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2025-26 Premier League Thread

Oliver Glasner will leave Palace at the conclusion of his contract in June. He said he told owner Steve Parrish in October that he was looking for a new challenge. They’re winless in their last 9 matches across all competitions, including the stunning FA Cup loss to Macclesfield. They’re 13th in the table with 7 wins, 7 draws and 7 losses. They’re in a 2 leg playoff with Bosnian club Zrinjski Mostar next month to advance in the Conference League.
 
Glasner may be out sooner rather than later. After losing at Sunderland yesterday for their 10th straight match without a win, he ripped management, saying the players felt abandoned. They lost Eberechi Eze in the summer window and are about to lose Marc Guehi to Man City. Guehi didn’t dress yesterday. They did add Brennan Johnson from Spurs for a club record £35 million at the beginning of the month.
 
Yeah, there is clearly talent on that team and just playing people in their natural positions has improved things greatly. I'm not ready to just call Man U "fixed" though as under both Amorim and ten Hag, the team sometimes performed great in big matches. I honestly think their upcoming run will be more telling, but just allowing the players to play more natural roles and playing your best player (Fernandes) in his natural role instead of forcing all the players into your system is an obvious call.
 
My take … Man United were always going to get a bounce when they got a manager who would play a pragmatic setup. Amorim was just so interested in cramming square pegs into round holes that nothing they did under him made any sense. They routinely played a solid game only to bleed points because of weird transition play. Being fixed would denote that this is sustainable and that’s probably a stretch, but we’ll see. It’s just so hard to judge a roster when it was being comprehensively mangled for so long.
 
Chelsea finally rid themselves of Raheem Sterling, as they muatually agreed to terminate his contract. He hadn’t trained with the first team in 18 months and spent last season on loan at Arsenal where he had 1 goal in 28 appearances across all competitions.
 
I mean, they’re going to pay him a chunk of money so they can stop paying his ridiculous weekly wages. I do wonder if he’ll actually catch on somewhere else. The issue always was framed as his wages and surely that won’t be a problem now. I haven’t seen Sterling in so long I have no idea what his quality level is anymore, but I’d assume somebody in the bottom half of the table could use some veteran help on the wing.
 
Good weekend for the Gunners I see: win Saturday, and watch their closest rivals not win (City blew a 2 goal lead to draw with Spurs; Villa lose to Brentford). Glad my Reds had a good weekend in their dismantling of Newcastle. The Ekitike partnership with Wirtz is really starting to bear fruit.
 
Spurs sacked Thomas Frank, 8 months into a 3 year contract. They have to decide if they’re going with the interim route and waiting for the summer or a permanent hire now. Roberto De Zerbi, who left Marseille earlier in the week is supposedly of interest. Others mentioned are USMNT coach Mauricio Pocchettino, whose contract is up after the World Cup and current Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola. If they go the interim route, they may promote assistant John Heitinga, who has only been there for a month after being sacked by Ajax. He assisted Slot in Liverpool last season.

Spurs have only won 2 of their last 17 in the league and are 16th, 5 points clear of relegation. They easily qualified for the knockout round in the Champions League, losing only 1 of 8 and finishing 4th.
 
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After a goalless draw with cellar dwellers Wolves, Nottingham Forest sacked Sean Dyche. Forest are 17th in the table, 3 points above relegation. He’s the 3rd Forest coach to get whacked this season. Nino Espirito Santo was sacked 3 matches in, Ange Postecoglou lasted 8 matches, winning none. Former Wolves coach Vitor Pereira was identified as a strong candidate to take over.
 
Honestly, Periera is the only name they’ve been linked to since they sacked Nino that makes any sense at all. At least they have a roster than can play his systems. Ange and Dyche were completely miscast and never had a chance.
 
At no point in this season have I understood how we've been near the top of the league. The whole time in the back of my mind I was just thinking, this is smoke and mirrors, so our absolute crash down in recent times and our upcoming dive bombing of the table that's on it's way shouldn't be a surprise to me. I hate this team. I hate how we play. I hate how I know that each week we are going to come out with the exact same gameplan and the opponent is also aware of it and defends us the exact same way each time and we change nothing. I understand completely how Emery was able to win so many tournaments while never finishing that well in the league, because he comes up with aggressive and nuanced gameplans for tournaments and big games and then does the exact same thing every single league match. Old, narrow, slow and old is the only way to describe this side. The only young exciting player is Maatsen and Unai is still giving Digne who is just completely washed equal playing time after giving him a contract extension in the summer. All the other young exciting players, Emery just writes off immediately and gets rid of (or in Philogene's case, does it twice). Emery is the best manager we've ever had and at this point, I would love him to make a giant mistake and take the Real Madrid job. Just horrible.
 
Nuno Espírito Santo has hired lawyers to pursue a legal dispute with Nottingham Forest over his firing earlier this season. He was given a 3 year contract in June after leading Forest to European qualification for the first time in 30 years but was fired in September after clashing with Edu who took over as global head of football for owner Evangelos Marinakis’ teams, which also include Olympiacos and Portuguese club Rio Ave.
 
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