Association Football 2023/2024 Discussion Thread

[JGibson]

Arsenal go 8 up on Manchester City in the Premier League with a 4-1 win over Crystal Palace. Bukayo Saka scored a brace and had an assist.

Thomas Partey was moved to RB when Ben White came off.

Arsenal are up 8, but Man City have a game in hand.

[JGibson]

Tottenham has dismissed Antonio Conte.

https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1640104452119212032

[JGibson]

St. Louis City finally got their first loss in the MLS, as they lost 1-nil to Minnesota United FC last night.

[JGibson]

Welcome back to the Premier League, Burnley. They got that task done with a 2-1 win over Middlesbrough in the Championship (England's 2nd division).


1 spot down, 2 to go for the 2023-24 PL campaign.


Sheffield United is all but likely to be the 2nd automatic promoted team.


The battle will be for the 3rd and final promotion spot, which will be sorted out in the playoffs between the teams placed 3rd-6th.

[JGibson]

Arsenal blow a 2-0 lead to Liverpool and draw 2-2, coughing up 2 critical points in the title race. On the other hand, Arsenal are lucky to gain a single point, thanks to Aaron Ramsdale (and Mo Salah's penalty miss).

[JGibson]

Same story as last Sunday: Arsenal blow yet another 2-nil lead to draw 2-2 and throw away another 2 points, this time to West Ham, whose solitary point gained in the table may be huge for their survival chances.

As for Arsenal's title race, it took another blow.

[JGibson]

The UCL Semis are set: AC Milan v. Inter Milan and Real Madrid v. Manchester City.

[JGibson]

The UEL and UECL semis are now set:

UEL: Juventus v. Sevilla [Juventus just got their 15-point deduction in Serie A reversed... for now] and AS Roma v. Bayer Leverkusen
UECL: Fiorentina v. Basel and West Ham v. AZ Alkmaar

[JGibson]

Wrexham are promoted to League 2 (England's 4th tier), as they beat Boreham Wood 3-1 to win the National League (England's 5th tier) and secure its auto-promotion spot. They are back in League football again.

[JGibson]

Manchester City beat Arsenal 4-1. Arsenal's title race is slipping away from them, as their lead is down to 2 and could be behind them come Sunday when they play Fulham if they win that. Hope and pray for a big point deduction against Man City.


Good news for Gunners fans:
With Nottingham Forest beating Brighton 3-1, Arsenal are assured of Top 4, meaning that they will be in the Champions League next season for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

[JGibson]

Manchester City are back on top of the table, albeit temporarily, as they beat Fulham 2-1. Arsenal will play Chelsea Tuesday, and if Arsenal snap their 4-match winless rut, then they go back on top until at least Wednesday, as City play West Ham.

Crossing my fingers for Arsenal wins and dropped points/losses (or points deduction) for Manchester City.

[JGibson]

Arsenal gets flattened by Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0.

With the result, Manchester City just needs a point against Chelsea, paired with a Arsenal Nottingham Forest, or win against Chelsea, regardless of Arsenal's result, next week to win the Premier League.

Seeing Arsenal blow an 8-point lead at the beginning of April and being 4 points behind makes me want to puke.

[JGibson]

Luton Town and Coventry City will play for the right to be promoted to the Premier League next season in the EFL Championship Promotion Playoff Final.

Coventry beat Middlesbrough 1-nil (1-nil aggregate) advance.

Coventry City were last in the Premier League in the 2000-01 season, while Luton Town have never been in the Premier League  (although their last year in the 1st tier was in the old First Division in the 1991-92 season, the last prior to the founding of the PL).

[JGibson]

The UEFA finals:

 

UCL: Inter v. Manchester City

UEL: Sevilla v. Roma

UECL: Fiorentina v. West Ham

[JGibson]

The 30th Major League Soccer team has been awarded to San Diego.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37676377/mls-names-san-diego-30th-team-debut-2025

Good Choice.

If they go to 32, as Don Garber has hinted they'd like to do, I personally recommend Baltimore (great potential natural rivalry with D.C United) and Detroit.

Those are both in the east, though I suppose they could move Chicago (or somehow Nashville to the west.)

I'd like to see Indianapolis and Albuquerque.

I'd want to see Chicago, SKC, and STL City SC all together in a division/conference if we go to 32, depending on where the next two teams go.

[JGibson]

With Brighton beating Southampton 3-1, they have qualified for European football for the first time in their history. They will likely be in the UEL.

[JGibson]

With Dortmund drawing Mainz 2-2 and Bayern's 2-1 win over Köln, the Bundesliga title will stay parked at the Allianz for the 11th year in a row. Dortmund pulled an Arsenal in choking the title.

[JGibson]

The final Premier League place for next season is now booked, as Luton Town won the EFL Championship Promotion Playoff Final 1-1 [6-5] on penalties over Coventry City.

[JGibson]

The Premier League season has wrapped up for 2022/23. 



The Top 4 are Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United, and Newcastle, who will be in the UCL. The UEL participants will be Liverpool and Brighton.

Aston Villa clinches the UECL spot, sending Tottenham home without a European trip.



As for the relegation race, Everton blanked Bournemouth 1=0 to stay up. Leicester City beat West Ham 2-1, but fell short. Leeds got spanked by Tottenham 4-1 to join Leicester in being relegated with Southampton. 



Over in Germany, Heidenheim got promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time ever with two stoppage time goals by coming back from a 2-nil deficit against Jahn Regensburg in the 2. Bundesliga to win 3-2. Darmstadt also got promoted. Hamburg will have to settle for a playoff game against Stuttgart for the right to be in the Bundesliga. 

[JGibson]

The Premier League season has wrapped up for 2022/23.



The Top 4 are Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United, and Newcastle, who will be in the UCL. The UEL participants will be Liverpool and Brighton.

Aston Villa clinches the UECL spot, sending Tottenham home without a European trip.



As for the relegation race, Everton blanked Bournemouth 1=0 to stay up. Leicester City beat West Ham 2-1, but fell short. Leeds got spanked by Tottenham 4-1 to join Leicester in being relegated with Southampton.



Over in Germany, Heidenheim got promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time ever with two stoppage time goals by coming back from a 2-nil deficit against Jahn Regensburg in the 2. Bundesliga to win 3-2. Darmstadt also got promoted. Hamburg will have to settle for a playoff game against Stuttgart for the right to be in the Bundesliga.

LOL Tottenham

The team is definitely going to break up this summer, especially given they won't even be in Europe next season. I can't see Kane staying around any longer, for example. I think any player who has any intention of winning trophies needs to leave the clubs ASAP. Imo Kane should have left 2 years ago.

And also based Villa, I've always had a soft spot for them (even if I support Arsenal), and I'm happy to see them in Europe again.

And yeah it's incredible with Leicester, this is a team that was FA Cup winner and playing in Europe like just two years ago, and now they're relegated. If you exclude Newcastle in 2009, Leicester here are probably the best team to have been relegated in decades. This is a team that should have been no worse than Top 10 imo, arguably should have qualified for Europe, and they went down (when you get down to it, that was the story with Newcastle in 2009 as well).

Ah the Bundesliga playoffs. Imo Stuttgart and Hamburg both underperformed, both should have been automatically promoted. I don't follow 2. Bundesliga enough to predict the match, but I'll be pulling for Stuttgart.

Stuttgart is currently in the Bundesliga, but will drop to the 2. Bundesliga alongside Hertha BSC and Schalke 04 if they lose to Hamburg SV in the relegation/survival playoff, and in that case, Hamburg would be in the Bundesliga instead, joining Heidenheim and Darmstadt in being promoted.

[JGibson]

Manchester City is one step closer to the Treble, as they won their Manchester Derby FA Cup Final, 2-1 today.

Next weekend is the Champions League final, which should be about as easy as this was for Manchester City.

And with Manchester City being both the FA Cup and PL winners, Arsenal will take part in the Community Shield as the runner-up in the Premier League.

[JGibson]

Stuttgart maintain their Bundesliga place, as they beat Hamburger SV as they beat them 6-1 on aggregate in the 2-legged playoff between the 16th-placed Bundesliga team and 3rd-placed 2. Bundesliga team.

This just adds to the cruel fate that HSV have faced over the past week-plus, when they thought they would get promoted to the BuLi automatically... only for Heidenheim to ruin those plans by scoring the 2 stoppage time goals to get them promoted instead.

[JGibson]

West Ham beat 2-1 over Fiorentina to win the Europa Conference League, thanks to Jarrod Bowen's last-minute goal in the 90th minute.


And with that news, England will have 8 teams in European football next season (4 UCL, 3 UEL, 1 UECL). Spain will also have 8 teams (5 UCL, 2 UEL, 1 UECL) next year as a result of Sevilla's UEL win.

[JGibson]

West Ham fans and media calling West Ham "champions of Europe" is pretty cringe. They won Europe's third-tier competition as one of the biggest teams.

On top of that, they're going to lose their best player this summer (Declan Rice), maybe to Liverpool or one of the Manchester sides (or if, Todd Boehly loses his mind, Chelsea).

I think Declan Rice ends up at Arsenal.

[JGibson]

James Milner has signed with Brighton & Hove Albion on a free transfer.

Not a bad deal for Brighton, but he's leaving Liverpool for a good reason. This has a high chance of backfiring for the Seagulls, who really should have replaced Alexis Mac Alister with someone younger, and especially someone younger than the 37 year old Milner.

He is going to be a utility player, as he's been throughout his career, not a replacement for Mac Allister.

An acquisition like Milner is a valuable one, especially for the European games that Brighton will play, as most of their roster bar Danny Welbeck and a few others hasn't played a single UEL/UCL/UECL match until now.