open than people realize. The consensus seems to be that itās going to be a two horse race between Pool and City but I honestly feel that City arenāt going to run away with it two years on the trot and Pool arenāt going to be the globe trotting wonder team that people are building them up to be.
If anything I think it could be year for a dark horse and I feel Chelsea and Arsenal should be keeping their eye on the main prize with their recent changes in management.
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1st in the league
QF fa Cup
4th round league cup
Europe league winners
I think Outlook 2016 is still the most recent. :auba:
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Starting to suck though
We will finish 4th or 5th with about 72-77 points.
Our attack looks pretty good with Ćzil, Auba, Ramsey, and Miki. I expect us to score a decent amount of goals. However with no proper winger and guys like Iwobi and Laca, who are mediocre at best, I expect to be frustrated watching us squander a lot of scoring opportunities as well.
Midfield wise I donāt think weāve done much at all to upgrade. Torreira is basically the same player as Xhaka just probably a hell of a lot better, so ok upgrade there, except I think they are gonna be playing together possibly? So we still lack creativity and technical ability in the middle of the park, and thatās going to hold us back from becoming a true contender. Guendouzi is a couple years away from real contribution. Still lacking a Santi type is the ultimate undoing of this side imho. We let Serri go to Fulham (wut lol) and we never even looked like exploring the possibilities for a guy like Ndombele, so Iām quite disappointed by that.
Defensively we are also pretty shit. Kosh was already deteriorating and now he did his achilles, heās done. Iām not sold on Sokratis and Mustafi as a partnership, that seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Bellerin is fucking shit and Kolasinac isnāt much better. Honestly I think our hopes come from Chambers, Holding, and Mavropanos in this area. They all have had glimpses of looking like class players, once again though they are a year or two off. As far as GK goes Leno has terrible stats, but maybe he could develop.
I have faith in Sven. Gouendouzi, Mav, and Torreira are all his signings and I think they could be the core of a fantastic team in the future. However we are two or three years away because the utter mediocrity infesting our team thanks to a piss poor transfer policy over the last 10+ years. Gonna take a Herculean effort to overcome that.
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Forgot we only won a game away from home in 2018 lol!
Iām totally with you.
Iām expecting big things from this team as it is. We have some serious quality in the team and have signed much needed back up and replacements so Iād be very disappointed and surprised if Emery canāt leverage these players and his tactics into something better than weāve seen in the last 3-4 seasons.
I also donāt think City will walk the league again either, I agree with you that it will be much more open.
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tl;dr
It was a good post.
Agree, defence will be our undoing, although Mustafi seems to be a bit better so far. (Sokratis the dodgy one. Very dodgy signing imo)
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Which is the point I keep trying to make to all the doom merchants and naysayers.
How is that evidence that we should do better? I see what youāre saying logically/statistically, but there are plenty of problems with this basic analysis.
I think it is fair to say overall we have underachieved our quality relative to AW, but if you look at analogous sports WAR type analysis, managers or even single top players donāt make 20 point swings on their own.
At least I do think for the first time in a while that it isnāt hopelessā¦ we are out of our Wenger purgatory at least and I can see under the right circumstances us challenging 80+, and then anything is possible. If I were to look at probability curves for points and each team, there are scenarios where we finish first, but I reckon it is a wee slice.
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Iāll feel even better if we can get rid of the deadwood asap.
Get those Akpom and Ospina deals done asap!
Then sign or sell Ramsey (too much dragging on going on here) and get rid of Welbeck plus Elnenny if we are planning on getting another MF in.
This is my dream, but it looks like this is it for our business this season. Not bad, but not great tbh. Wanted another CB, CM and Winger.
Have to get in the CL next season so we have more money to spend and can attract higher level players.
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We mainly really need a top winger imho. There will be more departures as our squad is huge.
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No it wasnāt. The same bullshit about Lacazette and Torreria 
It would have been a good post had he not thrown the traditional Laca is mediocre nonsense in there.
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