Hey folks!
Saw a need for a new post for this season. It already started last weekend but let's kick off the thread! I know the title is EPL centric but I also know that there is interest in other leagues. For that reason, this will be a catchall thread for the Big 5 European leagues. (EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1)
English Premier League
Arsenal
Aston Villa
Bournemouth
Brentford
Brighton & Hove Albion
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Everton
Fulham
Ipswitch Town
Leicester City
Liverpool
Manchester City
Manchester United
Nottingham Forest
Southampton
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Bundesliga
FC Augsburg
Union Berlin
Vfl Bochum
Werder Bremen
Borussia Dortmund
Eintracht Frankfurt
SC Freiburg
FC Heidenheim
TSG Hoffenheim
Holstein Kiel
RB Leipzig
Bayer Leverkusen
Mainz 05
Borussia Monchengladbach
Bayern Munich
FC St Pauli
VfB Stuttgart
VfL Wolfsburg
La Liga
Alaves
Athletic Bilbao
Atletico Madrid
Barcelona
Celta Vigo
Espanyol
Getafe
Girona
Las Palmas
Leganes
Mallorca
Osasuna
Rayo Vallecano
Real Betis
Real Madrid
Real Sociedad
Sevilla
Valencia
Valladolid
Villarreal
Serie A
Atalanta
Bologna
Cagliari
Como
Empoli
Fiorentina
Genoa
Hellas Verona
Inter Milan
Juventus
Lazio
Lecce
AC Milan
Monza
Napoli
Parma
Roma
Tornio
Udinese
Venezia
Ligue 1
Angers
Auxerre
Brest
Le Havre
Lens
Lille
Lyon
Marseille
Monaco
Montpellier
Nantes
Nice
Paris Saint-Germain
Reims
Rennes
Strasbourg
Saint-Etienne
Toulouse
Comments
I'm to the point in my Tottenham fandom that every season is basically a new adaptation of the same plot.
Well, at least you have this going for you. Which is nice.
Knowing is half the battle...
I figured they cleared a lot of the soft mentality out of the dressing room, but nope.
Kind of like being a Rangers fan for the last 30 years.
You're going to have to be more specific. This could apply to the Scottish football club, the Texas baseball team, or, if you're being harsh, the New York hockey franchise.
i am so curious why some of the teams are italicized? last year's UCL qualifiers?
That's kinda what I was going for, yes. I may have missed some
I can't wait to watch the first Champions League match for the Villa. I'm actually going to get A Paramount subscription for this season. Hoping Unai can keep the momentum in the league as well. Promising start, new boys seem to be bedding in well, good early challenge this weekend with Arsenal coming to Birmingham.
Tough loss today. Looked like the better team right up until Arsenal's first goal. Arsenal is tough tho. Villa will still make noise
No idea how Ollie didn't finish either of those chances. Would've been different story if we could've put the pressure on Arsenal, but all you can hope is that's a lesson learned. At some point I have to think Emery is going to shake up the left side and start with Maatsen and/or Ramsey. I was impressed with Nedeljkovic, kid had to come on early and held his own.
That save on the header was ridiculous
Tomas Soucek - scores winning goal, saves the ball boy, and then celebrates by eating potato salad.
First Bundesliga matchday pretty good all around. Watching Goal Arena, and every game bar Stuttgart-Freiburg was exciting through the 90. Only disappointment was that the Gladbach-Bayer game wasn't hit by a meteor.
Only took 3 matchdays, but my Billy goats finally have a pulse in the 2. Buli. Thrashed the worst team in the league 5-0
The end of Bournemouth-Newcastle was certainly something.
Surprised more reds weren't given. All around.
It's the international break. The US plays today at 4 in a friendly vs Canada. Not sure what the story is with pochettino but I don't think he'll be there. England are up 2-0 over Ireland at half time in their first nation's league group match. Lee Casley's first match as interim manager. This might be a bit of a tryout for him and so far so good. England have looked like the dominant team that they should be on paper.
Carlsey managed the u21 team that dominated the euros last year. They won every single game en route to the title and conceded 0 goals. They played a dynamic attacking style and had loads of young talent that looked really good. Some of them were called up for this month's matches. So if Carlsey does well in these next few matches England may just sign him to take the helm officially. Time will tell.
I don't believe Poch has actually signed the deal. There's something w his release from Chelsea that's causing issues. Last I heard was he should be in the building, but not on the bench. Given this is a straight friendly without our main A team not sure it matters greatly. Sucks that we are losing time with his fingerprints on the team though.
Champions League kicks off tomorrow. 36 clubs across Europe begin their battle. As a Liverpool fan I'm hopeful the team gets a good bounce back win to erase the memory of the historic home loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Great scheduling that Arsenal plays at Atalanta on Thursday night and then has to go to Man Shitty on Sunday. UCL games should not be played on Thursday nights. That was always the penalty clubs got for qualifying for Europa but not UCL.
They are only using Thursday for the first match week. The remaining ones are Tues/Wed only.
Pulisic scored a nice goal in the first 3 min for AC Milan, after which, Liverpool really grabbed control of the match and lead 2-1 at the half.
Harry Kane HAD. A. DAY. Holy cow. 4 goals in a 9-2 rout of Zagreb.
Hat trick of pens!
Odd sidebar, the Bundesliga only considers it a true hat trick if they are all scored in the same half. So by. Their standards, he had one, but not w all the pens only.
Going to enjoy Villa sitting 2nd in the Champions League table for now. 3 nil away, two more goals chalked off for (to me) questionable hand ball calls (to clarify, the 2nd one was DEFO a handball, it just happened what felt like an hour before the goal). Hope this isn't the high point of our UCL campaign, lol.
Tottenham actually won a match today. If they win another in the Prem, that's a winning streak.
Big, if true
I think I hate City more than Tottenham. I just hate them so much.
Really? I've always hated Chelsea because of their willingness to accommodate dirtbags like John Terry and Diego Costa. But recently my Man United hate has bloomed. Mostly because of Bruno Fernandes is the biggest heel in soccer. Spurs always seem too inept to hate, it's like raging against kittens.
🐦 ⚽️
😃 coys
We needed those three points today, great win. What the heck is going on with United though?
They got the wrong bald Dutchman
They are just terrible! It's kind of nuts how bad they've become and how long a road they have back to the top.
Honestly, part of it is personal animosity (I will never forgive Fernandes for stepping on Ezri Konsa's planted foot and throwing himself to the ground to earn a game winning penalty) but it's Fernandes. I've heard several ManU players say he is the heart of their team. I'm sorry, he's talented, he's super competitive, that's evident, but he's a whiny bitch. You can't build a winning mentality around that. I've seen a bunch of different leaders, yellers, quiet ones, friendly arm around the shoulder ones, but I've never seen someone who whines and complains as much as Fernandes actually succeed.
He learned his petulance from another "leader" for the Red Devils, but he never got the arm band.
Man City goes down again. Guardiola's 4th loss in a row in all competitions. First time that's happened in his career. Wild stuff!
what in the world is going on with Man City? Dropped 5 in a row in major competitions and got blasted by the Spurs 4-0. Crazy times! Despite being 8 points back and having a big losing streak at the moment they are still really really good and, IMO, still very much title contenders
may the 5 game skid turn into 115
Wouldn't hate that one bit
Merseyside Derby postponed due to weather. Kinda sucks for me since I have 3 Liverpool players on my fantasy team and one of them is my captain.
Also kinda sad because this was going to be the last one at Goodison Park before Everton moves. An historic match that now likely won't happen
Welp. We're at the midpoint of the epl season(just about, with a couple more games yet to be played). Who had Nottingham Forest in the top 4 at this point? How about man city 14 points behind league leaders?
It's been an interesting one so far. As my first real season in epl fantasy it's been a lot of fun too. What has been a surprise to you so far this season? How do you think the title race will shape up?
Chelsea's lack of disfunction has been a (bad) surprise. I was really hoping they'd mope at the bottom half of the table again this season.
Title race is Liverpools to lose, of course, but they haven't really hit many trials or tribulations yet. Injury luck, VAR luck, ball bouncing right to their best players luck...it's all working! Will be interesting to see if any other teams are good enough to put pressure on them if they trip up. Hopefully Arsenal can 😬
Liverpool is pretty good at looking great early on and then stumbling down the stretch. I think (hope) things are different under Slot. I think he's a legitimately elite tactician. Granted, he inherited one of the, if not the, most talented rosters in the league. But he's got them playing solid, confident, controlling football. It's a joy to watch. I'm unsure what's going to happen with the contract negotiations with Salah, Trent and Virgil. Those are three of the best players in the world at their respective positions. Unsure they'll be able to keep all 3. Slot has proven to be a tremendous tactician but can he assemble a roster when some of those pieces aren't there any longer? That's the big question mark on him imo. He's got the acumen for sure. But becoming an elite manager is going to be dependent on whether he can bring guys in to keep things going like they are.
They are just ballin so far, It's impressive!
Liverpool are gonna walk the league. Slot has them playing lovely football (🤢). I feel like city are broken and need to move Walker and Grealish, or there is some lockeroom rift going on.
Shout out to Forest, ngl Nuno has them fighting hard.
Hard to describe my feelings toward Spurs. Much like VT, I no longer let them drive my weekend plans or day to day feelings. I want to back Ange, especially given the injuries, but the form is rough. But Levy will not win a trophy if he keeps sacking managers every 18 months. It's a sickening cycle and the fans deserve better. I'd take a carabao or Europa trophy if it meant finishing 16th tbh. At least we aren't west ham or man u, but that's a low bar.
Yeah tottenham is confusing. Seems like they either score 4 goals or give up 4 goals. Super hot and cold.
Happy to see Newcastle back in the Euro-comp slot at the midway. 16-1 goals in their last 5 prem games. Isak is hitting his stride as well. (He's no Salah, but one of the tops in the league behind him.)
I'm really gutted about Liverpool's loss to PSG in the Champions League. PSG played very very well and deserved the win - Liverpool squandered a bunch of great chances, though, and it just as easily could have been them going through. PSG is easily the best team I've seen play (granted, I haven't seen every team play) and I think they're going to be hard to stop - I think they'll win the whole thing TBH. Liverpool still has two things to play for.
First one is this Sunday. Hoping they are still licking their wounds over yesterday as a Newcastle fan. But I doubt that will be the case.
Welp. Newcastle played inspired and deserved the win. Been a really tough month as a Liverpool fan :( and the last 5 days have been absolutely brutal. Pretty typical for them to rush out to a great start and then falter down the stretch. At this point I just hope they're able to hang on in the PL and win something. Still exceeded expectations this year but I don't see how we can keep all of Salah, Virgil, and Trent this summer. Slot's going to have to show what he's really made of next season with a different looking roster.
Declan Rice. That is all 😍
Liverpool clinched the PL Title yesterday with an emphatic win over Tottenham Hotspur - it's nice to get some hardware and it's definitely more than what could have been reasonably expected going into the season but it's still a little bit of a hollow feeling after having a chance at 4 pieces of hardware and having that whittled down to 1 in a span of like 10 days. That was a real rough patch as a Liverpool fan, for sure. But it was a strong campaign and hopefully the club has a good summer and goes into the next season looking just as, if not more so, formidable.
They answered the bell every time they were called upon. I wasn't sure about Slot, but he seemed to push all the right buttons. If TAA does indeed leave, will be interesting to see how they adapt.
I feel decent about Conor Bradley, though he did have a pretty bad outing in the last start I saw. He was great against Madrid. He's got the potential to be a pretty solid RB but he's not going to be the creative force Trent is. After a season of Slot-ball I feel pretty confident that he'll be able to adjust well to Trent not being there anymore, which I think is probably likely.
Always really interesting to see what happens when a new coach stops having the old coach's guys and starts getting more of his guys. The Beamer/Fuente situation is a cautionary tale against overreacting, of course, but it seems like Slot is a great fit for the club. I imagine the fan base is pretty ecstatic with him, right? Contrasting to the ManU and Tottenham situations (roster issues aside) it's pretty wild to see what the right guy in the big chair can do.
Eddie Howe is a prime example of this a well.
As far as the Reds go, if Konate stays, they will be ok. They can find another defender to serve the ball forward, and get MacAllister involved a tad more in the plays.
Newcastle is wild because they haven't even really broken into the PIF Saudi millions to improve their team. They easily could've gone full Boehly if they wanted to. All the more credit to Howe.
I swear I made a thread for the 25-26 premier league season but I can't find it.
Anywho, here to congratulate arsenal on their title. Well deserved. Sad Liverpool had such a disappointing season but they still have a chance at next year's cl with a draw. Here's hoping. Unsure how I feel about the Slot experiment.
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