Good batting think man. His name didn't even come into my head. Not sure he's got the experience mind, but I can certainly see it happening.
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2008-09 Football Thread
- Thread starter R.Youden
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Good batting think man. His name didn't even come into my head. Not sure he's got the experience mind, but I can certainly see it happening.
If I was Scottish, I wouldn't be upset about the SPL being a second-tier league.
For one thing, I'm a fan if MLS, a third or fourth tier league, and there is still exciting football being played, tickets are cheap and you have the sense that you are watching something special where everyone really wants to be there (i.e. no prawn sandwich brigade).
For another thing, being a top tier league comes with its own set of problems.
Plus, for all the hype and money (and admitted good quality football) surrounding the Premier League, the English national team is still rubbish, so league status and talent pool quality aren't totally linked.
Speaking of the prawn sandwich brigade, I forgot to mention earlier how shockingly quiet the Man U supporters were in Monaco during the Super Cup game. The Zenit crowd completely shouted them out of the park.
For one thing, I'm a fan if MLS, a third or fourth tier league, and there is still exciting football being played, tickets are cheap and you have the sense that you are watching something special where everyone really wants to be there (i.e. no prawn sandwich brigade).
For another thing, being a top tier league comes with its own set of problems.
Plus, for all the hype and money (and admitted good quality football) surrounding the Premier League, the English national team is still rubbish, so league status and talent pool quality aren't totally linked.
Speaking of the prawn sandwich brigade, I forgot to mention earlier how shockingly quiet the Man U supporters were in Monaco during the Super Cup game. The Zenit crowd completely shouted them out of the park.
hopefully not, but I could see them giving the job to his best mate Gus Poyet as Wise said he wants to live down south when he left Leeds.
Yeah, but Wise is already at the club, so I can see him taking over the manager's role.
It turns out that the gossip / sources were wrong:
http://review.nufc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10278~1383045,00.html
I'll give it a month before he is sacked / quits.
http://review.nufc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10278~1383045,00.html
I'll give it a month before he is sacked / quits.
It seems that Man City's new owners have given us but a taste of the audacious buying that lies ahead. If half of the rumors are correct they are looking to poach any top player a club can be forced to sell, paying top dollar for them. Billions of pounds are available.
Mark Hughes probably thinks he's died and gone to heaven.
This is going to get interesting in January!
EDIT: This, by the way, is precisely why Liverpool were completely foolish to reject DIC's bid for the club. I hate to throw out accusations, but I wonder if there was some latent racism/prejudice against Arab owners? I hope not, but either way, Liverpool are paying the price for going with the Gillette/Hicks train wreck.
Mark Hughes probably thinks he's died and gone to heaven.
This is going to get interesting in January!
EDIT: This, by the way, is precisely why Liverpool were completely foolish to reject DIC's bid for the club. I hate to throw out accusations, but I wonder if there was some latent racism/prejudice against Arab owners? I hope not, but either way, Liverpool are paying the price for going with the Gillette/Hicks train wreck.
I dont believe their statement as yet, they are going to blame it on Keegan walking to stop the outrcry, why has it taken them 8 hours from when the story broke to release this statement.
If the fans think Keegan has been sacked/pushed the backlash would be huge, so this looks like some PR back pedalling to me.
It dont add up.
It seems that Man City's new owners have given us but a taste of the audacious buying that lies ahead. If half of the rumors are correct they are looking to poach any top player a club can be forced to sell, paying top dollar for them. Billions of pounds are available.
Mark Hughes probably thinks he's died and gone to heaven.
This is going to get interesting in January!
If MCFC get to the Premier League and Liverpool dont I can see financial meltdown for LFC.
Man City's new owner is aiming very high indeed:
I admire the man's ambition, and I imagine Abramovich sees a more exhuberant version of himself in Al-Fahim. Let's see how badly he rocks the boat.
I don't see a financial meltdown, but Liverpool are in danger of being comprehensively outspent and knocked out of the top four. Even Arsenal's youth wizard Wenger is being sorely tested by Manchester United and Chelsea's nearly unlimited budget for transfers.
Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim said:
I admire the man's ambition, and I imagine Abramovich sees a more exhuberant version of himself in Al-Fahim. Let's see how badly he rocks the boat.
I don't see a financial meltdown, but Liverpool are in danger of being comprehensively outspent and knocked out of the top four. Even Arsenal's youth wizard Wenger is being sorely tested by Manchester United and Chelsea's nearly unlimited budget for transfers.
I just think he's on drugs. One to one and a half seasons before any truly expensive (Robinho-money) players up stakes and leave for a true "big team", given that Man City will not finish fourth.
You cannot admire this man at all. This is everything that is wrong with football at the moment, him and Abramovich, and it will ruin the game. If he succeeds with his plan, he will just buy anyone and everyone who is touted as being one of the worlds best - it will kill football.
This is huge news, and people may well point to yesterday as the day football really finally went crazy. I hate hate hate it and I think it's going to be disastrous.
Especially poignant coming from a Gunners fan.
I know exactly what you mean. By admire him I mean that I'm impressed by his very clear statement that he is out to buy the League title and CL. At least he isn't dressing it up.
But you're right - This is just one more Glazer/Abramovich - eventually the escalating buying power will turn the premiership into a hideous caricature of itself. What happens when players start costing hundreds of millions of pounds on a regular basis? When will we hit the ceiling?
Trouble is, with the current idiots running FIFA and the FA it is going to be allowed to happen. <shrug>
In that context, the MLS, with it's salary caps and greater control over finances seems to make sense. Unfortunately, it's too restrictive right now. Something between the extremes is needed.
I've poked my nose in a couple of times today (more to see if anyone had anything on the Keegan/Newcastle debacle than anything else), and read the comments comparing the Premier League with its Scottish counterpart. It was interesting to read people's thoughts on the subject, but short on time and iPhone battery charge I wasn't best placed to post my own opinions. Now I'm back home though, I've a few thoughts I'd like to share.
Is it fair to say that the Scottish top flight suffers due to the continual dominance of the Old Firm? With apologies to our Scottish friends, I have to say it does suffer, to a huge extent. The fact is, no other team has won the title since the division in its current form was established in the late nineties, and only on one occasion has another team occupied the top two places that being Hearts in the 2005/06 season. Checking the record books, you have to go way back to 1985 to see another team Aberdeen as Scottish champions. So, you're left with a league completely dominated by an elite few, with the other teams having practically no chance of breaking that stranglehold. This can't be a healthy state to be in, it's boringly predictable and offers little chance of success to teams outside of the top two. So, it seems that we English do indeed have good reason to feel smug about the superiority of our own domestic top flight.
But do we? Can't these same accusations be levelled at the English Premier League too? After all, since the division in its current format was formed back in the 1992/93 season, only one team other than Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea have won the title that being of course Blackburn Rovers nearly 15 years ago (and given the comparison we're making, it would be churlish not to point out that they were managed by a Scot, as is the most successful team in the history of he Premier League). Let me ask can anyone here honestly see a team other than Manchester United or Chelsea winning the league this season? We might hear a few voices tipping Arsenal or maybe Liverpool, but will we see a team other than the big four as champions next May? We can practically guarantee not our league is really just as predictable as that north of the border.
It's a self perpetuating problem. The big four have a stranglehold on the league afforded to them by their wealth. The extra finance they have means they can attract the best players, meaning they're almost sure to occupy the same top four places. This in turn means they qualify for the hugely lucrative Champions League, swelling their coffers even further. This means they can then attract the best players and... the cycle continues season after season, the gap between the top four and the others growing wider all the time. We've all seen what's happened in Scotland, but those running the show have preferred to breathlessly tell us that we've got The Best League In The World rather than heeding the warning signs.
We're in a ridiculous situation where unpredictability in a league is seen as a sign of mediocrity. Case in point look at the Championship last season. It was a wonderfully open league on any given weekend, any team in the division could beat any other, and more often than not there'd be a surpise or two come quarter-to-five. Come the end of the season, one of the favourites West Brom had earned promotion but the final play-off place was decided between Hull City and Bristol City, two unfashionable teams who few had given any chance at the start of the campaign. Now, for me this unpredictability shook things up and made it exciting at both ends of the table I'm not suggesting for a minute that the teams in the Championship are better than the teams in the Premier League because, with maybe a couple of exceptions, they're not but what I'm saying is it makes for a good and entertaining league. But yet the pundits were queueing up to tell us what a poor and mediocre division it was, simply because they couldn't predict exactly which teams would finish where. Crazy, absolutely crazy.
It seems the only way to break into this elite is to acquire a ludicrously wealthy sugar daddy willing to pay the transfer fees and wages required to get the best players. It happened with Chelsea a few years back and the big three turned into the big four. Maybe Manchester City's new owners can make it a big five in a couple of seasons, who knows. But it's a pretty damning indictment of the league that the only way you can challenge for the top is to throw huge amounts of money at a given team. You can't tell me this is right in any way shape or form.
Blimey. Looking back I've written quite a bit there, so apologies for the length of the post. And I haven't even started on the situation at Newcastle yet.
Is it fair to say that the Scottish top flight suffers due to the continual dominance of the Old Firm? With apologies to our Scottish friends, I have to say it does suffer, to a huge extent. The fact is, no other team has won the title since the division in its current form was established in the late nineties, and only on one occasion has another team occupied the top two places that being Hearts in the 2005/06 season. Checking the record books, you have to go way back to 1985 to see another team Aberdeen as Scottish champions. So, you're left with a league completely dominated by an elite few, with the other teams having practically no chance of breaking that stranglehold. This can't be a healthy state to be in, it's boringly predictable and offers little chance of success to teams outside of the top two. So, it seems that we English do indeed have good reason to feel smug about the superiority of our own domestic top flight.
But do we? Can't these same accusations be levelled at the English Premier League too? After all, since the division in its current format was formed back in the 1992/93 season, only one team other than Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea have won the title that being of course Blackburn Rovers nearly 15 years ago (and given the comparison we're making, it would be churlish not to point out that they were managed by a Scot, as is the most successful team in the history of he Premier League
). Let me ask can anyone here honestly see a team other than Manchester United or Chelsea winning the league this season? We might hear a few voices tipping Arsenal or maybe Liverpool, but will we see a team other than the big four as champions next May? We can practically guarantee not our league is really just as predictable as that north of the border.It's a self perpetuating problem. The big four have a stranglehold on the league afforded to them by their wealth. The extra finance they have means they can attract the best players, meaning they're almost sure to occupy the same top four places. This in turn means they qualify for the hugely lucrative Champions League, swelling their coffers even further. This means they can then attract the best players and... the cycle continues season after season, the gap between the top four and the others growing wider all the time. We've all seen what's happened in Scotland, but those running the show have preferred to breathlessly tell us that we've got The Best League In The World rather than heeding the warning signs.
We're in a ridiculous situation where unpredictability in a league is seen as a sign of mediocrity. Case in point look at the Championship last season. It was a wonderfully open league on any given weekend, any team in the division could beat any other, and more often than not there'd be a surpise or two come quarter-to-five. Come the end of the season, one of the favourites West Brom had earned promotion but the final play-off place was decided between Hull City and Bristol City, two unfashionable teams who few had given any chance at the start of the campaign. Now, for me this unpredictability shook things up and made it exciting at both ends of the table I'm not suggesting for a minute that the teams in the Championship are better than the teams in the Premier League because, with maybe a couple of exceptions, they're not but what I'm saying is it makes for a good and entertaining league. But yet the pundits were queueing up to tell us what a poor and mediocre division it was, simply because they couldn't predict exactly which teams would finish where. Crazy, absolutely crazy.
It seems the only way to break into this elite is to acquire a ludicrously wealthy sugar daddy willing to pay the transfer fees and wages required to get the best players. It happened with Chelsea a few years back and the big three turned into the big four. Maybe Manchester City's new owners can make it a big five in a couple of seasons, who knows. But it's a pretty damning indictment of the league that the only way you can challenge for the top is to throw huge amounts of money at a given team. You can't tell me this is right in any way shape or form.
Blimey. Looking back I've written quite a bit there, so apologies for the length of the post. And I haven't even started on the situation at Newcastle yet.
I once signed for a local team. The 'transfer fee?' A pint of lager. (True story!
)
Is that the result of the BoyBach-to-Manchester City rumour we heard yesterday? If so and given the takeover/Robinho transfer it seems as if your old team was seriously shortchanged...I once signed for a local team. The 'transfer fee?' A pint of lager. (True story!
If my transfer was to the newest Richest Team in the World™, I would have held out for at least a packet of Nobby's Nuts to accompany my pint!
I agree with your assessment 100% Jaffa, although I might even go so far as to say that the Premier League is currently edging towards a Man United-Chelsea two-horse race (like the Old Firm), with Arsenal in with an outside chance and Liverpool left dreaming.
Indeed a gap is even starting to open up in the big four.
Still, Manchester City could invite themselves to the party with their new backers £135 million for Ronaldo, Sir Alex?
"Ronaldo has said he wants to play for the biggest club in the world, so we will see in January if he is serious," Al-Fahim said in The Guardian.
Presumably by saying no to City and staying with United?
The obscene amounts of money now being thrown around at the top of the English game is beginning to disgust me. I notice the new owners of City are immediately piping up with a same old closed Premiership with no relegation idea that the big teams' owners all love so much. These people don't care for the fans at all, it's just consumerism and big business barging its way in again.
Eff that I say. I'd rather have clubs for English fans than global franchises.
Eff that I say. I'd rather have clubs for English fans than global franchises.
You can have a global franchise without compromising the football - as long as you don't let the businessmen run the show. That's the problem.
Oh I understand that. Arsenal is a good example of a club that tries to do it right, but when you get foreign billionaires buying clubs with a century of tradition and immediately attempting to change them into something they're not by throwing money at them it leaves a very uneasy taste in the mouth. We've all seen examples of what happens when it goes wrong, and when it does it's the fans who've followed that team all their lives that lose out.
Equally obscene is that fact that new owners can literally swan in and make two British record bids on players on the same day, while just a few leagues below teams with over a century of history behind them are going into administration for sums that would barely cover a top Premier League player's monthly salary.
Somewhere along the line we've totally lost the plot.
Somewhere along the line we've totally lost the plot.
I think that's exactly it. At County we're in danger of losing our training ground because Uncle Brendan wants to sell it to developers and we can't afford to put in a bid, whilst up the road City are spending £30m on a single player.
And to top it all, guess which club is the one getting all the financial help from the local authorities!! Something has gone rotten in the English game. It started with Murdoch IMO.
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