I can't believe that we have a Premier League Fantasy thread but not one for the real games??
Come on, people! We can do better than this.
Midway point in the season (well, 14-15 games out of 38, what's that, 40%?), Arsenal top of the league. Playing great football. Lots of young talent, qualify possession, quality pressing forcing turnovers high up the pitch. Fluid attack in the Man City / Pep style on full display. Gabriel Jesus and Zinchenko bringing some of that championship experience to a young, well-recruited side. Arsenal's big improvements are having a better holding MF (Thomas Partey) so Granit Xhaka doesn't have to be such a foul machine on defense. Xhaka is connecting their play better. Saka and Jesus have gone a bit off the boil, though. I think the break came at a bad time for them, with Jesus getting hurt at the World Cup.
City are playing well. Haaland is going to set an all-time goal record this year, with probably 10 goals to spare. He has taken them to a whole new level. They should win Europe this year (finally!) if Haaland can continue anything close to his early season form. Missing the WC has probably given his body a rest.
Eddie Howe is doing a brilliant job at Newcastle. They have great fans. I remember the terrific Alan Pardew led team they had back in about 2012 with Demba Ba and Pappis Cisse in attack, Cheik Tiote in MF, finished around 5th or so. Terrific team to watch. Almiron won't keep scoring at this pace, but they will still bring in a couple players in January, including potentially Pulisic, who would be a tremendous spot for him, IMO. Alain St. Maximan has been hurt, too, and should be coming back to pick up Almiron when he eventually cools down. They will probably get a MF, Winger and CF in January, maybe even a FB or CB. They have a real shot at Champions League with some serious reinforcements, and the Saudi's have been relatively patient and modest in their investment up to now.
Spurs should be doing better. It seems like they are not adapting well to Conte's second season. Their offense has cooled, and Son and Kane are not having typical years. The recruiting has been workmanlike. I wonder if Chelsea could convince Daniel Levy to take Romelu Lukaku off his hands? I'm sure he and Conte would love to get back together. And Lukaku could give his "unfinished business in England" speech, like he did when he came back to Chelsea. I think that Spurs are about to take a fall. I think Conte's innovations in England (3 at the back w/ Chelsea led to a 13 game winning streak as they ran away with the League in 2017). But everybody plays 3 at the back now, and the advantages of overwhelming midfield, having width at the back, etc., has been kind of found out by other coaches. Conte needs a new trick, because gegen-pressing is the modern game, and he's a bit out of step. His methods would be great in international football, just like Van Gaal had a very good WC with a less-than-stellar Dutch squad by playing on the counter. Pochettino is kind of a similar coach.
I don't think Van Dyke has that aura anymore. I think he has become human, and that has hurt Liverpool's defense. Their midfield is still old, too, and needs rebuilding. I'll be surprised if Liverpool can manage Top 4 again this year.
Brighton's new coach is spurring them on, and they have continued to play well, thrashing Chelsea and embarrassing Mr. Potter, leading to Chelsea's recent slide. They have the players to be this year's Leicester (not Champions, but a quality side, like the recent ones under Rodgers). Speaking of Leicster, I can't believe players that good are playing so poorly.
I think United will be better with Ronaldo, whose career in the Big Time is now officially over. He might not even play in the WC semifinal for Portugal tomorrow. Can you imagine that? Certainly not how he expected his career to end. But we don't all get happy endings, do we? United still needs more in midfield and another couple defenders. I think they have good players in attack.
I think that there is great quality in midtable in teams like West Ham, Villa, Palace, Brentford, Leeds and Everton. The last two (Leeds and Everton) could use a couple/three new players in January to liven up their sides. But all of those team have a lot of talent. I think Fulham are playing over their heads a bit. It's hard to bring in a whole new team and expect there to be chemistry, but they are doing well.
With respect to relegation, I think that goal differential is the best indicator of who will wind up going down. By that measure, the battle will be among 4 teams for 3 spots - Nottingham Forest (sure to go down), Wolves (sure to go down; they just can't score goals), and then either Bournemouth or Southhampton. I'm thinking that Southampton's traditional expansive football is somehow going to get them enough goals to stay up, but the question is, if they play that way, can they keep enough out?
Biggest Transfer Rumors I'm hearing right now (mostly about Chelsea, of course ...), but for United, I hear they are getting close with Cody Gakpo, who has been very good for Holland. I heard that Frenkie De Jong might be leaving Barca for either Arsenal or United, to play for Ten Haag.
Liverpool want Jude Bellingham really badly, but will have to wait for the summer. They've been after Martin Skriniar of Inter for quite some time, too. They might get Skriniar in January. They are also looking at Enzo Fernandez of Benfica.
Chelsea are going to be active in January. I could see maybe 3 new players, and couple possible sales. Todd Boehley, the owner of the Dogers and Chelsea, has been keen for swap deals, which are still relatively rare, although they can be used to help inflate the value of transfers for FFP purposes, like Barca did a couple years ago, swapping players at inflated values to create the appearance of more revenue. Anyway, the latest is Boehley wanting to swap Pulisic to Bayern to get Kingsley Coman, who used to be such a hot prospect, but who now sits on the bench behind Serge Gnabry and Leroy Sane. That's an interesting one.
They are anxious to dump Hakim Ziyech and Romelu Lukaku, but teams in Italy only want them on loan, not permanent deals. Ugh.
Chelsea needs a MF to enable them to replace Jorginho and N'Golo (always injured) Kante, who was seeking a 4 year deal at age 31 from Chelea, after playing only about half of the last 3 years, and who will now be unavailable until at least February. He priced himself out of a deal. Jorginho really, really hopes to go to Barcelona, but they don't have budget to sign him unless he's free. Let him go. They have lots of young guys in MF, they have experience in Mateo Kovacic, who is looking great for Croatia, isn't he? And they can also get Adrian Rabiot, who has played so well for France, on a free transfer from PSG, where he is running out his own contract this spring.
Chelsea are pushing hard for Christopher Nkunku of Leipzig, who could be a tremendous attacker at the 9, and they also want Rafael Leao from Milan, who is having a very good WC. They want Denzel Dumphries to give cover at RB, where Reece James has been hurt, to Chelsea's detriment. They probably need more cover at LB for Chilwell, too, as Marc Cucarella has been having a terrible time defensively. I hear they are also after Josko Gvardial, a 20 year old central defender who has been great for Croatia. He's also at Leipzig, and Chelsea just hired one of their player personnel people.
That's a lot of spending, but they need a lot of work to compete at the top. Chelsea also rumored to look to sell both Edouard Mendy and Kepa Arrizabellaga this summer. They signed that up and coming kid from MLS, Gabriel Slonina, but he's too young to be more than a back-up right now. I love the way that goalkeeper for Croatia has been playing, Dominick Livakovic.
The guy has played for Dinamo Zagreb, a very respectable team who often make Champions League, for several years, and has been a regular with the Croatia national team since 2019. He's 27 years old, and has saved about 25% of the total penalties he's faced in his career. That's an outstanding number, in my book. He's played nearly 250 games for Dinamo Zagreb.
He may be experienced enough to be a first choice keeper in the Premier League. I read that United had already been scouting him, so they would appear to have the head start. But if Chelsea is dumping both their keepers this summer, this guy can calmly play with the ball at his feet. Even Brazil couldn't effectively press Croatia. Livakovic had a lot to do with that (as did young Gvardiol, the 20 year old central defender).
Getting both would reinvent Chelsea's defense, and they could maybe ask Thiago Silva if he'd be interested in coaching. That would leave them with the following central defenders - Wesley Fofana (21), Trevor Chalobah (23), Gvardiol (20), Koulibaly (31) and Azpilicueta (33). That's a terrific group, much more agile than they've been for a while in the back.
