The league is bad, the league is good

Ole's_toe_poke

Ole_Aged_Slow_Poke
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
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Which side of the fence are you on?

The new TV deal means that there are several teams in mid table that are now stronger than before. This means that most games especially away from home are hard, even more so than usual. This is the argument that a lot of people use to claim that the PL is a very good league with lots of competition.

Also, the traditional top sides aren't as strong as they can be, with no standout sides currently in the league. This is the argument that a lot of people use to claim that the PL is poor because it doesn't have any truly great side.

These two factors combined are making the league very unpredictable and very tight at the top. Every week there seems to be an upset or two and no team is able to pull out in front.

So, in your eyes is the PL in a good place or is it in a bad place?
 
Exciting league in terms of competition among teams, but quality-wise a bit shit. Think we can all agree on that?
 
the league is great, top clubs are bad.....
 
Overall its good, there is far more parity between the teams. None of the top teams are particularly strong but that does not diminish the quality of the rest of the teams. The teams from the top 6 down to the relegation zone are probably as good as they've ever been and that's due to the extra money.
 
I think it's the most competitive league if you look at all the teams, the bottom 10 in the PL are stronger than the bottom 10 in any other league.
 
From the top 4 down the league is as strong as it's been in a while. From the top 4 up it's at it's worst. Lots of teams in transition and bedding in new players, new managers and the like. It's going to be a scrappy one.
 
It's bad. The CL and Europa league proves that.

Bestie07 said:
The league is competitive. Won't say it is particularly good as there are not too many truly world class players in it. Only De Gea, Aguero And Silva.
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Another point that is hard to argue against.
 
Quality of the top teams is shocking. Quality of everyone else is better than the norm.
 
It's competitive, whether that's bad or good usually depends on where your team are in the league.
 
It is definitely more competitive this year, and in general feels like any given team can beat another (see below). On the other hand though, the "top" sides aren't at the quality we're used to. City looked legitimate and cut above every other team after the first 5 games or so, but have shown to be mentally weak when the going gets tough - especially with Kompany out.

Overall, I think it's good for the league. The middle teams are stronger than before and it makes the every game more competitive. The end of the season will be exciting.

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The league is more competitive in the sense that there's usually more teams that have a credible chance of winning the title and it's less of a shock when the top teams get beaten by the poorer teams in the league. Whereas it's rarer for PSG, Madrid, Barca and Bayern to get beaten by those sides.

Bestie07 said:
The league is competitive. Won't say it is particularly good as there are not too many truly world class players in it. Only De Gea, Aguero And Silva.
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I'd struggle to name too many centre back better than our own Mike Smalling.
 
The top four sides are weaker now than they've been in a good while. To be fair, this has been an issue for a number of seasons. Ronaldo left for Spain and it's all gone a bit stale since.

The quality of players playing for the sides below are as good as they've ever been. Money being the major reason why.
 
Overall I think it's great, week in week out I am amazed by the quality of lineups put out by various teams. I am also really impressed by how well drilled most of the teams are, there are genuinely no easy games and this is not just for United but for any team.
 
The league is bad. Competitive, but the 'top' teams are absolutely shit compared to European counterparts.

On the other side, there might be something to 'the non-top teams are better than European counterparts'. Impossible to prove it though, and the closest we can get is the Europa League when EPL teams somehow manage to be even worse than EPL teams in UCL.

I think that all of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool of 2007-2009 would have easily win this version of EPL. Chelsea 2004-2006 and United of 07-08 would have reached 100 points with ease. Even if the non top 4 - top 6 teams are slightly better than back then, the top 4 teams are significantly worse than back then. And significantly worse than the likes of Bayern, Barca, Juventus, both Madrid clubs as we see every time an EPL team meets them.

So, from an entertainment point of view it is quite good, and it seems to be more competitive than ever. But the top teams are actually terrible.
 
The top and bottom of the table is shite, the middle is the best in the world.
 
the hea said:
I think it's the most competitive league if you look at all the teams, the bottom 10 in the PL are stronger than the bottom 10 in any other league.
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We areally don't have any idea on that. It has been going on for as long as I remember, but it is completely a wild guess.

Those times the bottom teams manage to reach Europa League, they get completely embarrased. Now you can say that they don't bother - and well, that might be true - but there is really not much point on discussing if the likes of West Ham are better than the likes of Udinese, Real Sociedad or Koln.
 
The league is good.
The top clubs are good, but far from great.
 
The league is definitely good and exciting overall, but the top clubs are like at the level of the 4th/5th placed teams from 5 years ago basically. The top 3 this season would at best hope to finish top 4 with the quality of the previous top teams. There is no real side capable of winning the title, so it will go down to whoever is the most consistent basically. Before they said this about Fergie sides, but that was a load of bollocks. We still got over 85 points every year in his last 7 years or so. You look at the points averages, and everyone is at top 4 pace with nobody even title challenging pace.
 
The league is naturally more competitive because the lower sides are improving as the higher sides are becoming worse.
 
Ole's_toe_poke said:
We won our 19th title with 80 points and only 5 away wins. I reckon we could possibly see an even lower winning total this year.
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Yeah the one exception. Think 2nd placed Chelsea had 71 points as well. This year is similar to that (without anyone running away with it). Just a lot of teams fecking up.
 
VorZakone said:
Exciting league in terms of competition among teams, but quality-wise a bit shit. Think we can all agree on that?
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Nope, couldn't disagree more actually. Stoke have Bojan and Shaqiri. The league has real strength in depth now, so top teams can't get away with playing shite and winning as much, or resting players and easing to victory.

The top teams may not be of the heights of Chelsea when they first won the league, the invincibles, or us when we won in 1999 or 2008, but the league as a whole has never been stronger overall.
 
nokillingmoths said:
Nope, couldn't disagree more actually. Stoke have Bojan and Shaqiri. The league has real strength in depth now, so top teams can't get away with playing shite and winning as much, or resting players and easing to victory.

The top teams may not be of the heights of Chelsea when they first won the league, the invincibles, or us when we won in 1999 or 2008, but the league as a whole has never been stronger overall.
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Shaqiri is an average player. Bojan has real quality. As for the OP, the league is average, full of poor football and terrible defending. The PL is getting steadily worse with each passing season.
 
Not good. A title race is much better when you have teams of genuine class running each other close rather than one team worse than the other failing to prove their worth.
 
Šjor Bepo said:
the league is great, top clubs are bad.....
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It's this exactly. The overall quality of the league is high. No other league could have mid-table sides making signings like we see in England. However the top sides are nowhere near the quality of some of the elite clubs in Europe for whatever reason.
 
kouroux said:
Shaqiri is an average player. Bojan has real quality. As for the OP, the league is average, full of poor football and terrible defending. The PL is getting steadily worse with each passing season.
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Can't agree with this tbh, lots of teams in the league play good football.
 
kouroux said:
Shaqiri is an average player. Bojan has real quality. As for the OP, the league is average, full of poor football and terrible defending. The PL is getting steadily worse with each passing season.
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Shaqiri was great today against City. Admittedly the only time i have seen him this season. But the point was more to highlight how strong the depth of the league is. West Ham had more quality players out injured than us today. Mental.

Do you really believe it is getting worse? Or do you mean "the big teams are getting worse". Not sure how anyone can really think the midtable teams aren't improving.
 
SilentWitness said:
Can't agree with this tbh, lots of teams in the league play good football.
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OK.
nokillingmoths said:
Shaqiri was great today against City. Admittedly the only time i have seen him this season. But the point was more to highlight how strong the depth of the league is. West Ham had more quality players out injured than us today. Mental.

Do you really believe it is getting worse? Or do you mean "the big teams are getting worse". Not sure how anyone can really think the midtable teams aren't improving.
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There aren't many top class defenders, there aren't many top class wingers and there aren't many top class goalscorers. So many teams bore me to death when they're playing.

I am watching it because basically I'm addicted to it and Man Utd are in it.
 
Shaqiri is definitely not average, he is new to the league but he is a very good player. Also the point about most of the league playing poor football is bullshit, I am currently watching Bournemoth at SB playing more than decent football. Last week I saw Norwich play Arsenal off the park, teams like Spurs, Everton, Leicester have been playing quality football pretty much every week.
 
Šjor Bepo said:
the league is great, top clubs are bad.....
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I think you're right. Our top clubs aren't near the level of La Lagi & Bayern, but when the league is this entertaining week in week out, I don't really care.

Right now, I think the league is amazing.
 
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