So, after (pretty much) 7 rounds of matches, what's everyone's early thoughts on PL likely top four, likely bottom 3 and where you feel we might end up.

For me, Liverpool look unstoppable. Man C (of course) and two from Leicester, Spurs, Arsenal make Champ League spots.

Bottom three...Watford, Newcastle, Norwich (although Brighton and Villa might still slip up).

As for us, I reckon 43 points and probably around 15th in the table although I still think we might flirt with the relegation places every now and again e.g. October looks s tough run of fixtures where we might struggle to get many points on the board and could see us slip down the table....

What about Wolves? The further they go in the Europa,the more likely they will struggle.Injuries,travel fatigue etc.

Chelsea and ManU could both miss out on Europe. A massive set back for both.

City
Liverpool
Spurs
Chelsea

Newcastle
Norwich
Sheff U

We could be anything from top ten/edging Europe to bottom 3 , when we approach something like full strength I think were 7th-12th level .

City to win
Lpool
Chelsea

Bottom 3

Norwich
Villa
Sheffield United

Mentions for Newcastle ,Watford , Wolves Brighton all who could quite possibly implode

1 Liverpool
2 City
3 Spurs
4 Arsenal
5 Leicester
6 West Ham
7 Chelsea
8 MIGHTY CLARETS
9 Bournemouth
10 Man United
11 Everton
12 Wolves
13 Palace
14 Villa
15 Sheff United
16 Southampton
17 Newcastle
18 Brighton
19 Watford
20 Norwich

Champions - Man City. I fully expect City to rack up around 95/96 points. They’ll have a superior GD to Liverpool so they’ll need 1 more. Can’t see that happening.

CL - Arsenal and Leicester. Arsenal will score and create goals/chances. They’ll beat most bar City/Liverpool at home. Can’t see Spurs, United, Chelsea matching that. They’ll all probably do the same away. Leicester same as Arsenal tbh. Spurs and Chelsea just missing out.

7th a rather distant 7th could be a host of clubs including Man U. You cannot sell Lakuku without replacements. He’s not the greatest but will score goals. You can argue 95% of this league have better forward options and midfield options tbh. “Potential”? ********. “Potential doesn’t equal present ability”. At present Rashford is no better than Andre Gray.

Going Down
Norwich
Brighton
Villa

Liverpool, City, Spurs, Leicester

Norwich, Brighton + 1 of Sheffield Utd, Villa (Watford have another couple of managers to go yet so too early to judge)

We will hopefully finish 10-13

Liverpool to win it
City 2nd

The rest of the usual crew falling there way to 3rd-5th

Man United about 8th

Burnley a comfy 12-14th

Bottom 3 in no particular order

Norwich
Villa
Watford

Going to be a dog fight at top and bottom. Overall I think the promoted clubs are stronger than the relegated clubs. 36 points might not be enough to survive this time round. City and Liverpool will battle for the top with Arsenal the best of the rest. Think we will be ok in 10-14 range

1 Liverpool
2 City
3 Spurs
4 Arsenal
..........................
5 Leicester
6 Man Utd
..........................
7 Chelsea
8 Bournemouth
9 Burnley
10 West Ham Utd
11 Everton
12 Wolves
13 Palace
14 Southamoton
15 Brighton
16 Villa
17 Newcastle
...........................
18 Sheff Utd
19 Watford
20 Norwich

1st Man City

2nd Liverpool
3rd Chelsea
4th Leicester / Spurs / Bournemouth

18th Newcastle / Aston Villa / Brighton / Burnley
19th Sheff Utd
20th Norwich

Reckon we'll be around 10th -12th.

As for the rest, I really don't care.

Sleeping Cat wrote:1 Liverpool
2 City
3 Spurs
4 Arsenal
5 Leicester
6 West Ham
7 Chelsea
8 MIGHTY CLARETS
9 Bournemouth
10 Man United
11 Everton
12 Wolves
13 Palace
14 Villa
15 Sheff United
16 Southampton
17 Newcastle
18 Brighton
19 Watford
20 Norwich

That's comprehensive Sleeping Cat - and I'd take that now.

Top 2 Liverpool and Man City easily. The rest is wide open and everything to play for. A lot of the goal differences are going to be hefty negatives again particularly at the bottom.

Normally you have a better idea after 10 games.

Only really bother about us, and we've lost to the two teams we'd expect to lose to, and drawn or won against teams we'd expect to win or draw against.

Happy enough with that!

Can’t see Stoke in bottom 3 Devils-Advocates

It's probably too early to draw firm conclusions, but we've done OK so far.

As Lancaster says, you can judge better after 10 games. Our next three are quite tricky, leaving aside Everton's recent travails - and if we can get through them in a similar position to the one we're in now (say, with 12 or 13 points on the board) then it will have been an excellent start to the season.

Equally, we could quite easily lose each of those three games, in which case we'd be settling for a bit of a slog again. That said, thus far we look a decent, competitive team who have picked up where we left off last season. We're probably conceding a goal or two more than Dyche would like, and you can make an argument that draws some times feel like better results than they actually are (particularly the two draws at Villa and Brighton when we've not played to our potential), but we're scoring goals and if you exclude the Arsenal and Liverpool results it feels churlish to argue with our record too much.

DAVETHEVICAR wrote:Can’t see Stoke in bottom 3 Devils-Advocates

he meant Swansea!

Just like the outcome of the 15/16 season, it will be just as important to stop rivals around us from picking up 3 points than getting 3 of our own. We've stopped Southampton, Wolves, Brighton, Norwich and now Villa from taking all the points. That's quite a lot of 6-pointers that have turned out well so far.

Bottom 3

Newcastle
Watford
Villa

Top 4
Man c
Liverpool
Spurs
Chelsea

Top 6
Arsenal
Leicester

7th up for grabs between Man U, Burnley and West Ham

Optimistically we will finish 8th. Need to avoid 5th 6th or 7th to keep us out of the Micky Mouse League.

It's still a bit early to make predictions with any confidence as teams aren't settled yet (promoted teams living on confidence for now but reality will set in, big teams still getting into the grove etc). But....

Man City, Liverpool front two in that order with a bit to spare over .....
Arsenal, Spurs, Leicester, Chelsea, Man U 3-7 Battling for other European places
WHU, Everton, Bournemouth making up rest of top half
Wolves, Clarets, Palace, Saints, Watford bottom half clear of relegation battle
Brighton, Sheff U, Norwich, Villa, Newcastle relegation battlers

We are where I thought we might be and will finish where I expect us to finish

Don’t see us finishing higher than 10th. Would be amazing if we did. Don’t see us being relegated either

Liverpool to win it, finally
BFC 15th
Find it hard to believe Watford will end in the bottom 3.

For me need to get the Jan window out of the way to see how the bottom 3 looks but tends not to effect top 6 normally, managerially changes after Xmas also can have an effect on bottom 3 so will wit for that other than as I said, do not see Watford being one of them.

Burnley to win league.

Everyone else = don't care.

LeadBelly wrote:It's still a bit early to make predictions with any confidence as teams aren't settled yet (promoted teams living on confidence for now but reality will set in, big teams still getting into the grove etc). But....

Man City, Liverpool front two in that order with a bit to spare over .....
Arsenal, Spurs, Leicester, Chelsea, Man U 3-7 Battling for other European places
WHU, Everton, Bournemouth making up rest of top half
Wolves, Clarets, Palace, Saints, Watford bottom half clear of relegation battle
Brighton, Sheff U, Norwich, Villa, Newcastle relegation battlers

Not a bad guess.
I wish we'd put away at least one of wolves, Brighton, Villa. We need to turn draws against crap teams into wins if we want to stay out of trouble.

Bordeauxclaret wrote:
Newcastle
Norwich
Sheff U

Those are my three for the drop as well.

It's too early to call after only 7 games but we've made a reasonable start
with 9 points from 7 games, scored 10 and 9 against, won 2, drawn 3 and lost 2 against
Liverpool and Arsenal. And we gave Liverpool a run for their money (well, for the first 30 mins)
and possibly more so Arsenal.
And at time played some decent football and acquiring a reputation as
being difficult to play against.
The only blip was the cup game against Sunderland.



But I think this season it's going to be a real dog fight at the bottom and any one of
8 or 10 teams could still be dragged into the bottom three. And that has to include us too.
We're still only 4 points clear of the bottom three.

I think both Wolves and Watford will improve and the three promoted teams have all managed
to get points on the table and looking pretty spirited as well.
Newcastle will start winning home games eventually.

Much may depend on keeping players fit and not losing any or too many to injury.
So the next month or so leading up to the Xmas fixtures may be very important for a few teams.
We've got some very difficult games coming up and the December fixtures also look daunting.

Let's come back to this see after about a third way through - say 13/14 fixtures

As we saw last season the 1st half of the season is not necessarily an indicator for the 2nd half of the season.

My bottom 3 were Norwich Newcastle snd Southampton before the season started.I still feel this is the case although Villa Watford and Brighton will be in the bottom 6 with Sheff utd and Wolves not far off
We will finish in the top ten
We will get a draw at Leicester and beat Everton and Chelsea.
We are getting better every game
Liverpool will finally win the league as City have a hugh gap to bridge
Man u will sack OGS as it all goes pear shaped again

Hopefully another season in the sun, the club continues to grow and we develop the ground a bit

I think we will finish somewhere between 7th and 11th.
This will depend on if we finish above Manure ,Ballmouth, Everton and Boiled ham

We will have over 50 points

Newcastle, Watford & one from Villa/Sheff Utd/Norwich.

We will flirt around the bottom third but hopefully be okay with the cushion of 4 or 5 games.

At the top it's purely down to Man City and Liverpool and I think the Reds will wrap it up with games in hand.

A solid base ....another 31 points and we are safe.

1st: Liverpool
2nd: Man City
3rd: Spurs
4th: Arsenal
5th: Leicester
6th: Chelsea

14th: Burnley

18th: Brighton
19th: Norwich
20th: Newcastle (how can anyone not tip them to go down?)

northernpowerhouse wrote: 20th: Newcastle (how can anyone not tip them to go down?)

You are not alone

Sleeping Cat wrote:1 Liverpool
2 City
3 Spurs
4 Arsenal
5 Leicester
6 West Ham
7 Chelsea
8 MIGHTY CLARETS
9 Bournemouth
10 Man United
11 Everton
12 Wolves
13 Palace
14 Villa
15 Sheff United
16 Southampton
17 Newcastle
18 Brighton
19 Watford
20 Norwich

I'll take that!