⚽ Premier League 2025/2026 Discussion Thread ⚽

[Huppercase]

Wasn't Ruud Van Nistelrooy only a temporary coach at Man United from the start? So there no need to take it personally when he left because his job was done and there was no contract that he would be made a permanent coach. Now as a coach who is just starting his career and getting Leicester City  is not bad. Many great coaches now start with unknown clubs. Ruud Van Nistelrooy journey is still long, let him make his own way. Whether he fails or not with Leicester City depends on him.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy performance was very short and the time he did, the result were outstanding as there was no loss in any of the match he played during the short time. However, I think the immediate replacement of Erik Ten Hag contributed to how the players turn up in his games and now, the players are tired so Amorim is now in the right spot to make their players great again, I'm not sure if Ruud Van Nistelrooy that has been playing all this while wouldn't have lose match, the boys need some serious adjustments.

It's okay to lose on a regular games but losing consistently is the bad thing we don't want to see. On a regular day, Arsenal might not be that great team like it were in the last 2 seasons but they are in every good standing invasion to beat Manchester United, it was their home match, no way it's expected of them to lose and they are also in good race to porsue Liverpool to the first place and try as much as possible to leave Manchester City in the back.

[Egii Nna]

I am not watching the match between Newcastle and Liverpool, rather I am facing my television for the match between Arsenal and Manchester United. Ask you rightly predicted, Liverpool is struggling to make a headway under Newcastle and they already have one goal against them. Liverpool being able to win tonight means that they will have to first equalize the goal against them by Newcastle before they will now talk about scoring another good to give them a winner. On a good day that is not a difficult job for Liverpool but things are actually not going as planned in this season English Premier League so it will be a bit tough for Liverpool for equalize and win Newcastle United.

I also decided to watch the Arsenal - Manchester United game and after that terrible first half I realized it was a bad choice.   

Because meanwhile Newcastle - Liverpool game was just going on incredibly well! After a huge fight there was a 3-3 score at the end. Despite Salah's high effort Liverpool failed to win.

By the way I shouldn't go hard on the Arsenal game of course because the 2nd half was great thanks to Arsenal's wonderful football. Such a deserved win there. 

I want not that much focus on the Arsenal and Manchester United game because I know no matter what, Arsenal will definitely win the game, which they did.
 
Although yesterday they had many hot games that I wanted to watch, I was not even able to focus on a single game, but I had to be changing each of the games within minutes so that I would be able to see their performance. The only game that I saw that was so tough was that of Liverpool and Newcastle; they had put a lot of effort into that game, and they played with the last of their ability, but still the game ended in a draw. Although it is better than they shout, they lost the game against Newcastle, and no doubt both the teams played an amazing game last night. 

[hahay]

If Nunez is able to be more productive then Liverpool will probably always manage to win every match, especially in this Premier League so far Nunez only has two goals and that is a bad result as a center forward. Because what will be a serious consideration is, if for example Salah really leaves at the end of this season, then maybe it will greatly affect Liverpool's performance  next season. So, I think Liverpool really have to have a good plan of course, because if Liverpool fail to have productive players in the front line, then Liverpool will be difficult to be able to compete for trophies  for future seasons if Salah leaves.

[Velvet78]

If Nunez is able to be more productive then Liverpool will probably always manage to win every match, especially in this Premier League so far Nunez only has two goals and that is a bad result as a center forward. Because what will be a serious consideration is, if for example Salah really leaves at the end of this season, then maybe it will greatly affect Liverpool's performance  next season. So, I think Liverpool really have to have a good plan of course, because if Liverpool fail to have productive players in the front line, then Liverpool will be difficult to be able to compete for trophies  for future seasons if Salah leaves.

Nunez is a hopeless case in my opinion. At least as long as he plays at Liverpool or stays in the Premier League.    Because he just can't break a leg. You would remember the way he was playing in Portugal. But he can't adapt to this league no matter how hard he tries to. I believe Arne Slot should cut him from the starting lineup. He doesn't deserve it.

Liverpool can easily find a much better striker than Nunez by selling him and using the money for the transfer. Maybe going for Osimhen could be an option? He is available for 75 million euros from now on.

[Richbased]

It must be very relieving for Guardiola to finally win a game. It was a bad streak lasted for 7 games or so. It means like a nightmare to a team like Manchester City.    They got the win in a strong way by 3-0 against one of the challenging teams at the same time. Nottingham had a really poor day.

Pep Guardiola really felt a deep sign of relief yesterday after going 6 matches without a win, they finally won on the 7th game against Nottingham Forest. Nottingham Forest has been in a bad shape lately and so also was Manchester city and people couldn't trust Manchester city to win Forest due to how they performed badly in their recent matches but am now happy that City is back to winning ways. Now that they have broken the dead luck, they will get more favorable results in the upcoming games because they wouldn't want to have this ugly experience anymore.

Newcastle - Liverpool was the loveliest game of the night by the way.    A 3-3 result, what a game! I wasn't surprised with Liverpool's stumbling though. A draw looked possible for me but Newcastle fought really hard.

Thanks to Newcastle for holding Liverpool to a draw otherwise the gap would have been so huge but now it is not that bad as Liverpool is 7 points above Chelsea and Arsenal who occupy the second an third position.

Lastly the main event Arsenal - Manchester United didn't end in a surprising way. The first half was very boring but Arsenal dominated the remaining part. A 2-0 win and both of them were thanks to those great corner organizations. 

Arsenal played impressively against Manchester united and it was a well deserved victory for the gooners.

[kawetsriyanto]

It was Ruud's sweet debut at Leicester City even though West Ham is a fairly troublesome club. Although there are still many challenges ahead, at least this first appearance provides a breath of fresh air to Leicester City and its players will certainly be more confident to give their best performance, indeed the manager plays an important role in the journey of a club if the club has star players, it is not certain that they can perform perfectly if not trained by the right trainer, Ruud may not be an experienced coach because his experience is limited, but he may have a strategy that could rebuild the struggling club.

Indeed. It is a nice debut, Van Nistelrooy successfully leads Leicester City to win again the matches. Before this win, Leicester City never won the last 6 matches. With this win, it makes sense if people expect Van Nistelrooy to make Leicester City be a strong team again. Sure, it is too early to expect this, but it is not wrong because Van Nistelrooy could show a better result than the previous coach.

Van Nistelrooy changed the formation and put some different players in the main lineup. It seems Van Nistelrooy understands what he should be done for Leicester team. With some changes, it potentially can improve the mentality of the players. They see something new under Nistelrooy's management. So, the players can play more confidently with the system applied by Van Nistelrooy.

[Issa56]

I mean, KDB being back is something major, he is of course getting older and that is why he may not contributing as much as he used to, but he is definitely looking as good as ever so far with just a single game, he added so much attacking prowess to the team and passed the ball exactly where it should go, which lead to a lot of positions for them.

Kevin De Bruyne is already getting old, but he is still making a great impact on the club's performance. De Bruyne contributed to Manchester City's win in their last match because he was able to make an assist and was able to score a goal for Manchester City. I will say De Bruyne is already getting old, but he is still performing so well for Manchester City, which is really a nice one. Whenever De Bruyne is absent, his impact is always felt in the team, because we do always notice a drop in Manchester City’s performance.
 
Since De Bruyne is back, then let’s see how Manchester City is going to perform in their subsequent matches to come, but I am expecting Manchester City performance to improve since they have been able to break their losing streak, then let’s expect Manchester City to continue winning their matches.

[Furious 7]

By the way I shouldn't go hard on the Arsenal game of course because the 2nd half was great thanks to Arsenal's wonderful football. Such a deserved win there. 

What I regret in the Arsenal match is the composition of the players who made up the line-up of Manchester United in this match that I will not be able to stop before criticizing Amorim for his decision.

I don't know why he is still trying to force Malacia to be in the squad when if you look at the actual game conditions he is not very suitable to be in the conditions of a big match like this.
Although I know that in the end this match is likely Arsenal are still superior and I bet on it but still Amorim should prefer to try something new rather than forcing Malacia to be in a position that should not be there.
Before he played in his ideal position he played badly against Bodo/Glimt and Amorim still tried him in the hope of a change but in the end he didn't really fit the conditions of Manchester United it seemed.

[Alpha Marine]

Ruud Van Nistelrooy performance was very short and the time he did, the result were outstanding as there was no loss in any of the match he played during the short time. However, I think the immediate replacement of Erik Ten Hag contributed to how the players turn up in his games and now, the players are tired so Amorim is now in the right spot to make their players great again, I'm not sure if Ruud Van Nistelrooy that has been playing all this while wouldn't have lose match, the boys need some serious adjustments.

I don't think Van Nistelrooy was tested while he was interim manager. He did well in the short time he was at the club but he didn't play any difficult games aside from Chelsea and he didn't win. He managed to get a draw.
Amorim didn't lose any match before he faced Arsenal and I think Manchester United are doing better than they were under Ten Hag. I know it's too early to judge but you can see positive results from the players. Aside from his first match against Ipswitch which was a draw, the team has started to improve well and even against Arsenal, they didn't play too badly.

I believe Amorim can make Manchester United a better team, but I can't say if he will be able to win the league with them. If he is going to have any success at the club a lot of needed to be done in terms of recruiting players. They need a lot of players and I hope United will make the right decisions in recruiting players this time around.

[el kaka22]

Pep must be delighted to see KDB back, between KDB and Rodri gone, they had such a big weak spot at the midfield, they are at least getting one of them back, not that KDB will have absolutely any help on defense at all, but at least on offense he is a key playmaker that makes a big difference without a doubt.

At the end of the day, we need to realize that we can't really compare the situations together the same, it's not the same and we are going to have some trouble with long term results for City if they keep this up, they won this one, but they need to do better and without KDB they looked terrible. They are "back" now but we are going to see how the yare going to be in the near future, if they are good then that's okay, but if they go back to losing, that's very bad.

[Pokapoka124]

Ruud Van Nistelrooy definitely managed to do the best, and if he can keep this team at the league and away from relegation, I am pretty sure he will be offered a better role in some other team. I honestly believed that they won't be doing that great, I didn't expect a win, and I also believed that Ruud should have stayed at United as an assistant manager for Amorim as well, because he knows United, he is very well versed with teams staff, and players, and could have been a better position for him.

When he left, I thought that was a bad decision for him because I believed he wouldn't find a good job, and when he accepted Leicester job, I said that was a bad move too, because it looked like he would just lose most games and be sad, but turns out, I was wrong and he is doing fine right now. I assume that he won't be able to win majority of the games, but as long as he wins enough to stay around where they are, and not relegate, he will be seen as a saviour for the club.

Ruud van Nistelrooy is certainly did more than was expected of him in Manchester United. Everyone believed the players were trash until Ruud was appointed interim manager. Ruud capable of replicating that model with this team and I believe he has what it takes to Leicester City away from the relegation zone. Given his tactical expertise and ability to thrive under pressure, he can guide the team to safety. If he successfully keeps Leicester City away from the relegation zone till the end of this season, it would be a significant achievement on his part, considering the challenges involved. This could lead to him being offered an improved contract extension.

[Adams0001]

I mean, KDB being back is something major, he is of course getting older and that is why he may not contributing as much as he used to, but he is definitely looking as good as ever so far with just a single game, he added so much attacking prowess to the team and passed the ball exactly where it should go, which lead to a lot of positions for them.

Kevin De Bruyne is already getting old, but he is still making a great impact on the club's performance. De Bruyne contributed to Manchester City's win in their last match because he was able to make an assist and was able to score a goal for Manchester City. I will say De Bruyne is already getting old, but he is still performing so well for Manchester City, which is really a nice one. Whenever De Bruyne is absent, his impact is always felt in the team, because we do always notice a drop in Manchester City’s performance.
 
Since De Bruyne is back, then let’s see how Manchester City is going to perform in their subsequent matches to come, but I am expecting Manchester City performance to improve since they have been able to break their losing streak, then let’s expect Manchester City to continue winning their matches.

The greatest thing Guadiola can do is hunt for a successor before he starts performing poorly for the club; everyone understands that de Bruyne is an important player who helps the team win trophies. But, in my opinion, Guadiola should not start him at all he is already elderly and can't play the full 90 minutes as he used to. And de Bruyne's game is to simply feed players and scores. I'm sure many of the goals Haaland has scored since joining Manchester City are due to de Bruyne, who is providing important assists and scoring goals. When de Bruyne is injured, you won't be able to observe Haaland's performance anymore because de Bruyne that is helping is injured.

Let see how Guadiola will finish this season. I see they have pick form in there last game and they do well meaning that Guadiola as strongly to win three point at last. And continue chasing the league. Liverpool as overtake the league I don't think Manchester will achieve these time anymore am sure the players are not more putting hope on winning the premier league they will more focus on other competitions.

[KingsDen]

If Nunez is able to be more productive then Liverpool will probably always manage to win every match, especially in this Premier League so far Nunez only has two goals and that is a bad result as a center forward. Because what will be a serious consideration is, if for example Salah really leaves at the end of this season, then maybe it will greatly affect Liverpool's performance  next season. So, I think Liverpool really have to have a good plan of course, because if Liverpool fail to have productive players in the front line, then Liverpool will be difficult to be able to compete for trophies  for future seasons if Salah leaves.

Despite that Nunez is the forward of Liverpool, the responsibility of scoring goals lies more on the shoulder Mo'Salah. So, as long as MoSalah is in the club, he will continue to be the goal man of the club.
Nunez has not been the consistent striker of Liverpool. Most times it Nunez, another time it will be Jota. So, he might not be able to score goals as you desire.

[len01]

There are some interesting matches that we can take advantage of in tomorrow's match.
But I wonder if Man City will be safe to play away?
It is natural when we are a little doubtful about Man City because their performance is not yet stable and even when playing away they can give surprising results.
Share your thoughts.

[Woodie]

Fulham continues to impress,  beating Brighton 3-1.. this I didn't see coming 

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Just when you think one of the easiest midweek games we can expect to see goals and potentially an easy "both team's to score" was to come from the Tottenham game..considering both they have the fire power to score, and they choose to draw a blank with no goal to show for   very disappointing!! And they face the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool in a few weeks and am now thinking this will be one way traffic  

[EL MOHA]

Fulham continues to impress,  beating Brighton 3-1.. this I didn't see coming  

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Just when you think one of the easiest midweek games we can expect to see goals and potentially an easy "both team's to score" was to come from the Tottenham game..considering both they have the fire power to score, and they choose to draw a blank with no goal to show for   very disappointing!! And they face the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool in a few weeks and am now thinking this will be one way traffic  

Seriously I didn’t see the win of Fulham against Brighton as something surprising, Brighton yes have be me playing far more better football than some traditional top six teams of the league like Manchester United and Tottenham, but over the last few matches them and the Aston Villa have been looking like a team that have lost their fighting power just already and it is surprising because the season hasn’t gone that far already, although against bigger and better oppositions like Manchester city and Tottenham, Brighton have played better and Also beaten them. But against clubs I rate as their equals they have maybe drop points that I think they should be winning if they want to play European football. From the beginning of the match Fulham look a better side but the biggest downside of this was the goal that Brighton goalkeeper gave away to Iwobi which was what changed the game totally. Fulham themselves have also been inconsistent but deserves today’s win.

As for Tottenham, their lack of inconsistency is something that makes me not to rate them that much so I wasn’t surprised by the results and even expect them to lose the London derby to Chelsea this weekend

[blue Snow]

Pep must be delighted to see KDB back, between KDB and Rodri gone, they had such a big weak spot at the midfield, they are at least getting one of them back, not that KDB will have absolutely any help on defense at all, but at least on offense he is a key playmaker that makes a big difference without a doubt.

At the end of the day, we need to realize that we can't really compare the situations together the same, it's not the same and we are going to have some trouble with long term results for City if they keep this up, they won this one, but they need to do better and without KDB they looked terrible. They are "back" now but we are going to see how the yare going to be in the near future, if they are good then that's okay, but if they go back to losing, that's very bad.

Manchester City needs regeneration from now. They are very vulnerable to defeat if one of them is missing. KDB is not young, there will be a time he have retires, and The city needs substitute that is equal with his capabilities. Nothing is feasible at the moment, Pep must do it immediately to moving forward. And I think, even if no one have the same capabilities with them, Pep must use another strategy or scheme to support it, and so far unsuccessfully when we look how the lost 5 match on the row.

[reagansimms]

It was Ruud's sweet debut at Leicester City even though West Ham is a fairly troublesome club. Although there are still many challenges ahead, at least this first appearance provides a breath of fresh air to Leicester City and its players will certainly be more confident to give their best performance, indeed the manager plays an important role in the journey of a club if the club has star players, it is not certain that they can perform perfectly if not trained by the right trainer, Ruud may not be an experienced coach because his experience is limited, but he may have a strategy that could rebuild the struggling club.

Indeed. It is a nice debut, Van Nistelrooy successfully leads Leicester City to win again the matches. Before this win, Leicester City never won the last 6 matches. With this win, it makes sense if people expect Van Nistelrooy to make Leicester City be a strong team again. Sure, it is too early to expect this, but it is not wrong because Van Nistelrooy could show a better result than the previous coach.

Van Nistelrooy cool hand was not only able to change things when he was appointed as interim coach at Manchester United, but continued to Leicester who had never won in the last 6 matches with the previous coach. This victory has re-opened hopes for Leicester who want to continue to exist in the EPL, but management also needs to increase the strength of the team by bringing in several quality players. Van Nistelrooy has the ability to transform Leicester into a stronger team, but he also needs support from the management to build new strength, the January transfer market could be used to bring in quality players who can help the team to improve its performance.

[TastyChillySauce00]

Manchester City is finally back. What a great result against a strong team as Nottm Forest surely is. The game itself was far from perfect as we have still seen some holes in defence, but it's important they have managed to grab 3 points.
What's more, Liverpool has unexpectedly split points with Newcastle, who put up a really good fight and, I think, deserved a win but had to settle for a 3-3 draw.

So maybe it's not yet completely over for Man City. 9 points disadvantage won't be easy to make up, but it's not impossible as we still have 24 rounds to go.

This is a good result against such a strong defense as Nottingham, I am also glad that City were able to finally win, Guardiola also said this, now the main thing is not to relax and make a long winning series. Liverpool lost points in the match with Newcastle and this also plays into Guardiola's hands, of course it would have been better if Newcastle were able to win, but even this draw gives hope to City.

People were being too rude by saying the season is already ended for Manchester City. How can it happen? *lol. That's coming from the haters.

Glad City is finally back to the right way. Some adjustment being made by guardiola, he puts KDB and Grealish as midfielders. My first time to see Grealish played as a midfielder, and it's worked. This rotation did well, and helped City to play like what they used to.

KDB was so back after he recovered from his injury, and he changes the mentality from the club a lot.

[Litzki1990]

Pep must be delighted to see KDB back, between KDB and Rodri gone, they had such a big weak spot at the midfield, they are at least getting one of them back, not that KDB will have absolutely any help on defense at all, but at least on offense he is a key playmaker that makes a big difference without a doubt.

At the end of the day, we need to realize that we can't really compare the situations together the same, it's not the same and we are going to have some trouble with long term results for City if they keep this up, they won this one, but they need to do better and without KDB they looked terrible. They are "back" now but we are going to see how the yare going to be in the near future, if they are good then that's okay, but if they go back to losing, that's very bad.

Manchester City needs regeneration from now. They are very vulnerable to defeat if one of them is missing. KDB is not young, there will be a time he have retires, and The city needs substitute that is equal with his capabilities. Nothing is feasible at the moment, Pep must do it immediately to moving forward. And I think, even if no one have the same capabilities with them, Pep must use another strategy or scheme to support it, and so far unsuccessfully when we look how the lost 5 match on the row.

In this season, some important players of Manchester City are not able to contribute well for the team due to which the team is performing poorly regularly. The players who are performing best in other seasons are now injured and those who are on the field are not able to give their best. Manchester City players should be planned in such a way that those players stay at Manchester City who can contribute to Manchester City and those who cannot contribute are not needed at the club. The next transfer window will be open and next season Manchester City should definitely buy some quality players in some important positions so that Manchester City can return to good performance again.