Who will come 4th?

spurs will come 4th

Chelsea

arsenal

I am picking Arsenal because they are the only team I see a major improvement in. Having Sagna and Wilshere come back is something that will make them better at winning points, whereas hoping Carroll or Torres suddenly become 30m or 50m strikers doesn't really mean anything. Also the Terry case could be very destructive.

arsenal because they are playing too badly not to play well. Arsenal because they are due a recovery despite already having had and wasted one this season. Arsenal because the return of a one-season talent like wileshere isn't comparable to the return of essien or gerrard. Carroll or Torres may not ever work out, but their hitherto failures still have their teams in the mix for fourth- arsenal's talisman is firing on all cylinders and you're only just at that level- and he's due a breakage real soon, so arsenal because of that, obv. Arsenal because the other teams have newish managers who may still be in the process of organising their teams, whereas wenger's slow creep into footballing dementia will inevitably come good any tiiiime riiiight aboooout......now?

Sir, have i you rightly?

Chelsea

arsenal because they are playing too badly not to play well. Arsenal because they are due a recovery despite already having had and wasted one this season. Arsenal because the return of a one-season talent like wileshere isn't comparable to the return of essien or gerrard. Carroll or Torres may not ever work out, but their hitherto failures still have their teams in the mix for fourth- arsenal's talisman is firing on all cylinders and you're only just at that level- and he's due a breakage real soon, so arsenal because of that, obv. Arsenal because the other teams have newish managers who may still be in the process of organising their teams, whereas wenger's slow creep into footballing dementia will inevitably come good any tiiiime riiiight aboooout......now?

Sir, have i you rightly?

― waning white energy (darraghmac), Sunday, 22 January 2012 11:56 (Yesterday)

Nope, just the point about our best players returning. Gerrard has already returned and Liverpool look confused as to how to use him and I still am unsure of how good Essien is now his body has fallen apart over the past 3 years.

Of the three managers, I trust AVB the most but the Chelsea dressing room not so much.

Newcastle

Is anyone going to say Liverpool?

depends how quickly Dalglish "retires"

Chelsea.

doesn't really depend on dalglish at all once that transfer window shuts rinus michels couldn't pick and coach a top four xi from that squad, it's a horribly balanced collection

hey you can make a season-changing big money signing even on the last night of the window

Arsenal

lol snap xp

Haha. Otoh the defence is great and even offers a bit going forward now, soon enough we might see Bellamy-Gerrard-Suarez together up top, and a beautiful run came out much filthier conditions this time last year, so it isn't impossible. That 5/6 point gap to Chelsea though, it's getting on for half-a-point-a-game shortly.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

otm

fuck me if chelsea aren't nicely placed right now. though they could use alex, mainly for the cl final i guess. i can see newcastle losing all their remaining fixtures.

Spurs ftf

nah it's us. We should be chasing second but it's hard to judge this shit during the season, i've a feelung that scraping fourth wil feel just fine come august.

unless Chelsea win the Champions Lge

Voted Chelsea again.

Spurs have Bolton (A) Villa (A) Fulham (H) - would have been an easy 9 points for pre-slump Spurs and I think the cruise against Blackburn will boost their confidence enough that they'll take enough point there especially when you look at:

Newcastle: Chelsea (A), Man City (H), Everton (A) - no easy wins there

Chelsea: Newcastle (H), Liverpool (A), Blackburn (H) - plus an FA Cup and CL final to play.

Before Newcastle lost to Wigan I would have said Arsenal. Now Spurs.

newcastle have never been in it, srsly. Fixture list vagary. Chelsea won't win everything from now til end of season, and imo they'll have to.

That's balls. Newcastle were in it by being by far the most consistent team of the lot. Not necessarily better than everyone else at any point but they won regularly, didn't rely on ridiculous runs and so therefore didn't set themselves up to have a collapse of form.

Agree that the fixture list has kinda got the better of them but still could see them snatching it.

The Chelsea v Liverpool game is three days after the FA Cup Final and depends massively on the result of that game. If Liverpool win they'll just go out on the piss and Chelsea will roll over their second string in the league.

they've been in fourth, they were never going to finish there. They're a rabbit, that they're still in the race at the final bell is a credit to them, but they're as much a credible fourth place finisher now as we were title chasers in december.

A nice 0-0 draw between Chelsea and Newcastle would suit nicely.

The game is at Anfield so Chelsea will get at least a point, more likely 3.

ie the fixture list hasn't 'got the better of them' it's been massaging them.

You can only beat what's put in front of you.

Spurs benefited from a really gentle fixture list over the first half of the season, once the two Manchester clubs were out of the way.

yep, but that's what i've said! we weren't title challengers, newcastle will be a very creditable 6th, the only real movements all season in the cl place race were arsenal actually under then overperforming and our slightly over then vasty under. Newcastle are in a good run, aided by fixtures, they're about to have a bad one, aided by fixtures, leagues is leagues. Nobody's anywhere on merit until the dust settles.

after two games not even i thought we were going down nor even finishing outside top six, yknow?

The magic of football.

newsflash, smartarse- next year isn't your year either.

I think Chelsea will probably take nine from nine and Spurs will drop points to Villa and Bolton. Should be enough for 5th but not 4th.

more likely to finish 3rd than 5th tbh

Spurs have gone to shit since this new, confident Darragh made an appearance.

statistically the old, pessimistic darragh wasn't exactly 16 from 16 tbh

Newcastle are in a good run, aided by fixtures, they're about to have a bad one, aided by fixtures

Have you actually bothered to look at the results of the games they've played over the course of the season? Because not a single part of that sentence stands up. They've had a solid season of WLD speckled with some big wins and some big losses against big clubs and less big clubs. Can just as easily see them getting between four and six points from their last three games and that being enough for the CL.

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/results.html?paramClubId=31

I mean, I've been saying what you've been saying about the inevitability of their decline and the foolishness of optimism to my geordie flatmate all season. When that decline actually never happens you have to give them a bit of credit.

As I said, I don't think they probably do have enough for 4th at this point but if they can't manage it, it actually will have more to do with being consistent than having a bad run.

i dunno what to say to all that, i mean they've had mini good runs, mini bad runs, they're ahead of where any but the most one-eyed fans thought they'd be at the start and come season end they'll still be where only optimists would have put them, in sixth or possibly fifth. I'm not slagging them, i'm just telling you where they're gonna finish!

which is fair enough, but i think you're stretching most people's idea of what constitutes a (good or bad) run.

(btw i never thought i'd find myself imploring people to take newcastle seriously as a football club, in this or any other forum)

i'm taking them seriously. I took lfc seriously the year they were always gonna finish second too, but i mean...

If City beat United tonight that'll probably be it for Newcastle's top four challenge I think, I don't think Newcastle are quite strong enough defensively to cope with a reinvigorated and motivated City who are in with a serious shout of the title once again.

and good/bad runs are normally evened out, the tendency for a squad to normalise finishing place with ability (or, perhaps, expectations, or wages, or x) -ceteris paribus- is not really a surprise given the fact that talented professionals are workung together with a defined goal in mind, that shit normalises. I don't know what i'm saying anymore.

how long do we have until this shitty season is over and we can start thinking of funny names for the Euro/Off-Season Transfers threads?

ha you don't believe you're safe in third either!

xp Half the leagues are already finished and the FA Cup's on Saturday, so round about now I guess?

transfer talk has already begun in the Bundesliga thread

stop this madness ffs it'll begin when the window opens

there's nothing in the regulations afaik

I don't trust us to get 3rd. Well, it is 85% in the bag but it has been a long time since an Arsenal fan can breathe easy on that other 15%

breathing into bags sounds like a tony adams metaphor tbh

haha

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

pfff

28 people think Spurs'll finish 3rd obv

heartwrenching analysis. reading 442 this morning made me almost sorry for arry

Liverpool 2

oh it was a more innocent time

Other 0

well at least united is safe for this season

it's not about redknapp- it's about lennon.

Sandro is a beast.

what are arsenal's fixtures like? results have been a dream for us lately-

city will be firing to beat newcastle cos they're still in the title race after beating utd, but newcastle had 4th to play for vs chelsea last night and did serious damage. Everton will still hopefully be playing for uefa spots and the chance to finish above liverpool, and are in good form anyway.

Chelsea have an ok run in but are now too far back, their squad will be stretched to cover a comeback to fourth and still have enough left for cups.

We've to play the awful villa and an on-off fulham, neither with too much to play for.

Newcastle need to beat us by a point, taking goal difference into a/c.

Fourth's ours, now let's have ye bayern.

OTM, amazing how much better and more balanced we are with him in the team.

I'm more confident about a race to fourth with Newcastle than I would be against Chelsea. Our goal difference is so much better than theirs its like having an extra point. If we don't fuck up now we've done it, whereas Chelsea could still have edged it.

The Champions League Final is going to be the most horrible football watching experience of my life.

ha i think we agree on p much everything there

Arsenal play Norwich (H) and WBA (A). Everton can't qualify for Europe.

christ but we need right wing cover, i mean it's like a fucking toothache.

we'll assume arsenal are safe in 3rd, then....

two uefa spots to chelsea, newcastle- no others available?

Liverpool have the other one already via League Cup.

liverpool really have clipped blue wings this season, huh? Even finishing above them in the league leaves them with nothing, with lfc responsible for the uefa spot not being available as well as knocking them out in the FA cup semi on the way to a possible double.

That fucking stings.

There's probably no easier game in the Prem than a last day game against West Brom, square in the middle of the table, with nothing to play for and the manager out the door.

nice job for hughton, that

Villa are awful, but don't they still have 'something to play for'? Or are they safe now?

More or less. Bolton and QPR would both need to get four points to overtake them.

reckon arsenal might drop a couple of points