Where do we stand?

Half of the boring international break is over and only six more days left of misery before the Premier League resumes. We are going to visit Brentford and judging by the way we play after a break, it’s not going to be an easy one. Bees are anyway a very tough opponent with Thomas Frank sticking to old-school, no non-sense football that runs vertical. If you want to name one team no one likes to play against, it’s the Brentford.

About one- third of the season is over and it usually gives us a good perspective of where different teams stand and who are involved in the title run.

We are in the title race with joint second on points with Liverpool and one point behind Man City. After a poor season, Klopp must have reintroduced the high caffeine diet back and the results are showing. They have been a bit lucky too. Tottenham, on the other hand, had a new manager bounce but it’s ended now and pretty soon they will be back to where they belong, a fight for Europa Conference League spot. Man United is not going to be good for a foreseeable time. Newcastle are suffering from injuries and there’s no one else I think will be part of the fight. Sorry, Chelsea aren’t even in the screenshot so lets not talk about them for now.

Unlike last season, it’s a three horse race now. Pools are not going to back down, Pep is always part of the challenge and we are continuing our previous season form. Leave City out of it, the other two clubs performance depends highly on how they manage their players and what little injuries they suffer. Judging by the recent points tallies, the narrative of ‘lets not drop 3 points’ has changed to ‘lets get those 3 points’ – a draw is a loss because it’s going to get tougher.

We have got 8 games before New Year and if we managed to get 20 points out of available 24, we would be in a much better situation for the second half of the season. Games against Brentford, Wolves, Luton, Villa, Brighton, West Ham and Fulham can be considered winnable while the visit to Anfield will decide who remains closer to City.

Plus, we have to manage our Champions League games though we are in a much better situation till the round of 16 starts.

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In other news, Aaron Ramsdale dad decided to go on a podcast to criticize the club and Mikel about how they were not transparent about their plans in bringing David Raya just after 2 months of offering them a contract renewal. Well, Ramsdale had a drop in performance, he wasn’t improving anymore and it’s still too early to judge whether Raya will turn out to be better than him, I think the club and Mikel has got that authority to improve on players. You fight for your place and if you are better than the other, you play ahead of him. It’s as simple as that.

Except when your name reads Kai Havertz. You will play no matter what, there will be positions created for you and since you just played in a LB position for your country, we will suddenly have game plans where Havertz at LB will be the real deal.

Thomas Partey injury has baffled me. It’s time to move on now, from one of the best players in recent years. ESR, the same. I have been a big fan of both of them, but with their injuries we are limited to not bring in a replacement. An injured horse is of no use. Sad to say but we need to move on – get some money back off Partey and make some on ESR. I would have loved seeing ESR in place of Odegaard in that LCM role but it’s not going to happen now.

Couple more months and we might see Timber back in the squad. Zinchenko has been Mikel’s favorite for the LB position but I personally like Tomiyasu more in that role, simply because he is a bit defender and has a Honda engine in him.

We spent 100 odd millions on Declan Rice and it has turned out to be a good deal. Had Partey been injury free, our only worries would have a CF who can score and a back up to Saka (Marquinhos?). But we need a back to Declan Rice and a competition to Odegaard along with CF and Saka’s back up. Lots of positions to fix and it might have to wait till the next summer.

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Right, that’s all for today. If you are an Aussie reading this, congratulations on the world cup win and you can fuck off (sorry).

Cheers