It's pretty simple really. With a squad our size/quality some games are going to be stinkers due to looking ahead or fatigue. Heck, we used to look at the fixtures and say "sweet Man C play us between their home and away against X in the champs, their heads will be elsewhere" or "Everton playing us 3 days after an away tie in Europe, will be tired". We got a lot of points off the back of teams playing in Europe before/after us. Same is true when the shoe is on the other foot. As a chubby Dutchman once said "thatssssshhhh football".