⚽ Premier League 2025/2026 Discussion Thread ⚽

[AYOBA]

Manchester United were just lucky in their match against Manchester City, they didn’t play anything serious in the match, they were just lucky towards the ending of the match, and they were able to score two goals. We all know that Manchester city performance has dropped drastically which every team playing against them is taking advantage of that, which I will say Manchester United took advantage of that also. Manchester United match against Tottenham shows that United’s performance hasn’t improved yet, and they are not a club which we are suppose to be confident in.

If where to compare performances this two teams I think Manchester United performances is more strong then Manchester City, is not that there talking advantage of the of anything. Because if we look at the Manchester City performances today against Aston Villa you know that their performances is total poorly to be honest.

Manchester City lose 9 matches out of the 12 matches this show that this season have altered over them they should just go rest, and then come back when ever their performances get improved properly but I can see that people are complaining that the main problems from their coach let see what he can able to do before season coming to an end.

[shinratensei_]

I think Manchester city should start accepting their fate. I see many pep fans talking about this is just a phase and Manchester city can't sack pep but I bet to differ, yes pep has don't the unthinkable in the English premier league, something that would take a while before it can be replicated but this is modern day football and serious business, no time for sentiments. Manchester city still has faith in Pep but their is always a limit and I strongly believe those limits are starting to get tested
 

Honestly, City shall not sack Pep, but they mus tell him to overhaul his current roster. The main problem is his tactic won't work if his players have no clue how to implement it. He has to explore the creativity on his club as well. Playing with same patter in everygame won't help him much.

The only best solution to sell entire players on his current squad, then rebuild his club. He has to accept his fate to stay at the bottom this season.

[Palakka]

Not sure what to think of Manchester City  tbh someone says Rodri went with the keys to the locker that holds the goals for City which is why there is some kind of goal drought for the Citizens, and some say troube started when the Ballon Dor was robbed off vini... and in some camps fans are saying the age group of the team is hurting them because those currently playing are atleast over 29years with a few young stars 🌟 which is why currently they aren't as competitive as we expect them to be..

But this winless run is worrying even for us football fans that don't support them...will they over turn this anytime soon...hopefully boxing day things change 

I get the humor, but all of this things said are nothing but pure speculations, we can never be sure of what went wrong with Manchester city except the management will decide to open up to the public, which personally, I believe is unlikely to happen.

But still, until the management decide to whether or not to let the public in on what is happening, or things decide to change for the club, nothing much we can do other than to keep watching and anticipating, and maybe see the constant loses as one of the realities of sports, which is that, the going won't always be sweet all the time..

I don't know what is happening to Man City, but what is clear is that they are facing serious problems. Not only in the Premier League, they even have a hard time in the Champions League. If victory becomes a target that is very difficult to obtain, then they could be knocked out of there. I hope this January transfer can be a way for Man City to solve their problems because it would be a bit strange if there was no Man City in the Champions League or fighting for a place in the Premier League top 4.

If we look difference at their performance and consistency at the beginning of the season and at this time, we can clearly conclude that Rodri injury is the main factor in their  slump, because Manchester City performance before the match against Arsenal ( when Rodri injury match) is actually their performance is still very consistent with as title contender, but Manchester City nightmare I think started with Rodri injury  where their performance slowly declined such as now, but even so, I think their chances to rise are still wide open, especially if they make good use of the winter transfer market later  to recruit the right replacement for Rodri, Manchester City trust in Guardiola is so great that in bad conditions like today, they still trust him as a coach.

[MainIbem]

I get the humor, but all of this things said are nothing but pure speculations, we can never be sure of what went wrong with Manchester city except the management will decide to open up to the public, which personally, I believe is unlikely to happen.

But still, until the management decide to whether or not to let the public in on what is happening, or things decide to change for the club, nothing much we can do other than to keep watching and anticipating, and maybe see the constant loses as one of the realities of sports, which is that, the going won't always be sweet all the time..

I don't know what is happening to Man City, but what is clear is that they are facing serious problems. Not only in the Premier League, they even have a hard time in the Champions League. If victory becomes a target that is very difficult to obtain, then they could be knocked out of there. I hope this January transfer can be a way for Man City to solve their problems because it would be a bit strange if there was no Man City in the Champions League or fighting for a place in the Premier League top 4.

If we look difference at their performance and consistency at the beginning of the season and at this time, we can clearly conclude that Rodri injury is the main factor in their  slump, because Manchester City performance before the match against Arsenal ( when Rodri injury match) is actually their performance is still very consistent with as title contender, but Manchester City nightmare I think started with Rodri injury  where their performance slowly declined such as now, but even so, I think their chances to rise are still wide open, especially if they make good use of the winter transfer market later  to recruit the right replacement for Rodri, Manchester City trust in Guardiola is so great that in bad conditions like today, they still trust him as a coach.

This could be Pep Guardiola's last season at Manchester City cause things are getting worst for the team than getting better, am not seeing the team spirit and zeal to win any more and if feels like Pep Guardiola is seriously struggling with ideas of recovering the teams form, they've had numerous loses and even five consecutive loses in a row in all competitions, that alone is enough to set confusion in their dressing room and make them lose form, Pep has lots of work to do anyways and he's so lucky his previous achievements has reduced the pressure and backlash from fans. Anyways, While Manchester City's form is declining, Arsenal is becoming stronger, they've been in a good form this season and their current ongoing match against Crystal Palace is quite interesting cause both teams together have scored over 2.5 goals already though Arsenal is leading, Gabriel Jesus have the most outstanding player so far, he's scored a brace and might even score a hat-trick, , Crystal Palace as home team are fighting so hard to not lose but Arsenal's the favorite, I believe they'll score more goals and win at the end.

[skarais]

I think Manchester city should start accepting their fate. I see many pep fans talking about this is just a phase and Manchester city can't sack pep but I bet to differ, yes pep has don't the unthinkable in the English premier league, something that would take a while before it can be replicated but this is modern day football and serious business, no time for sentiments. Manchester city still has faith in Pep but their is always a limit and I strongly believe those limits are starting to get tested

You are right, the bad trend experienced by Manchester City has basically reached a stage where it may no longer be tolerated. It's hard to believe a team as good as Manchester City has failed to win so many games in a row, in fact this is Pep Guardiola's worst record. He has won 4 Premier League titles in a row and this season he should be able to say that there is no longer any hope of securing the title and return to focusing on the game without too much pressure.

So far, the players seem to be feeling pressured by several demands including defending the title, but considering that their chances are already very low, Pep Guardiola must shift his focus to the team's performance and improve it. The Premier League is beyond hope, but they need to fight in order to end the season in the Champions League zone.

[ILuckyGuyI]

If I were in Manchester City's place I wouldn't even think about sacking Guardiola. That's insane to me honestly. Because he has been a very successful coach until now. Why wouldn't I give up on him this quick just because we have a bad time? 

They even extended his contract as you know. Because they completely believe in him. They had better do so. You can't win all the time. You will have bad times too no matter how strong your squad is. You need to show how big you are by getting over it. 

Today Aston Villa won by a really nice effort. I believe they deserved it without doubt. From the first minutes it wasn't hard to understand it was going to be a really tough one for Manchester City.

[pawel7777]

Another sad performance by Man City. I was hoping they would turn things around and win against Villa, but nope, another loss.
They dropped to the 6th place as they got overtaken by Aston Villa and might drop even further when all games of this round are completed.
Assuming Liverpool and Chelsea will win all their outstanding games, Man City will be 15 and 10 points behind them respectively. I think it's fair to say they can wave their chances of defending the championship goodbye.

[dezoel]

I don't know, Palace doesn't look like the type of team that can sustain against Arsenal, it feels like we are going to end up with not having Palace sustain that long and will see them losing in the end, we should consider how that would look on the long run and things will change a bit more. We should consider how we could make this work, we need to make it so that it snot going to end up with much at the end.

I feel like we are going to end up with a much different approach and for that reason we are not going to end up with anything that will not be all that complicated at all. Of course things won't be that easy, of course you won't get what you deserve every time , and Arsenal may end up having a risky game, or even maybe lose points, but I do not think this is the one. I feel like they will just get an easy win here.

[Pokapoka124]

As all these are happening, I couldn't conclude more than that football is not fair to some people. Football was not fair to Jürgen Klopp, if not, he would have won a way more EPL titles. When Klopp was in charge of Liverpool, Guardiola didn't fall in this type of mess. It was worse that Klopp ended a season with 97 points and yet couldn't win the league.

Manchester city is off the radar. I actually didn't expect them to remain at the top for ever. I only suspected that things won't end well when they sold Mahrez and Gundegon same season and finally returned Gundegon. Manchester city cannot return to win this season's EPL.

Yes, I don't think it is realistic for Manchester City to turn around and win this season English premier league title. Manchester City has drastically gone down the table because of some series of bad performance, injuries and crisis that surrounds the club. And I don't think they might be able to turn their season around even though they are been coached by arguable the best coach in football. This shows that Manchester City era has passed and it's time for another era. All this shows the uniqueness of the Premier League and why it is reagarded as the most competitive league in the world as one time cannot always dominate for a very long time in the league.

[EL MOHA]

I think Manchester city should start accepting their fate. I see many pep fans talking about this is just a phase and Manchester city can't sack pep but I bet to differ, yes pep has don't the unthinkable in the English premier league, something that would take a while before it can be replicated but this is modern day football and serious business, no time for sentiments. Manchester city still has faith in Pep but their is always a limit and I strongly believe those limits are starting to get tested

Even though I am not much of a Pep Guardiola fan i will still say he is for now an un sackable person because who he is and the nature of the club currently. For now the club isn’t that too bad away from the top four race, if he is around positions like 16 or 17 then the club will most likely be looking at his dismissal, also the question that most people continue to ask about Pep sacking is if he gets sacked who replaces him, sorry but there is absolutely no one right now to right his wrongs. Pep Guardiola is similar to icons like Ferguson and Arsene Wenger or even Klopp of Liverpool they were simply un sackable due to their role in making the club what it was today.

Manchester City also have much bigger problems than this poor performance which is the 115 count cases they face in the court and would rather not waste much expenses on getting this man out of the job because it will cost them much. The only way I see Pep parting ways is Honourably like Arsene Wenger did by walking away himself and this isn’t something I see Pep doing.

[Josefjix]

Even though I am not much of a Pep Guardiola fan i will still say he is for now an un sackable person because who he is and the nature of the club currently. For now the club isn’t that too bad away from the top four race, if he is around positions like 16 or 17 then the club will most likely be looking at his dismissal, also the question that most people continue to ask about Pep sacking is if he gets sacked who replaces him, sorry but there is absolutely no one right now to right his wrongs. Pep Guardiola is similar to icons like Ferguson and Arsene Wenger or even Klopp of Liverpool they were simply un sackable due to their role in making the club what it was today.

Manchester City also have much bigger problems than this poor performance which is the 115 count cases they face in the court and would rather not waste much expenses on getting this man out of the job because it will cost them much. The only way I see Pep parting ways is Honourably like Arsene Wenger did by walking away himself and this isn’t something I see Pep doing.

Things are bad, but they won't get that bad; the worst that could happen to City and Pep is that they miss out on the Top 4 and will most likely play in the Europa League for the first time; all they need is a good summer to replace out-of-season Rodri and possibly find a good replacement for KDB before he moves to Suadi at the end of the season.

Bringing back Gundo has been a complete failure; he is no longer the same player and is extremely out of shape.

[BITCOIN4X]

~Snip

Yes, I don't think it is realistic for Manchester City to turn around and win this season English premier league title. Manchester City has drastically gone down the table because of some series of bad performance, injuries and crisis that surrounds the club. And I don't think they might be able to turn their season around even though they are been coached by arguable the best coach in football. This shows that Manchester City era has passed and it's time for another era. All this shows the uniqueness of the Premier League and why it is reagarded as the most competitive league in the world as one time cannot always dominate for a very long time in the league.

I wouldn't say the Manchester City era is over just because they could potentially fail to defend the title this season. Liverpool won the title in 2019-2020 when Manchester City tried to win their 3rd title in a row, this season Liverpool also has the potential to win the title when Manchester City tries to defend their 5th title in a row. Believe me, no one wants Manchester City to win 5 titles in a row in a very competitive league like the Premier League except their own fans, but fortunately that possibility has disappeared now that others are able to beat Manchester City like now.

The next question is, we still don't know who will win the title this season because this season is still a long way to go. Liverpool and Chelsea seem to be competing with each other for that, followed by Arsenal who today won away with a score of 1-5 over Crystal Palace. Manchester City will not fight to secure the title, but now they are fighting to qualify for the Champions League next season by improving their performance in the second half of the season.

[iBaba]

I think Manchester city should start accepting their fate. I see many pep fans talking about this is just a phase and Manchester city can't sack pep but I bet to differ, yes pep has don't the unthinkable in the English premier league, something that would take a while before it can be replicated but this is modern day football and serious business, no time for sentiments. Manchester city still has faith in Pep but their is always a limit and I strongly believe those limits are starting to get tested
 

I am not a Pep fan but I can't just conclude that the solution to this sudden decline in performance is the sacking of Pep Guardiola. What the management needs to do is to work closely with Pep Guardiola to do some improvements on the squad depth. I feel like Pep is handicapped right now and requires some financial support to work on the players. They lack supporting players.

[Issa56]

Another sad performance by Man City. I was hoping they would turn things around and win against Villa, but nope, another loss.

I am not expecting any improvement in Manchester City’s performance. Till after the January transfer window, Pep Guardiola will have to sign some players, he needs some quality players if he wants to improve the club’s performance. If Manchester City continues like this without signing new players, then they will end up ending the season in a position that they don’t expect. Every club wants to play against Manchester City now because they also want to take advantage of Manchester City’s poor performance to get their three points. There is no assurance that Manchester City can win even against weak teams currently.

[blue Snow]

If I were in Manchester City's place I wouldn't even think about sacking Guardiola. That's insane to me honestly. Because he has been a very successful coach until now. Why wouldn't I give up on him this quick just because we have a bad time? 

They even extended his contract as you know. Because they completely believe in him. They had better do so. You can't win all the time. You will have bad times too no matter how strong your squad is. You need to show how big you are by getting over it. 

Today Aston Villa won by a really nice effort. I believe they deserved it without doubt. From the first minutes it wasn't hard to understand it was going to be a really tough one for Manchester City.

Yes, I see how difficult the city to destroy The Villa defender. I expect the match end with loss for manchester city too. I don't know why the squad is look hard to stuble the defense because when I look how they play at past, that should be easy to pass the ball to Haaland or Foden to take a ball on penalty box. Seem like they were lose the mental of winning. Yes, they have several loss in the row that make the squad is hard to increase from adversity. We don't blame Pep too much because they were try to improve the strategy, but still they have lost their mentality so that situation that make the city will be hard to get up from this situation.

[coinlocket$]

It is just unbelievable how Manchester City became from Hero to Zero.
Now I'm pretty sure, they teams already know about the incoming penalty and they don't give anything in the pitch.

Today Liverpool needs to win not an easy game or they will start be under pressure from Chealsea.

[knowngunman]

Honestly, City shall not sack Pep, but they mus tell him to overhaul his current roster. The main problem is his tactic won't work if his players have no clue how to implement it. He has to explore the creativity on his club as well. Playing with same patter in everygame won't help him much.

The only best solution to sell entire players on his current squad, then rebuild his club. He has to accept his fate to stay at the bottom this season.

Like how much do you think City need to overhaul the entire team? Getting rid of the entire squad will not solve their current problem and it's going to cost them a lot of money. As for the bottom, Pep already confirmed it in one of his interview that he's ready for anything coming ahead. I really pity the old man this season as things suddenly turn opposite within a blink of an eye leaving everyone in shock.

The funny thing is, he just signed his contract extension last few weeks. Would it make any sense going away this trying time? I think this is the right time for him to prove himself that he's capable but unfortunately the old man seems to lack ideas and couldn't come up with working solution. Very sad to see this happening but it is a phase that every team equally passed through at a point in time.

[Velvet78]

Manchester City dominated the match and has the highest ball possession in the game. Aston Villa from the stat of the match has only 45 possessions while Manchester City had 55 possessions and the gap is 10%. Which means it was the defense of the Manchester City that was not good enough that made Aston Villa to win the match with 2-1. And this were games we all expected Manchester City to win but things are not like before again.

...

Dominated the game? Not even a bit.    Don't just look at the statistics. I assume you didn't watch the game from the start to the end. Ball possession doesn't prove anything. Besides Aston Villa had the most ball possession in the 2nd half.

Manchester City were horrible especially in that half. Aston Villa were very comfortable with the win. Manchester City defense was very vulnerable and their goal even came in the final moments. We don't have the same team having the control of the game for real. They are playing desperately. So it doesn't matter how long you have the ball as long as you don't know what to do. This is the thing Guardiola has been working on to fix these days.

[len01]

The results of a surprising match today,

Everton vs Chelsea 0-0
Man United vs Bournemouth 0-3
Fulham vs Southampton 0-0
Leicester vs Wolves 0-3

The 4 teams that are favored appear outside our predictions such as Chelsea experienced a draw without a score, Man United lost at home, Fulham as the host could not score and Leicester that was confused at home.
It was truly a very surprising weekend and the bettors hated with results like this.
Will the Spurs vs Liverpool match also end in a draw?

[Palakka]

~snip~

I don't know what is happening to Man City, but what is clear is that they are facing serious problems. Not only in the Premier League, they even have a hard time in the Champions League. If victory becomes a target that is very difficult to obtain, then they could be knocked out of there. I hope this January transfer can be a way for Man City to solve their problems because it would be a bit strange if there was no Man City in the Champions League or fighting for a place in the Premier League top 4.

If we look difference at their performance and consistency at the beginning of the season and at this time, we can clearly conclude that Rodri injury is the main factor in their  slump, because Manchester City performance before the match against Arsenal ( when Rodri injury match) is actually their performance is still very consistent with as title contender, but Manchester City nightmare I think started with Rodri injury  where their performance slowly declined such as now, but even so, I think their chances to rise are still wide open, especially if they make good use of the winter transfer market later  to recruit the right replacement for Rodri, Manchester City trust in Guardiola is so great that in bad conditions like today, they still trust him as a coach.

This could be Pep Guardiola's last season at Manchester City cause things are getting worst for the team than getting better, am not seeing the team spirit and zeal to win any more and if feels like Pep Guardiola is seriously struggling with ideas of recovering the teams form, they've had numerous loses and even five consecutive loses in a row in all competitions, that alone is enough to set confusion in their dressing room and make them lose form, Pep has lots of work to do anyways and he's so lucky his previous achievements has reduced the pressure and backlash from fans. Anyways, While Manchester City's form is declining, Arsenal is becoming stronger, they've been in a good form this season and their current ongoing match against Crystal Palace is quite interesting cause both teams together have scored over 2.5 goals already though Arsenal is leading, Gabriel Jesus have the most outstanding player so far, he's scored a brace and might even score a hat-trick, , Crystal Palace as home team are fighting so hard to not lose but Arsenal's the favorite, I believe they'll score more goals and win at the end.

I agree with what you said, indeed the situation of Manchester City this season is very worrying due to their slump in form both in the league and the UCL, losing Rodri has affected their performance so far, especially yesterday they suffered another defeat and make their position very difficult in the Premier League standings, but their current slump in my opinion will not affect Guardiola's position as a coach.  Because after all, it will be more difficult for Manchester City to find a better coach than Guardiola if he fired later, than to find a replacement for Rodri which injuries now .

Arsenal bounced back after their previous games failed to win over Everton and Fulham in the EPL, victory over Crystal Palace keeps them still can to compete with Liverpool and Chelsea in the title race this season.