There’s a couple of things I’d probably say.
1. Given the amount of churn I was expecting early season results to be average as we’d not be consistent or firing.
Added to this, given their short break, City and Chelsea should be “more” match fit than us with their problems coming as the season progressed.
Arsenal, despite signing a lot of new players “should” have had less churn because more of those players would be expected to start on the bench - all really mountain lover and Swedish Rickie Lambert that were nailed on to start.
Our performances are kind of exactly what I expected, a bit disjointed and no quite clicking, so given the fixtures, it’s great we’ve made such a strong start with so many players looking a little off the pace - Kerkez, Macca, Wirtz, Isak, Mo, Gakkers, etc.
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@Woland I expected us to drop a little too much early season, but could see us have a similar trajectory to PSG last season, where we fired more towards the business end.
2. Which brings me nicely onto my second point - I’m not overly concerned with some players being out of form now - it’s great that Dom & Gravy are playing really well at the minute and helping us finds ways to win - but we’ve seen drop in form from, mainly forwards, in the final 3rd of the season cost us when we get to run ibs and later stage of knock out rounds.
More than any other team, we have been top at Christmas and gone on to lose the league - so if certain players are changing their regime in some way to make sure they’re “fresher” and more in form towards the end of the season (in a World Cup year), then that might actually help us. Might just be the natural bedding in process, but if we get to match and Isak, Mo, Wirtz and Macca are at the top of their games - we’re winning stuff.
Right now, it’s about getting into and finding the consistent rhythm that will see us there or there abouts in the league by Christmas and navigating the CL league phase with minimum fuss finishing in the top 8.
Still a lot of football to play, but we’re doing well so far.