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The Premier League Thread!
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Anyone seen this t-shirt?
Thought specifically Chelsea fans, and generally all others tired of Ferguson's and Wenger's constant bickering, would appreciate this one...
Thought specifically Chelsea fans, and generally all others tired of Ferguson's and Wenger's constant bickering, would appreciate this one...
Mitthrawnuruodo said:Anyone seen this t-shirt?
Thought specifically Chelsea fans, and generally all others tired of Ferguson's and Wenger's constant bickering, would appreciate this one...
huh and Jose Mourinho doesn't bicker with Wenger at all does he??? please.
Mitthrawnuruodo said:Anyone seen this t-shirt?
Thought specifically Chelsea fans, and generally all others tired of Ferguson's and Wenger's constant bickering, would appreciate this one...
Thanks for the chuckle and today's results have gone our way. A good win at West Ham and Liverpool's away draw at Bolton. Here's hoping for an Arsenal win or draw against Man Utd. at Highbury tomorrow night...
Blue Velvet said:
Thanks for the chuckle and today's results have gone our way. A good win at West Ham and Liverpool's away draw at Bolton. Here's hoping for an Arsenal win or draw against Man Utd. at Highbury tomorrow night...
I can tell you as an Arsenal fan how welcome that win would be!
I know we're doing a favour on the Russian-Blue's behalf, but we have to get a good win sometime....
What a terrible season....
Luckily my annual visit to Highbury was last week's game against Portsmouth, so I had a good time that night...
Chelski's utter domination of the Premier League this season and last (this season, they are 19-1-1 so far) is going to RUIN the Premier League eventually. At some point, the lower teams who are perennial followers-on (Tottenham, etc.) are going to demand a salary cap for PL play.
Seriously, how can you expect even a top-notch organization like Liverpool or Arsenal, which does well but is not backed by any immensely wealthy individuals, to compete with a Russian mobster who has $22 billion in the bank and NO LIMITS whatsoever on how he spends it? If you took all of his second string players, you could form a really good PL team with THEM. He seems like the sort of guy who'd sign David Beckham and then sit him on the bench for a rainy day.
Seriously, how can you expect even a top-notch organization like Liverpool or Arsenal, which does well but is not backed by any immensely wealthy individuals, to compete with a Russian mobster who has $22 billion in the bank and NO LIMITS whatsoever on how he spends it? If you took all of his second string players, you could form a really good PL team with THEM. He seems like the sort of guy who'd sign David Beckham and then sit him on the bench for a rainy day.
clayj said:
The problem, IMHO, is the fact that Chelski's infinite wealth is only skin-deep.
One day our Russian oil friend will get bored with Chelsea and move on to buying some F1 Racing team or something....
If I were a Chelsea fan, I would be pretty anxious about the fact that one über-wealthy post-commu-Russia-oil-nut one day came to England, bought the team with the most expensive name in the PL (face it, if there were a Mayfair-team, he would have bought that one...) and made it (=invested into) a champion.
He's waiting for the CL cup, and then probably get bored with going to Stanford Bridge and get interested in other sports.
Two years later Chelsea will probably be fighting to stay up.
clayj said:
Seriously, we've heard it all before when Man Utd. were winning everything left, right and centre. And boring, boring Arsenal... memories are short, attention spans are fickle.
The English premier league is completely congested with fixtures. Not only are there two cups up for grabs unlike the rest of Europe the league itself has two more teams in it than the main European leagues. On top of that, there's the Champions League with an ever-increasingly ridiculous and tedious group stage.
In the context of that and with inevitable squad injuries AND with players going off for international duties, it makes sense to have a squad that has as much strength in depth as possible.
Mourinho has always stated that he wants two identically able players in each position to achieve the standards which they're aiming for.
Stop moaning just about Chelsea because they're winning and have a look at Portsmouth and Hearts as well in terms of their finances.
So who'll ruin their club first Roman Abramovich or the Man Utd's Malcolm Glazier?MacsRgr8 said:Two years later Chelsea will probably be fighting to stay up.
MacsRgr8 said:The problem, IMHO, is the fact that Chelski's infinite wealth is only skin-deep.
One day our Russian oil friend will get bored with Chelsea and move on to buying some F1 Racing team or something....
If I were a Chelsea fan, I would be pretty anxious about the fact that one über-wealthy post-commu-Russia-oil-nut one day came to England, bought the team with the most expensive name in the PL (face it, if there were a Mayfair-team, he would have bought that one...) and made it (=invested into) a champion.
He's waiting for the CL cup, and then probably get bored with going to Stanford Bridge and get interested in other sports.
Two years later Chelsea will probably be fighting to stay up.
There's no evidence of that whatsoever except your wishful and increasingly bitter and monotonic whining.
Chelsea, Stamford Bridge and the property around it were sound business purchases. Seriously, if you're a Russian billionaire, where are you going to put your money? Where's it going to give a good return? Chelsea or Sunderland?
I'm not questioning the business practices of buying one team versus another. Obviously Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Man U are the elite of the PL and have been for a long time. But Chelsea was never as elite as the other three.Blue Velvet said:
What I am questioning is the complete lack of constraints applied to player salaries. Here in the US, we have a salary cap on NFL teams which prevents any über-wealthy team (the Cowboys, for example, or Paul Allen's Seahawks) from spending more than a certain amount on players each season... this helps to maintain parity and prevents anyone from "buying" championships. It also makes it more important to have good coaching and encourages innovation in play (for example, the Cover 2 defense, the West Coast offense, different formations, etc.).
In Major League Baseball, there's a similar salary cap, but teams are allowed to exceed the cap IF they cough up a tax to the league... the money from this tax is used to support league operations and other expenses, including supporting teams that aren't doing as well. And the NHL just adopted a salary cap this year, after a year-long lockout.
The fact is that salary caps encourage stability in sports, and they prevent player salaries from reaching insanely absurd levels. What Abramovich is doing is buying championships. The market for talent has gone global and he has apparently spared no expense in buying all of the best players he can lay his grubby mitts on.
Newly-promoted teams (like Sunderland) and those teams that always seem to end up in the middle of the PL don't stand a chance against Chelsea. For Abramovich, it seems no longer to be about the sport, but about how many trophies he can get to line his mantel.
Fact is, until UEFA imposes salary caps across Europe, there is no way that the Premier League is going to take unilateral action and see the talent drain away to better-paid leagues.
That's just the way it is. And asking the big teams for self-imposed wage restraints is like asking tofu to vote for Christmas.
That's just the way it is. And asking the big teams for self-imposed wage restraints is like asking tofu to vote for Christmas.
Well, yeah, that's the real problem. And even if you get salary caps across Europe, that does nothing about South American or Asian teams.Blue Velvet said:Fact is, until UEFA imposes salary caps across Europe, there is no way that the Premier League is going to take unilateral action and see the talent drain away to better-paid leagues.
That's just the way it is. And asking the big teams for self-imposed wage restraints is like asking tofu to vote for Christmas.
In the US, the pro soccer players get paid VERY little... the market for soccer is still growing, so the money's not there yet to pay these guys a lot, and they're very carefully managing the growth of the MLS. (One owner owns SEVERAL teams, for example.) Our best players invariably end up going to the UK or Europe to make the big money.
No... in fact, he's one of the major backers of the MLS.Jaffa Cake said:
To grow a national league, you have to have many teams all over the place. Since it's not always easy to find a local owner or anyone else who wants to take the risk of STARTING a team in [insert city name here], MLS mogul Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz (he founded Qwest) will start a team in a city where MLS wants to have a team... once the team is on stable ground (good fan base, good ticket sales, etc.), he then sells the team to someone who wants to run it. In this way, he's the incubator for an entire sports league.
At one point, I think he owned 5 of the (then) 12 MLS teams. Now I think he's down to 3 or so. But since the MLS is so tightly-regulated by its own rules (salaries, player trades, etc.), it doesn't matter how many teams he owns; they're all on equal ground.
Granted, I can see the problems starting up a league (especially in The States, where football leagues have failed in the past), but I'm still pretty surprised to hear this I would have thought it could lead to accusations of corruption. An example CSKA Moscow are sponsored by a company of which Roman Abramovich was a major shareholder, which led to some claiming he was potentially in breach of UEFA rules (which state an individual cannot have involvement in more than one team competing in UEFA competitions), and pondering what would happen if Chelsea and CSKA met in a competitive match. As it was, he doesn't have any ownership of CSKA itself so he was completely in the clear, but it does highlight the UEFA ruling where ownership of clubs is involved.clayj said:
Actually, pro sports leagues in the US are MUCH more socialistic than you might think... their #1 concern, aside from running afoul of any potential antitrust issues, is stability of the leagues. Ultimately, all of the money used to fuel the leagues comes from consumers (even the money from TV deals), so they try to keep the largest possible number of people happy at all times.Jaffa Cake said:
This is why the NFL, NHL, and MLB (to a certain extent) have salary caps; why a majority of owner votes are required to make changes to league rules; and why there is a HUGE amount of pressure from the fans to keep sports clean. The NBA does not have a salary cap, and that league is hurting, not only because of high player salaries, but also because of growing fan disenchantment. The NFL even has revenue sharing between teams, so teams that don't do as well receive financial support from the more successful teams. They don't want teams to fail, and there is no real "second league" like there is in the UK.
MLS is a small fish compared to these other leagues, and with the rules structure that's in place, it really doesn't matter who owns what teams. Each team will play their best in each match, because ultimately what they're working for right now is for the LEAGUE to do well.
clayj said:
Or he just leaves a struggling team in a city that doesn't want it because he can't sell it, and lets a team leave a city that does want it but promises to put an expansion team back there in a few years. I'm sorry but the MLS is a horrible league and you're making it sound too rosy.
i never understood the balancing in US sports ... i find that rather boring since it prevents the formation of those legendary clubs ... and all the love or hate relationships which are essential for football
sure every now and then a club comes up and "dominates" (after all he isn't the only billionare who is hunting players ) but those are rather phases ... in 2 years another team is very likely number one
what do you mean with fail ? money wise ?
the lack of lower leagues is exactly the problem the MLS has .. if you can't get rated back to a lower league if you play bad or join a higher league if you play good, why should the players fight and play as good as they can ?
i don't know my guess is all those rules in the MLS are holding it back... why change the "proven around the world" league system in the US ?
it has to grow .. you can't build it from the top
sure every now and then a club comes up and "dominates" (after all he isn't the only billionare who is hunting players
) but those are rather phases ... in 2 years another team is very likely number one what do you mean with fail ? money wise ? the lack of lower leagues is exactly the problem the MLS has .. if you can't get rated back to a lower league if you play bad or join a higher league if you play good, why should the players fight and play as good as they can ?
i don't know my guess is all those rules in the MLS are holding it back... why change the "proven around the world" league system in the US ?
it has to grow .. you can't build it from the top
No, we still get bitter rivalries (Cowboys vs. Redskins, Raiders vs. Broncos, Bears vs. Packers, etc.), and we will occasionally see a "dynasty" team (Cowboys of the mid-90's, Patriots of early 2000's, etc.)... but because of the nature of the league and how players, coaches, and owners rotate in and out, there is definitely a cyclical nature to who's on top one year and on bottom 5 years later.takao said:i never understood the balancing in US sports ... i find that rather boring since it prevents the formation of those legendary clubs ... and all the love or hate relationships which are essential for football
sure every now and then a club comes up and "dominates" (after all he isn't the only billionare who is hunting players
Now, some teams took a VERY long time to do well... Tampa Bay, for example, took 25 years to make it to the Super Bowl. (My Panthers made it in "only" 10.) And some other teams have NEVER really done that well (New Orleans Saints, for example, have won ONE playoff game in their entire history). And there are some ignominious records which continue to this day: In 30 years of existence, Tampa Bay has NEVER returned a kickoff for a touchdown... and Atlanta, in 40 years of existence, has NEVER had back-to-back winning seasons.
The problem with Abramovich is that he is literally buying championships. That's pretty ungentlemanly of him. His players are fine with it, I'm sure, but a lot of soccer diehards are upset with his tactics. And yes, when he tires of his Chelski toy and sells it, the Chelsea fans are in for a rough time.
clayj said:
And Man Utd. didn't 'buy' their championships?
It's a paradox. On one hand, I'm told that it's a club's history that ultimately counts, on another people get worked up about Chelsea this and Chelsea that, even though last year we only won the league title, the league cup and... the community shield. The FA cup, the European Cup and the UEFA cup went elsewhere.
As a Chelsea fan, obviously I'm pleased. As a football fan, it's nice to see titles go elsewhere than Old Trafford, Highbury or Anfield for a change, not that Liverpool have accomplished much in the league over the last few years.
Quit your whining and start worrying about your own club's performances. All I hear is jealousy and pettiness no-one worried about us when Ranieri was in charge and when we weren't winning.
Voyeurs.
Yes, of course all Arsenal and ManUtd players comes from their own youth academies. Oh wait, they don't, most of them were bought at one point, too... shocking.clayj said:
And lets not forget Jack Walker who bought the title in 94-95 for his beloved Blackburn.
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