FOOTBALL English Premier League 23/24 Discussion

[Santa]

Come on Leeds! Don't let them beat you!

 

[The True King]

How is that second goal from Leeds not a handball in the build-up??

Rashford has had 2 or 3 taken off him for accidental handballs already this year and that one was blatant

United fan? haha

Leeds deserved their point.

 

[BroncosFever]

How is that second goal from Leeds not a handball in the build-up??

Rashford has had 2 or 3 taken off him for accidental handballs already this year and that one was blatant

I didn't see the game but it's funny how things even up.

 

[Super Freak]

I had a feeling those two missed opportunities from Garnacho in the first half would come back to bite us. Both of them should have been goals.

It wasn't a good decision from Ten Hag to play Rashford on the right wing in the first half. He was unable to have any impact in the first half as a result.

I guess it's not a bad result to comeback from 2-0 down early in the second half to come away with the draw, but that game really should have been one Man United won.

They were missing Casemiro out there and IMO they were missing Antony, as well.

Rashford has had several goals taken off him this year for the ball touching his hand regardless of whether there was nothing in it or not so the fact that Leeds second goal was given is rubbish.

 

[Wolfie]

Make no bones about it, Citeh are in trouble here but at the same time, i dont see them getting a huge penalty that will stick if they decide to fight it. FFP is a hugely flawed system as it is and Citeh have the finances to fight it. They have said in the past they could challenge it, and its commonly acknowledged in England that if Citeh decide to fight it, they have the money to outlast the Premier league in any legal battle. The Premier league is basically a toothless tiger. This is an organisation that let Mohammed bin Salman own a Premier league club with a shocking human rights record.

The thing i'm laughing at is all this outrage from other fans of the big six about them. Lets not forget, these bunch of grubs tried to destroy the fabric of English football. They tried to close anything decent in English football off from other clubs. They should all have been kicked out of the Premier league in 2021 for what they did. Short memories. United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, and Chelsea are equally as bad as Citeh.

 

[Renegade]

To be fair it was just the owners of our club wanting this. Pretty confident the % of fans that wanted the esl to occur was in single digits.

Speaking of which, they're at it again, the esl *****...

European Super League: Fresh plans for 80-team competition announced by chief executive Bernd Reichart

A new-look European Super League would be based on sporting performance only with no permanent members, A22 chief executive Bernd Reichart told German newspaper Die Welt; teams would be guaranteed a minimum of 14 matches per season; LaLiga call plans selfish and greed-driven

www.skysports.com

I don't think these ***** realize that CL games against heavyweights are special because they don't happen every fucking week. Just **** off.

 

[Wolfie]

To be fair it was just the owners of our club wanting this. Pretty confident the % of fans that wanted the esl to occur was in single digits.

Speaking of which, they're at it again, the esl *****...

European Super League: Fresh plans for 80-team competition announced by chief executive Bernd Reichart

A new-look European Super League would be based on sporting performance only with no permanent members, A22 chief executive Bernd Reichart told German newspaper Die Welt; teams would be guaranteed a minimum of 14 matches per season; LaLiga call plans selfish and greed-driven

www.skysports.com

I don't think these ***** realize that CL games against heavyweights are special because they don't happen every fucking week. Just **** off.

Baffles the mind they are trying to do this again. It wont ever work the way they want it to. Its just another example of these bigger clubs trying to close the shop so they can keep all the money themselves. YOu cant have a competition where the same teams qualify over and over because they have a good history. Look at Liverpool this season, at the moment, they dont deserve to qualify for a spot because they arent winning games.

I know it was mainly the owners, but i know heaps of fans of all the six involved, especially United and Spurs , who were in favour of it. Having it so they could never have been relegated and always qualified for the champions league would be appealing for Spurs especially. Those fuckers never win anything! I dont think any of them expected the backlash from the other 86 clubs and their fans though. I just feel its a bit hypocritical of some fans to expect them to come down hard on Citeh while their own clubs got away scott free with what they did 2 years ago. That was just as bad.

 

[Renegade]

Baffles the mind they are trying to do this again. It wont ever work the way they want it to. Its just another example of these bigger clubs trying to close the shop so they can keep all the money themselves. YOu cant have a competition where the same teams qualify over and over because they have a good history. Look at Liverpool this season, at the moment, they dont deserve to qualify for a spot because they arent winning games.

I know it was mainly the owners, but i know heaps of fans of all the six involved, especially United and Spurs , who were in favour of it. Having it so they could never have been relegated and always qualified for the champions league would be appealing for Spurs especially. Those fuckers never win anything! I dont think any of them expected the backlash from the other 86 clubs and their fans though. I just feel its a bit hypocritical of some fans to expect them to come down hard on Citeh while their own clubs got away scott free with what they did 2 years ago. That was just as bad.

You won't find me disagreeing about ESL, agree with your every word. As a Liverpool fan, I didn't really come across any in person or online that wanted it. I'm sure some were probably resigned to it happening eventually, and of course there would've been some that were for it, but the sentiment was largely no get go get fucked.

City can go get fucked though. They have openly flouted the rules for years. UEFA knew it too but got shot down by CAS and City's army of lawyers. Unluckily for them, CAS has no say in this latest reckoning. Sadly though I do agree with your point earlier that it's unlikely anything major will happen to them. They'll get some token fine that CFG can pay from the spare change in their couch and possibly some minor points deduction that would probably be suspended on appeal.

I'd love to see a Serie A style relegation ala Juventus, but the EPL don't have the balls. Wouldn't wanna hurt their product like that.

 

[Wolfie]

You won't find me disagreeing about ESL, agree with your every word. As a Liverpool fan, I didn't really come across any in person or online that wanted it. I'm sure some were probably resigned to it happening eventually, and of course there would've been some that were for it, but the sentiment was largely no get go get fucked.

City can go get fucked though. They have openly flouted the rules for years. UEFA knew it too but got shot down by CAS and City's army of lawyers. Unluckily for them, CAS has no say in this latest reckoning. Sadly though I do agree with your point earlier that it's unlikely anything major will happen to them. They'll get some token fine that CFG can pay from the spare change in their couch and possibly some minor points deduction that would probably be suspended on appeal.

I'd love to see a Serie A style relegation ala Juventus, but the EPL don't have the balls. Wouldn't wanna hurt their product like that.

The big six can all go get fucked for me. They all broke the rules, they were willing to turn their back on the English game and they should have all been at the very least fined massively and docked points.

Been reading some interesting stuff from a few years back from the Lawyer who basically changed football with him winning the Bosman case all those years ago. He, and some other lawyers who are on Citeh's payroll are very confident any team that challenges FFP will win, especially the European FFP as well as so many countries have different rules financially ( higher tax laws for example which means a club say in france has to pay a player more than a club in England to remain competitive ). There has been an easy truce i think over the years with FFP. Legally, i dont think its a fight Uefa or the Premier league can win. Its anti competitive, it hinders every player from having the ability to earn big money at so called smaller clubs. If Citeh dont suck it up, we are just going to get a long court battle they will ultimately win. They will escape their consequence, but its going to open the floodgates for cashed up owners to break the grubby 6 dominance. Not sure they will want that either.

 

[Renegade]

It's a tough balancing act. You don't want clubs with rich footballing history that have been around 100+ years ceasing to exist because they've spent well beyond their means in trying to keep up with everyone else. At the same time, FFP does create an in and an out group - if you dont have the money now you'll never have it because anytime you're on the rise the big clubs will vulture you and leave you with nothing. How is a club like Wolverhampton meant to compete with City when you can only spend what you earn through legit means and City can artificially inflate their own sponsorship and create 100m out of fresh air? At least previously, some tycoon could come in and pump his own money into a lesser profile club and give them a realistic shot at taking on the big boys/muscling their way into the party. These days? No chance.

And it's not like you can set a salary cap either because we've already seen in City's case, players being paid via third party means. I wonder how the Americans get away with it in their respective leagues without gaming the system like City do?

 

[Wolfie]

It's a tough balancing act. You don't want clubs with rich footballing history that have been around 100+ years ceasing to exist because they've spent well beyond their means in trying to keep up with everyone else. At the same time, FFP does create an in and an out group - if you dont have the money now you'll never have it because anytime you're on the rise the big clubs will vulture you and leave you with nothing. How is a club like Wolverhampton meant to compete with City when you can only spend what you earn through legit means when City can artificially inflate their own sponsorship and create 100m out of fresh air? At least previously, some tycoon could come in and pump his own money into a lesser profile club and give them a realistic shot at taking on the big boys/muscling their way into the party. These days? No chance.

And it's not like you can set a salary cap either because we've already seen in City's case, players being paid via third party means. I wonder how the Americans get away with it in their respective leagues without gaming the system like City do?

If they judged all this by history, Wolves should be given a free pass into Champions League football, we practically invented European competition! You are right though. Our owners easily have the finances to fund the club to make a dent in the Premier league but they arent allowed to spend it and there are others like that too. As much as it would probably be bad in some ways, they need to just let clubs manage their own finances and what happens happens. I still dont like that teams that get relegated from the Premier League are given over $100 million which is a huge advantage over the other championship clubs and its creating another cycle of the haves and have nots a level below the premier league.

I can remember in the not too distant past clubs like Citeh and Chelsea were low end Division one ( as it used to be called )/ Premier league clubs and both were also playing plenty of football in the second tier of English football. Then Abramovich came in for Chelsea, Shinawatra initially then Sheik Mansour for Citeh and they just pumped money in to build them up. There would be plenty of people watching the game now who wouldnt believe Citeh werent overly successful even 15 years ago.

Citeh have just exploited sponsorship i guess like PSG. I dont think the Americans have the same links.

 

[Renegade]

Yeah I remember Chelsea being a pretty average team for a long while. They had their moments in the 90's with Vialli and co, but it was Jesper Gronkjaer scoring against us to get them into the CL on the final day of the season that was a real sliding doors moment. Without that, Roman doesn't buy them and they remain the mid table club they were.

City were lucky to be in the EPL! They yo-yo'ed for years before getting investment from Shinawatra (who wanted to buy/invest in us as well prior to City, why are we involved in everything lol) and getting bought by the Arabs.

I'd be fine with them throwing the doors open. It's never going to be a level playing field but at least you're not tying one hand behind the back of the little clubs. Let them go for it, free market and all that right?

 

[Wolfie]

Yeah I remember Chelsea being a pretty average team for a long while. They had their moments in the 90's with Vialli and co, but it was Jesper Gronkjaer scoring against us to get them into the CL on the final day of the season that was a real sliding doors moment. Without that, Roman doesn't buy them and they remain the mid table club they were.

City were lucky to be in the EPL! They yo-yo'ed for years before getting investment from Shinawatra (who wanted to buy/invest in us as well prior to City, why are we involved in everything lol) and getting bought by the Arabs.

I'd be fine with them throwing the doors open. It's never going to be a level playing field but at least you're not tying one hand behind the back of the little clubs. Let them go for it, free market and all that right?

Absolutely. Its going to go wrong for some clubs though. My club in particular has almost gone out of exsitance twice despite having one of the richest histories in English football. We must have been the only club to get taken over by Saudi Arabians who had no money!

 

[The True King]

The big six can all go get fucked for me. They all broke the rules, they were willing to turn their back on the English game and they should have all been at the very least fined massively and docked points.

Been reading some interesting stuff from a few years back from the Lawyer who basically changed football with him winning the Bosman case all those years ago. He, and some other lawyers who are on Citeh's payroll are very confident any team that challenges FFP will win, especially the European FFP as well as so many countries have different rules financially ( higher tax laws for example which means a club say in france has to pay a player more than a club in England to remain competitive ). There has been an easy truce i think over the years with FFP. Legally, i dont think its a fight Uefa or the Premier league can win. Its anti competitive, it hinders every player from having the ability to earn big money at so called smaller clubs. If Citeh dont suck it up, we are just going to get a long court battle they will ultimately win. They will escape their consequence, but its going to open the floodgates for cashed up owners to break the grubby 6 dominance. Not sure they will want that either.

I dont know if that approach is fair on the fans, who by in large did not want a bar of exiting the prem. Agree the owners should have at least been held accountable but I think the protests said enough about how fans felt. Docking points would have just delegitimised the entire league and incentivised the big 6 to push ahead with the plan anyway.

Just quietly, there were a whole bunch of other teams who would have jumped at the opportunity to be included too. I remember reading an article about Leicester and Newcastle both lobbying to be a part of it. Unfortunately for most fans of the prem, ownership is about maximising profits and running a sustainable business rather than actually having interest in the club doing well on the pitch, let alone any sentimentality about legitimate competition. Football in Europe is rapidly moving towards the American model where commercial value is everything.

Not at all surprised the ESL is back, it never actually went away. The brains behind the operation (Perez mainly) just retreated and have now rebranded it to make it seem more 'fair'. At this point I think its virtually inevitable, already seeing it with how they are structuring the Champions League and Europa League moving forward.

 

[Wolfie]

I dont know if that approach is fair on the fans, who by in large did not want a bar of exiting the prem. Agree the owners should have at least been held accountable but I think the protests said enough about how fans felt. Docking points would have just delegitimised the entire league and incentivised the big 6 to push ahead with the plan anyway.

Just quietly, there were a whole bunch of other teams who would have jumped at the opportunity to be included too. I remember reading an article about Leicester and Newcastle both lobbying to be a part of it. Unfortunately for most fans of the prem, ownership is about maximising profits and running a sustainable business rather than actually having interest in the club doing well on the pitch, let alone any sentimentality about legitimate competition. Football in Europe is rapidly moving towards the American model where commercial value is everything.

Not at all surprised the ESL is back, it never actually went away. The brains behind the operation (Perez mainly) just retreated and have now rebranded it to make it seem more 'fair'. At this point I think its virtually inevitable, already seeing it with how they are structuring the Champions League and Europa League moving forward.

Sadly, you cant run the game on whats best for the fans or you get farcical decisions like we had with Penrith in the NRL having a player getting a ban suspended because it wasnt fair on the fans. Nothing is fair on the fans but the clubs still have to be held accountable. Those horrible six clubs should have been punished. It sucks for the fans, and i feel for the ones who turn up week in week out. Genuine fans, while they wouldnt like it, would accept they needed something severe.

If its true, Newcastle at the time would have jumped at it because they had Mike Ashley in charge, same as they have turned a blind eye to the questionable Mohammed bin Salman as an owner because in certain ways its better than what was going on with that clown Ashley. Cant recall anything about them or Leicester though tbh.

Without sounding patronising, most fans over here have no idea about what goes on at all levels of English football because they just dont see it. The premier league isnt close to being the be all and end all of English football. The fans of other clubs were more than happy to see them kicked out of the Premier league. Obviously, Sky sports and the Premier league itself as an organisation wouldnt as losing your biggest revenue streams would hurt, but the fans couldnt have cared less and still dont. The game would survive without them.

 

[Mustafur]

I so hope Man city get relegated out of the football league, not because I hate them specifically but it would make the lower leagues interesting and bring in huge TV money for those clubs struggling, it will be inevitable they come back in the quickest possible time anyway.

 

[Super Freak]

Just kick them out of the comp for good.

It’s only Man City. Only City fans will miss them.

 

[BroncsFan]

Just kick them out of the comp for good.

It’s only Man City. Only City fans will miss them.