Wait, what? That's not how it went down at all. But even if it did, it still wouldn't tell us anything about the quality of midtable teams in different leagues.
The quality of the premiership is shocking
- Thread starter C'est Moi Cantona
- Start date
I'm confident we can 0-0 any team in Europe.
Think it's pretty clear to me that the top teams aren't that good which makes the league competitive undoubtedly. The bottom ones may well be stronger compared to other leagues but that's hard to find out.
A lower midtable side outbidding a top German club doesn't tell us about the quality coming into English football?
Because that's what happened. Everton even outbid Schalke ffs
It is a concern. German teams are constantly whining about how fair the spending power of the PL is and that it will drain a lot of quality from leagues like the Bundesliga or La Liga if even bottom table teams in the PL can afford to pay higher wages than EL or even some CL qualified teams in the other leagues. In the end that's what really decides where players are going, the money.
Well, yeah, but the reason Schalke didn't spend the necessary money was because they didn't plan to sell Draxler. Only 3 weeks later when Draxler left to Wolfsburg, that idiotic director of football I mentioned earlier said he would have bought Shaqiri if he knew that Draxler leaves. That's a totally different story. You make it sound as if Schalke desperately tried to sign him, but failed. The truth is they didn't value him enough to spend that much money on him at a time when they didn't necessarily need him.
And again, it doesn't tell us anything about how good he really is or how good the teams perform. It just means that an English midtable club was willing to spend more money on him than any other team. Good for Stoke, that's it.
Obviously it's a concern in general. I don't think Shaqiri is a good example though. Similar the Son to Tottenham deal wasn't a problem because Leverkusen could add more quality for less money. It's a concern when irreplacable players leave like De Bruyne or when English clubs start going for the quality talents and develop them into stars themselves, because they're in the financial position to keep them. As long as they overpay for finished players and give a huge part of their money to other leagues, they'll struggle to use it effectively and turn it into significantly more quality on the pitch.
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You're far too optimistic to kill yourself mate
you'll probably just end up betting some money on a 4-0 the home game thereafter! Try 0-0!Thats just excuses i'm reading. You have no idea how high Schalke valued him and from your last post about Schalke's history of spending big on overpriced names I'm shocked you believe they suddenly decided to draw the line at Shaqiri..
From the failed tranfer to Juve to his eventual move it seems to me Draxler was always going to move on. Wasn't the KDB tranfer slowed down because of Wolfsburg negotiations with Schalke for Draxler? It wasn't a last minute move here, that's just rewriting a narrative. Schalke had plenty of time to sign Shaqiri and they couldn't get it done.
It is good for Stoke, they went from the archetypical long ball team to a side who set out to go toe to toe technically with Man City. That's a watershed moment for me and shows where English football is and where it heading to in the future
Well, from what we know from the player and the managers, it was. The deal to Wolfsburg that is. After the move to Juve fell through, Draxler and the club expected that he would stay up until the last week of the transfer window and at that time Shaqiri had long signed for Stoke.
Anyway, it's the usual argument of English clubs being better because they spend more money, not because they actually perform better. It's very odd, it doesn't make much sense to me.
Must be as bad as it has ever been in terms of the quality of the big clubs.
Still, makes it more entertaining.
Still, makes it more entertaining.
Every player moves for money. Nobody joins Schalke / Stoke / Leverkusen / Newcastle etc for the love of the club.
The point is that clubs outside of the top 4 are spending money and making it work. Nobody is praising underperforming teams here.
How do you define "making it work" then? Because as far as I can see they bought two attackers for €25m and Afellay for free, who I'm sure isn't cheap either and those three players have a staggering four assists between them in the league, while the team has the worst offence in terms of goals scored and is sitting literally at a midtable position.
And btw Balu is right: when the Shaqiri deal was sealed everything pointed towards Draxler staying for another season.
I also don't see the relevance to the topic. I don't think anyone disputes that English clubs have the most money to spend. But that doesn't necessarily translate to quality.
Son is referenced for a shift in quality here, but people seem to completely ignore that the ridiculous €30m fee financed the purchases for Kampl and Chicharito with (if you only go by fees) even leaves Leverkusen with a spare €7m to put in the bank.
Imo they are a lot better off now.
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No consistency whatsoever. It's that kind of season where next week's upset will be Arsenal beating Villa.
o
Foreign fans really need to stop quoting fees and money from now on. It doesn't matter to English clubs so to use it as some sort of barometer for success doesn't make sense. Stoke have had a slow start with their new signings growing accostumed to English football and the new style of play the club has implemented. It's not a shock they've had a slow start but they're on a good run now. Plus the clubs being quoted are playing well so money spent does seem to translate to quality (finally)
Anyway Shaqiri turned down 2.1m in wages for 4.2 Stoke were offering. Juve themselves said Schalke were extremely difficult to negotiate with as nobody at Schalke were available to talk to,player didn't even want to go so you cant really use it as an excuse to why Schalke were overpowered by an English side
Draxler was always set for Wolfsburg IMO, all parties waited to get the maximum out of City in the KDB transfer. It's that simple.The Juventus deal was never taken seriously by Schalke themselves.
its not even an isolated incident. West Ham fought off Valencia and Sevilla for Ogbonna last summer. That's the standard of player that lower league sides are now recruiting and it will only improve once the television deal kicks in
English clubs money allows them to keep their players and build on what they have. It's the stability that will allow the EPL to develop. Unless a top club comes in for Mane or Lakaku they do not leave
Footballing sides used to stick out like a sore thumb a few years ago, now most sides are attempting to become ball playing sides and the success is evident.
if we were talking about money being spent on underperforming sides then of course money doesn't matter but it seems that English sides are finally starting to spend the money to forge some good sides.
First bolded one: no-one. At the contrary, the brainwashed folks tell repeatedly how much better the midtable English teams are better than European counterparts.
Second bold one, that is absurdly wrong. We have a competition when not the very top teams play, and Spanish teams win it repeatedly. You might think that Everton and Spurs and Liverpool would win those games, but on the occasions when we have those matches, Spanish teams win those games. And that is, you know, a fact.
8-20 is virtually impossible to know. It is alomost like debatting if there are more lifeforms in Pinwheel or Andromeda.
This.
And definitely this.
6-20 positions are MILES ahead of anywhere else in Europe. 1-6 are poor compared to their peers right now.
It will change. Finances are everything in professional sports. Just not always instant or over the short term.
Based on absolutely nothing but your wishes.
Based on economics. The league is rich, but the new TV deal next year kicking in has struck fear across Europe. The PL is just becoming far too dominant financially for that to not translate into quality.
In the US and Asia, where I have spent a lot of time, the only league that exists in their mind is the PL. La Liga, etc. are ''niche'' to say the least.
Money and a sustained time period = success
United spent 250m pounds these 2 years. City spent even more. Atletico didn't spent that much in 5 years. Hence, City and United piss all over Atletico.
Logic!
Oh how we long for one club to dominate the league
The league is rich for quite time and is worse in Europe year by year. If anything, the money is making teams look even worse by the looks of it.
Miles? West Ham and Southampton struggled against European minnows, West Ham especially.
Many have alluded to the fact that the talent is becoming more evenly spread hence the decline overall, normally Chelsea would have got Stones, and we would have got Mane etc, the new money has allowed these 'smaller teams' to tell the top clubs to do one.
I hope United are wise to this and don't bang their head against a brick wall for Mane in January, just look abroad now.
By that logic, then EPL was quite shit since its inception until 2013. United dominated EPL, more than Barca did for La Liga, or Bayern dominated Bundesliga. 13 titles in 21 seasons, as dominant as a team can be.
So- all the PL teams have got richer and they have bought, theoretically, the best players in the world other than those at Bayern RM and Barca - something tells me that either all those expensive players are deliberately playing badly - or could there be another reason why people consider the PL to be of a poor standard if it in fact is or is it because it is so competetive
I suspect the latter.
The PL reminds me of the good old days when everyone could beat everyone and very often did
I suspect the latter.
The PL reminds me of the good old days when everyone could beat everyone and very often did
It was rare for a runaway win, there were usually 2 or 3 teams at least in the race - who the hell are racing against Bayern and PSG
No one mentioned PSG/France. Ligue 1 is far below the top 4 leagues.
You can say whatever you want, but 13 out of 21 titles is total domination. No other team in Europe's top leagues did that, not even a corrupted Juventus. So, if we say that a team dominating the league means that the league is shit, then EPL has been completely shit by that logic.
Just using your arguments against you, not that I agree with them.
Bayern dominates their league because they are a superior team in that league. Dortmund and Wolfsburg are around the same level as United, City and Arsenal. Without Bayern there (which is essentially an outlier), the league would have been as competitive as EPL. But Bayern is there? Does that mean that the league is worse? Nope, at the contrary. It means that they have a great team and a few other decent ones. England has a few decent ones, but no great team.
That's the problem. By buying the biggest names you don't get the best teams.
Moyes' Everton outspend Klopp's Dortmund. Should Everton in theory have been better than Dortmund?
United has the most expensive squad assembled ever (or at least we had it last season)? Do we have the best ever team? Or the best current? Or the tenth best current team?
City's wage bill is roughly twice as big as Juve's? Do City have a better team than Juve? If yes, then why did they lose both matches?
Spurs spends as much as Atletico Madrid. Are them as good as Atletico Madrid?
etc etc
Do you remember lots of PL teams in the final stages of the CL - of course United are the most successful team and were superior to other PL teams but not to the extent of Bayern and the other German teams are not to the standard - remember United winning 5-0 away under Moyes
So if PSG are not in the argument and according to you the Bundesliga teams are the same level as the PL teams, other than Bayern Barca and RM which are 3 teams who else are we supposed to be far inferior to, makes no sense
One off matches or even over two legs don't guarantee one team is better than the other overall - if that was the case we are far inferior to Swansea.
The only way to know is if all the top European teams played in a league together, and this is never likely to happen
Exactly how the things are currently in Spain then. Three top teams with one of them dominating the league.
Wolsburg are in the level of top English teams. They are leading the group with a certain English top team there.
Dortmund lead the group with Arsenal last year, didn't they?
Monchengladbach are probably around Liverpool/Spurs level.
I am not saying that the bottom/midtable teams are better in other leagues than England. Just that it is something that we don't know. While we know that top 7 in England is inferior than on Spain, and around the same level as Germany.
Over the years it does though. And over the years Spanish teams repeatedly beat English ones.
Also, it is easy to see that Juve (btw, fifth in Italy) are better than City, and those two matches weren't a fluke. They just reached UCL final. City have yet to ever win a champions League knockout match.
In two or three years, I think it will be very different at the top. At least two or three PL clubs will be challenging for the CL.
City are likely to recruit Pep this summer. They already have a strong squad. With his pull and their money, I expect them to be a real force.
City are likely to recruit Pep this summer. They already have a strong squad. With his pull and their money, I expect them to be a real force.
This thread is about the PL being shocking, obviously it isn't.
Spain have RM and Barca whom no-one is questioning are better than any PL team at the moment but no other Spanish team have ever won the CL and RM have only won it once in the past 12 years so slight exaggeration there
And sorry but don't see Juve better than City because of two matches and a easier draw last season
Well that has cheered me up no end.
leicester on top of the league about sums it up.
don't get me wrong, I give credit to leicester because they have done well this season. but it's also made possible by that all the usual suspects at the top are collectively underperforming and failing to mount any sort of winning run. not to mention how hilariously bad chelsea is doing.
don't get me wrong, I give credit to leicester because they have done well this season. but it's also made possible by that all the usual suspects at the top are collectively underperforming and failing to mount any sort of winning run. not to mention how hilariously bad chelsea is doing.
Yep, I agree.
It should have been instead 'the quality of top EPL teams - compared with European top teams - is shocking'. Too long for a title though.
Continue not seeing how City is worse than Juve. The similar theme has been going on too long, and then people wonder for English fans arrogance.
But who are these mythical teams that are so much better than the EPL teams - Barca RM and Bayern as I said are 3 - even if I give you Juve that's 4 which I don't - you have discounted PSG but if I accept that which I don't that's 5 - who else is there A Madrid on a similar level - really can't think of anyone else
Atletico are not on a similar level, they will beat any PL team.
Atletico Madrid, PSG and Juve are all better than anything EPL has to offer.
So, yeah, 6 better teams than any team in EPL.
In UEFA coefficients, there is a single EPL team in top 10. And that is more objective than us speculating, because it is based on results not opinions.