True. I'm always surprised at just how poor the package of the other big leagues is compared to the prem.
The quality of the premiership is shocking
- Thread starter C'est Moi Cantona
- Start date
I'll take entertainment over quality any day of the week.
So basically you want to see the teams get embarrassed? Cause that's what you get when you play against such teams and you're that inferior technically yet decide to go toe to toe vs them.
What the prem sides need to do is improve the personnel that's playing at the clubs so they can face these teams with full confidence of impose their own game plan.
Some of the midfield units at the big clubs are shocking compared to what barca, bayern or madrid put out.
At the end of every season if they arranged a tournament of some kind whereby the team in each league plays against its equivalent in the Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German leagues etc thyen the premiership would be clear winners
ie....1st plays 1st, 2nd plays 2nd etc all the way down.
ie....1st plays 1st, 2nd plays 2nd etc all the way down.
Stoke City played a front 3 of Annutovic, Shaqiri and Bojon, you don't get that quality so far down the league in any other league
Meh I don't feel entertained at all if its the football you are talking about.
As it has been pointed out, they are all rejects from other big leagues and their productivity isn't really excellent. Shaqiri has been turned down by Inter, Bojan was unwanted at Milan and Roma, Arnautovic failed at Inter.
I doubt it. Just taking La Liga
Barca vs. Leicester - Barca Easy
Atletico vs. Arsenal - Close - depending which Arsenal turn up, probably Madrid to edge it?
Real vs. City - Real Madrid
Man Utd vs. Celta Vigo - 0-0 draw
Villarreal vs. Spurs - Close
Deportivo vs. West Ham - Deportivo
Liverpool vs. Bilbao - Close, but probably 'Pool
Valencia vs. Palace - Valencia
Eibar vs. Watford - Who knows
Stoke vs. Sevilla - Sevilla
Everton vs. Betis - Let's say Everton
Espanyol vs. Southampton - Espanyol
Sociedad vs. West Brom - Sociedad
Sporting De Gijon vs. Chelsea - Chelsea... maybe
Swansea vs. Getafe - Who knows
Vallecano vs. Norwich - Ditto
Malaga vs. Bournemouth - Malaga
Granada vs. Newcastle - Terrible
Las Palmas vs. Sunerland - AWful
Levante vs. Villa - Crap.
So it's not clear at all is it?
All of the teams quoted operate much higher up there respective leagues.
That's the problem. The squads shouldn't be inferior considernig how much money they have spent on these recent years.
And also, it was something that we did even when EPL teams were the best. Just look at the semis vs Barca. We had the better teams but we went in both matches to defend. Sure we won, but still, it isn't something that you will see Barca or Bayern ever doing.
Well Milan finished 10th last season while Inter came 8th. Arnautovic did not exactly pull up any trees at Werder Bremen and they are a mid-table side.
Bremen sold Arnautovic for next to nothing despite having financial troubles.. after they finished 14th.
But after moving to the PL he is suddenly a player of unparalleled quality for a midtable side
no chance against Spain. They are better top to bottom
Not sure over Germany and Italy. It would be very close
Obviously the Dutch league
Football is a team game, when you look at what they had apart from that and affelay, you can clearly see where the prem is going wrong. Pieters, Adam, Whelan, Cameron have no business consistently sharing the pitch with those players on a consistent basis. The strength of that front three gets balanced out by the weakness of the team behind them which makes them a rather mediocre side despite how good those lads are.
Another thing is that Hughes said it took courage to put those three out together on the pitch as a front three. How does that even make sense? Predictably they were amazing vs city and should've hit them for 5. But that should've been Hughes' set up all along. Imo that's just pure mismanagement. Now what stoke need is a midfield 3 that comprises of footballers of more quality than what they have, and that shouldn't be all that hard.
I'm a fan of what Hughes has done in recent times but it still seems like somewhat of a half baked effort. He's mixing diamonds with dung trying to come up with quality jewellery, that's just not how it works.
I doubt it. Just taking La Liga
Barca vs. Leicester - Barca Easy
Atletico vs. Arsenal - Close - depending which Arsenal turn up, probably Madrid to edge it?
Real vs. City - Real Madrid
Man Utd vs. Celta Vigo - 0-0 draw
Villarreal vs. Spurs - Close
Deportivo vs. West Ham - Deportivo
Liverpool vs. Bilbao - Close, but probably 'Pool
Valencia vs. Palace - Valencia
Eibar vs. Watford - Who knows
Stoke vs. Sevilla - Sevilla
Everton vs. Betis - Let's say Everton
Espanyol vs. Southampton - Espanyol
Sociedad vs. West Brom - Sociedad
Sporting De Gijon vs. Chelsea - Chelsea... maybe
Swansea vs. Getafe - Who knows
Vallecano vs. Norwich - Ditto
Malaga vs. Bournemouth - Malaga
Granada vs. Newcastle - Terrible
Las Palmas vs. Sunerland - AWful
Levante vs. Villa - Crap.
So it's not clear at all is it?
I'll put it another way.....Bayern Munich would have dropped a lot more points if they where in the Premier League
Arnautovic was 20 when he had a loan spell at Inter and it was the season they won the CL. A young player not getting much game time over the likes of Eto'o and Milito isn't unexpected.
Again, I doubt it... Bayern have dropped 5 points this season. Now, if Bayern had, say, our fixture list from this season so far, they'd have won every home game easily, and the only away games they'd have struggled in was Arsenal (which they already did, and lost)... so that's 3 points dropped. Which gives them a draw in any random game somewhere and they'd be level pegging.
True, the big clubs have been suffering from years of mismanagement. Hence the squads are so weak atm.
They were still better on the ball than us even at that point. While they weren't all that good that season, when it comes to moving the ball about, they were a solid level above us.
Bayern played with a low block and hit Barca for 7. Did the same thing at the emirates and hit arsenal 3-1. This is when they were better than they are now and tactically savvy.
If Bayern played to their full potential every game you're right, but that's not how it works. If Celta Vigo can beat Barcelona 4-1 then Stoke and West Ham could easily get a draw or get a lucky win against Bayern.
So can teams in the Bundesligue (Gladbach just beat them 3-1) ... but hey, Bayern have still only draw 1 and lost 1 this season.
Let's try an apply some (very loose) rationale - Bayern beat Arsenal 5-3 on aggregate this season. Ergo, Bayern are two goals better then Arsenal. Arsenal have Drawn 3 and Lost 3 this season... so if you take the fact that Bayern are 2 goals better, those draws become wins, won of the loses becomes a win, and two of those loses become draws....
I mean, the above is obviously nonsense, so put it this way... if Arsenal have drawn and lost 4 more games then Bayern have, do we really think Bayern aren't good enough to have actually won 4 of those 6 games where Arsenal failed - considering that we know that Bayern are a better side then Arsenal?
Celta is a class above West Ham and Stoke.
Nah, their current side would absolutely annihilate the Premier League. They'd drop the odd point here and there, but they'd almost certainly demolish every bottom half team with their current first team, and they'd be overwhelming favourites against the bigger sides every time they play them. They'd probably finish somewhere around 95-100 points.
Yeah and we should remember Celta are dreadful awful terrible La Liga team not defensively sound PL side.
Don't tell this to Twigg, he reckons they'd not walk the league (he'd probably have them finishing between 8th and 12th to be fair).
It's not just winning those four games, it's also winning all the games Arsenal won as well. I think Premier league teams have a greater chance of taking points off Bayern than Bundesliga teams do. Bayern would still win it pretty comfortably but it wouldn't be on near 100 points with a 90 goal difference like they're are currently on course to do in the Bundesliga.
I find this argument really odd. The performances in the CL groups are really telling in that regard in my opinion. It's true that on a good day English top teams can get a result against Bayern (or Real, Barca, PSG and to a lesser degree Atletico, Juve), even though they don't seem to be able to beat these teams over two legs. But the true gap shows against smaller teams which Bayern, Barca, Real regularly put away with ease while they often cause massive problems to the English teams, like Arsenal this season or City in past seasons in comparison to Bayern. It's a perfect reflection of what's happening in the Premier League. English top teams struggle so much more against smaller sides because they don't have the quality in attack to put these teams away consistently.
Bayern would easily win the Premier League. Bayern are comfortably stronger than any Premier League team. In the odd one off game Bayern would lose, just as they lost at the weekend, but over a 38 game season Bayern would emerge on top. Sir Alex used to start the season targeting 90 points. The current Bayern team would be more than capable of getting that total.
Which again, they would probably do.
I mean, if we accept that Bayern are far better team then Arsenal (is anyone going to dispute this? I mean, I'm sure even most Arsenal fans would agree), then they would surely be on more points then Arsenal are now... and it'd surely be more then 3 or even 6 points ahead of them ('Cos if they were 3 points ahead, they'd be 1 point ahead of Leicester...) so at that point, they obviously would have to winning around 12/13 games (36/39 points) and drawing 1 or 2 (37/40 points).
Unless you don't think Bayern are that much better then Arsenal... but then I'd ask what about their League and CL performances have made you think this?
I'll say again, in a hypothetical giant league competition containing all the Prem clubs and all the clubs from any other single top league that you care to name, the Prem clubs would have the higher average league finishing position and points total ... by far.
This alone shows that the quality of the Prem is not shocking.
This alone shows that the quality of the Prem is not shocking.
Bayern are only 5 points ahead of Dortmund now so I don't see why Arsenal couldn't only be four or five points behind. Points can be misleading, United's 98/99 team obviously ranks as one of the best in Premier League history yet we only finished four points ahead of Chelsea that season, same amount of loses, they had two more draws and we had two more wins.
That's far from a guarantee. I agree that PL quality is not shocking, but the middle of the bunch is hardly any better than that of Spain and Germany, and neither are the relegation contenders. It makes me laugh when people think that a shite relegation contender like Villa or Sunderland would somehow thrive in Spain, and would be more likely to finish in mid-table. They'd be just as terrible in Spain as they are here.
Definitely. I reckon this current Bayern side would finish with around 95-100 points. They'd lose one or two games against the big sides (like Arsenal for example), but would still win the vast majority. I expect they'd probably be close to perfect in any hypothetical home fixtures, and would probably go unbeaten, only dropping points on occasion. They wouldn't be quite so infallible away from home, but by that I mean that they'd still win the vast majority of games. They'd potentially be the victim of the odd surprise draw/loss against a smaller team, but it'd be incredibly rare.
That's as maybe, but as a Spurs fan you should know that finishing 5th-6th every season is just meaningless, and right now that's the best finish a prem club could expect in this sort of league.
There's no way of proving that, though. The landscape is both - seemingly - easily judged, and...not. Common sense would tell you that the best five, or six, or seven teams in Europe per now are not English. It's not unreasonable to suggest that the best English side in your hypothetical giant league would finish below three Spanish, two German, one Italian and one French team. Nor is it unreasonable to suggest that Spurs, or Liverpool, or Leicester would finish above any side from any other league that is not among the ones mentioned above.
And below that...sure, common sense (again) would suggest that money fueled mid- to lower table English sides should have the edge on also-ran counterparts in other leagues.
Very hypothetical, though. No way to measure it. The objective means to measure relative league strength are results in the CL and EL - and that's it.
I was talking about the overall points total and average finishing places - not who would finish top or in the top 4.
I said all of the Prems team in a giant league with all of the teams from any single other league ... not picking the best teams from several other leagues. Most of the other leagues are dominated by 2 or 3 clubs, with rest being generally far below the average of Prem quality.
Even then, it's a poor comparison. It allows you to compare those teams who are competing, but in no way does it give a reliable extrapolation over the rest of the league.
Which league has the most quality is such a mute point anyway. Completely irrelevant. All I know is, if I had to pick a league to follow and watch, I'd pick the PL. And in no way is that biased because of the fact I support United and it's the league of my country because, the truth is, right now I am hugely disillusioned with football and probably for the first time in my life it is not my favourite sport right now (thanks to LVG, but that's a discussion for the other 1.1 million threads).
Let us paraphrase your argument: Imagine a hypothetical giant dick measuring competition containing all Spurs players and all players from any other team that you care to name, Spurs players would have the bigger average dicks...by far. This alone shows that the dicks of the Spurs players are not shockingly small.
You are mixing up pure speculations and facts. How could you be certain that Spurs would win more points than, say, Sevilla? Do you realise that Barca, Madrid and Atleti would probably win between them at least 30 points more than City, United and Arsenal?
Last edited:
They'd drop a lot more points over here. They've lost as many games against English clubs this year as they have against Germant clubs.
We have a really strong league. We should be proud of the quality some of these teams can produce.
Dortmund are in suberp form this season - at least their offence, which is just one goal behind Bayern's.