Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The 2019-2020 Football Thread
- Thread starter Lord Blackadder
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Agree. Sadly it didn’t happen. Instead Fulham have secured a 12 month loan to the PL.
Perhaps next year.
I would have loved to have seen Brentford do well.
It seems that in football (and perhaps, politics), I am still something of a romantic at times.
Well yes. Unless it effects my team directly I usually support the underdog.
Trouble is these days both of our teams are often the underdog!
To be fair I believe Brentford would have been right back down too...
The real tragedy is that Griffin Park will soon be gone forever.
Perhaps.
But I would have loved to have seen them celebrate, enjoy, relish, savour (even, ever so briefly) their day (year?) in the sun of the Premiership, first.
Fulham deserve to be in the Prem, despite the romantic notion that Brentford would have been the ultimate "small club makes it with the big boys" story.
I like Fulham and they have some interesting history - and Craven Cottage is a great old ground.
The reality is, if they don't spend up large they'll likely do one next season and be back down again without the parachute.
Problem is, like so many clubs (my beloved Saints among them), spending to strengthen gets harder every season as the bigger clubs spend with cash they find in ever deepening pockets under the FFP rules that don't get enforced.
Welcome aboard Fulham. May your first season back in the Premier League be more Wolves than Watford.
I like Fulham and they have some interesting history - and Craven Cottage is a great old ground.
The reality is, if they don't spend up large they'll likely do one next season and be back down again without the parachute.
Problem is, like so many clubs (my beloved Saints among them), spending to strengthen gets harder every season as the bigger clubs spend with cash they find in ever deepening pockets under the FFP rules that don't get enforced.
Welcome aboard Fulham. May your first season back in the Premier League be more Wolves than Watford.
Don't get me wrong I really wanted them to make it too.
As a Spurs supporter I do have a biased opinion about Fulham's coach but you have to say after being criticised for his 'one fits all approach' he did pull one over on Brentford. Changed the line up, suffocated their potent front line and (if it's true) the advice regarding the Brentford goalkeeper taking a high line for free kicks and how to take a punt was amazing. Way to go Fulham.
As for Spurs, just got themselves into a world of pain with the Europa League. Honestly I would have preferred it if they didn't make it and concentrated on rebuilding (whatever that may mean) and only had the domestic cups to deal with.
How does a second rate club end up with arguably the show case stadium in the EPL and maybe Europe wide? Why would you do that when you know the club is never going to be a Liverpool, Man City or Man Utd? Don't get me wrong I am hard core Spurs through and through, 60 years old now and never wavered but really? I just don't see it.
I have been to the new stadium though, once last year with a full crowd. Spectacular, I mean wow it was an amazing experience I have to say.
How does a second rate club end up with arguably the show case stadium in the EPL and maybe Europe wide? Why would you do that when you know the club is never going to be a Liverpool, Man City or Man Utd? Don't get me wrong I am hard core Spurs through and through, 60 years old now and never wavered but really? I just don't see it.
I have been to the new stadium though, once last year with a full crowd. Spectacular, I mean wow it was an amazing experience I have to say.
Spurs counted on the new stadium as a way to essentially print money. COVID has completely disrupted that plan, and while I hear the stadium has been important resource for COVID relief efforts, it is certainly not being booked for concerts, NFL games, and the like.
Given that Levy demands a lot of product on a relatively small budget, Spurs are the last team who should be in the Europa league because it will hurt their league form more than most. They can't afford to take both domestic cups, the Europa League, and the Premier League seriously all at once.
The funny thing about the erosion of the prestige of the cups is that winning them is still a big deal (at least among the handful of Manchester/London teams that typically trade the cup back and forth), but nobody has much respect for the competition anymore given fixture and the bloat in the size and number of other competitions.
Given that Levy demands a lot of product on a relatively small budget, Spurs are the last team who should be in the Europa league because it will hurt their league form more than most. They can't afford to take both domestic cups, the Europa League, and the Premier League seriously all at once.
The funny thing about the erosion of the prestige of the cups is that winning them is still a big deal (at least among the handful of Manchester/London teams that typically trade the cup back and forth), but nobody has much respect for the competition anymore given fixture and the bloat in the size and number of other competitions.
Last edited:
And who’s to say how long it will be until the Europa league will be bringing in any gate money?
I don’t expect Man Utd to struggle in the same tournament tonight though! Not after the first leg.
Just read about the 55 redundancies at Arsenal. I do hope following on from that they won’t be too active in the transfer market. Would leave a rather bitter taste in the mouth.
Mind you, when you are paying someone £350,000 a week and not playing him, it’s hardly surprising things are tight!
Mind you, when you are paying someone £350,000 a week and not playing him, it’s hardly surprising things are tight!
Chelsea...?
www.caughtoffside.com
"Worst kit in our history" - Chelsea's unusual new away shirt is not going down well with Blues fans
Chelsea look to be releasing a blue and red striped away kit for next season and it's not going down at all well with many Blues fans on Twitter.
Chelsea...?
View attachment 941197
"Worst kit in our history" - Chelsea's unusual new away shirt is not going down well with Blues fans
Chelsea look to be releasing a blue and red striped away kit for next season and it's not going down at all well with many Blues fans on Twitter.
Very Crystal Palace lol. Also a similar colour scheme to their 1988 kit.
Yes, I read about this last night.
Actually, I expect such redundancies to become more widespread - not just in Arsenal, but across the game - over the coming season, as revenues (match-day, commercial, perhaps also TV) will dry up and clubs will seek to make savings.
Of course, & obviously, it leaves a bad and bitter taste, especially as, among those who are to supposed to depart from the club under these unpleasant and unfair circumstances are included the head of recruitment and much of the scouting department, who have served the club well and loyally and, in some cases, with considerable distinction.
However, that the well-regarded scouting department is being trimmed - reduced in numbers and relevance and importance - is of significance, and not only for financial reasons.
Agent led signings are assuming an ever increasing importance in the game - a development I personally deplore & regret - thereby eclipsing the relevance & importance of traditional scouting departments in some of the larger football clubs.
Re Ozil, well, (as Manchester United found with Sanchez), the sooner he is off-loaded, sold, loaned, and/or off the books, the better, in my view. He is a costly and disengaged luxury. However, Mikel Arteta is perfectly right not to play him, not least for his attitude.
The same applies to Guendouzi whose behaviour both in the Brighton defeat (when he clashed with Neal Maupay, apparently sneering at and mocking - throughout the match - the lower salaries earned by the Brighton team) and earlier, elsewhere, and his marked unwillingness to address - or even want to address - his attitude, meant that Arteta has made it clear that there is no place in the team for him.
Last edited:
Football finances are shaky at the best of times. Most teams have just about gotten by this season through a series of expedients. But another season of no fans (or even reduced crowds for that matter) will bankrupt a lot of teams unless they are subsidized in some way.
This is going to throw inequality in football into stark relief. Clubs like PSG, Real Madrid and the Manchester duo will still be able to afford 100 million Euro players and dominate the competitive arena like never before, while even mid-sized, reasonably well-run clubs will have to initiate major layoffs and cut expenses to the bone just to stay alive over the next year or two. The fact that a club as big (and as wealthy) as Arsenal are laying off staff is worrying.
That shirt screams "youth soccer."
Last edited:
And the fact that Arsenal are laying off senior, widely respected, and well regarded staff members should serve to make it more worrying still.
I would expect to see a number of teams in financial trouble, or facing the threat of bankruptcy over the next two seasons.
Even if their stadiums are permitted to re-open and admit fans, with the coming recession (and the possibility, if not the probability, of stratospheric unemployment), fans facing unemployment will not be in a position to afford the luxury of season tickets, or match day tickets.
Even if in safe and secure employment, how many fans will want to risk the sizeable financial outlay involved in the purchase of a season ticket, after the debacle of the season that has just passed when they were unable to attend matches for most of the second half of the season?
That new season's away shirt of Chelsea is a veritable testament to execrable taste.
I would expect to see a number of teams in financial trouble, or facing the threat of bankruptcy over the next two seasons.
Even if their stadiums are permitted to re-open and admit fans, with the coming recession (and the possibility, if not the probability, of stratospheric unemployment), fans facing unemployment will not be in a position to afford the luxury of season tickets, or match day tickets.
Even if in safe and secure employment, how many fans will want to risk the sizeable financial outlay involved in the purchase of a season ticket, after the debacle of the season that has just passed when they were unable to attend matches for most of the second half of the season?
That new season's away shirt of Chelsea is a veritable testament to execrable taste.
Last edited:
Funny I watched a drama based on Tina and Bobby Moore last night. In one scene, he asked for a pay rise as Spurs were willing to pay him £10,000 signing on fee. He refused to sign a contract. Because of that he couldn’t play for England. So they show Alf Ramsey character basically telling him to sign it or he won’t play!
Not sure how accurate that is as I’m a bit too young to remember it all, but I thought it was funny how different it all was. Even the house they showed them living in was a nice semi. Now yes he was only 23, but can you imagine a current footballer living in house that you could afford? Neither can I!
Even a nice semi was a marked improvement on conditions a decade or so earlier (before Jimmy Hill had successfully fought against the cap - the maximum wage - on players' salaries), when, the best a successful player could have hoped for, was "a good working class lifestyle".
Last week, I read quite a few of the pieces written after the death of Jack Charlton, & watched a number of interviews with him; one very striking story described how Jack Charlton came to learn of the Munich air crash disaster.
His brother Bobby, who at the time was a young player who played for Manchester United with the original "Busby Babes", was on the plane. Also on the plane were three of the guests who had attended his (Jack's) own wedding, which had taken place only three weeks earlier, three fellow footballers, all three good friends of his, all of whom he later learned had lost their lives when the plane crashed on its third attempt at take-off on an icy run-way.
Charlton - and the Charltons were a close knit northern family, all his life, Jack was exceptionally close to his mother - who himself played for Leeds at the time, described graphically, the memory forever etched on his mind, memory, and soul, how he had just emerged, naked, dripping, from the baths & showers, after a training session, in Leeds, to be told, casually, by a member of the training staff, who had stuck his head into the room, that the plane carrying the Manchester United team had crashed in Munich. He related how he had simply stood there, naked and stunned, then threw his clothes on and dashed to the office of that person to learn more, only to be told that nothing more was known.
Wild with worry (for his mother above all), his first thought was to get home to Ashington, in Northumberland, to comfort his mother. He took the train, - a nightmare journey - followed by the bus, - the final leg was on foot, - to get home. Crossing the square, between the train station and the bus stop, he spotted that the evening paper had just been published, with further news, including the names of some of the survivors. He immediately ran across the square, bought a copy, anxiously scanned the list of names, found his brother's name among those reported alive but injured, and realised, with a shattering relief, that he could now proceed to visit his mother to confirm and report that Bobby - her son, his brother, - had survived this disaster.
Decades later, as he recalled that fraught journey, in graphic detail, he merely mentioned, as an aside, that he took the train because he didn't have a car; nobody did, in those days, not working class kids who had managed to escape the mining pits with a skill that allowed them a career playing football.
Last edited: