This Weekend's Fixtures & Newcastle v West Ham (23/24/25 Nov.)

[HCZ_Reborn]

I don’t know the Sun will come up tomorrow, experience tells me that more likely than not it will. Foreknowledge of any kind is an exercise in finite probability. If you see smoke rising from a dumpster, it’s possible there’s another explanation but 999 times out of a 1000 you’ve got yourself a bin fire.

I’m not patting myself on the back, I’m doing the opposite I’m saying City’s travails were rather all too easy to foresee.


I don’t know that Liverpool will come off the rails, and of course it’s certainly in my interest that they do so. But I don’t look at them and think “where are they going to drop points?”. I thought yesterday was conceivable that they’d drop points….not because I think Southampton are anything but terrible but as you’ve pointed out yourself there’s a difference between a fixture you should win on paper and how it plays out.

That’s why I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because the performances have been average. Honestly If you were to go away and watch Liverpool’s matches (not even all of them, just say the last four or five) don’t have to watch beginning to end…Match of the Day highlights will suffice and you come back and tell me this is a team that looks like likely league winners, who haven’t massively relied on luck….then I would actually take your view more seriously than I do now

[Letters]

as you’ve pointed out yourself there’s a difference between a fixture you should win on paper and how it plays out.

Indeed. But this is why I'm raising an eyebrow at you continuing to call their performances average. Average performances yield average results...on average.
Of course there will be times you play poorly and win, or play well and lose. That's football. But if you keep putting in average performances then you're not going to keep on winning and they just...do. Easy fixtures or no, I can't believe it can be entirely luck. There does seem to be something about them this season. Whether they'll maintain this...it seems unlikely, but I keep thinking that. Hopefully December will see them drop enough points and we can go on a run and haul them in a bit.
You use the word "average" a lot by the way - elsewhere you chastised someone else for using it because average compared with what?

[HCZ_Reborn]

Indeed. But this is why I'm raising an eyebrow at you continuing to call their performances average. Average performances yield average results...on average.
Of course there will be times you play poorly and win, or play well and lose. That's football. But if you keep putting in average performances then you're not going to keep on winning and they just...do. Easy fixtures or no, I can't believe it can be entirely luck. There does seem to be something about them this season. Whether they'll maintain this...it seems unlikely, but I keep thinking that. Hopefully December will see them drop enough points and we can go on a run and haul them in a bit.
You use the word "average" a lot by the way - elsewhere you chastised someone else for using it because average compared with what?

Perhaps you’re right, perhaps the word mediocre would be better

But again quibbling over venacular, doesn’t change my view that I don’t believe their performances to be those you would see from sides you’ve seen in the past that are title winners. And I don’t think it in anyway unreasonable to suggest that I don’t think you have any evidentiary basis to challenge that view without having seen Liverpool play

[Letters]

And I don’t think it in anyway unreasonable to suggest that I don’t think you have any evidentiary basis to challenge that view without having seen Liverpool play

It isn't unreasonable. I guess my only evidence is their results. The longer this goes on the more unlikely it seems to me that their performances are mediocre and they're getting lucky. That can't keep happening, surely? And maybe it won't, but they are starting to irritate. I heard my neighbour yelling when Southampton went 2-1 up yesterday and rolled my eyes when I saw they'd won again.