I agree. The EPL needs United and Chelsea to be great again. City, Liverpool and Arsenal are strong but City and Arsenal are worse than last season and Liverpool aren't as good as the table suggests
The relative strength of the Premier League
- Thread starter Wumminator
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I agree. The EPL needs United and Chelsea to be great again. City, Liverpool and Arsenal are strong but City and Arsenal are worse than last season and Liverpool aren't as good as the table suggests
Hopefully the promoted clubs will be a bit better next season.
I had high hopes for Burnley but they've been a complete waste of time and still making as many errors as they did in August, naïve is being kind to them.
Sheffield United had no chance with owner wanting to sell and a ridiculous transfer policy of selling their good players and not replacing them.
Luton have morphed into competitive team at least but will see if they can remain strong for the run in as another four wins could well keep them up if Everton don't get any points returned.
I do think Leeds will be a bit better coming straight back up as they'll have significant money to spend. Leicester won't be as complacent as last time although they need better defenders judging by how they collapsed on Friday.
I had high hopes for Burnley but they've been a complete waste of time and still making as many errors as they did in August, naïve is being kind to them.
Sheffield United had no chance with owner wanting to sell and a ridiculous transfer policy of selling their good players and not replacing them.
Luton have morphed into competitive team at least but will see if they can remain strong for the run in as another four wins could well keep them up if Everton don't get any points returned.
I do think Leeds will be a bit better coming straight back up as they'll have significant money to spend. Leicester won't be as complacent as last time although they need better defenders judging by how they collapsed on Friday.
I see the PLDL is out in full force. What an insecure bunch.
it’s been a wet winter over here and there’s a real worry it’ll effect the crops.
Its a learning curve for Leicester and Maresca, their season is very similar to Guardiola's first season at City.. It will be crucial what kind of transfers they will do in the summer. As for Farke's Leeds it will be interesting how they approach next season. The German coach is becoming something like the King of the Championship, it will be his third straight promotion with a club ( he did it twice with Norwich) but he failed to maintain the Premier League status of his clubs before..
Not much spending at Norwich, Leeds had the American investors take full ownership after relegation so they will be spending a decent amount coming back up I think so that will give Farke more options in the market.
Big fan of your posts and I mean it.
PL is the ''best'' league no question, but I feel like the best teams are weak at the moment and even in PL they have gotten weaker this season but not enough to make another league catch up. Real Madrid are really looking scary going forward but have to many injuries to contend this season I feel but I'm not sure about the rest of La Liga. I know they have been getting better with money distribution over there so I could see their league bounce back but they might need to get away from the defensive mindset I often see in the league.
The actual best league is the Bundesliga though for pricing, atmosphere and entertainment value.
The actual best league is the Bundesliga though for pricing, atmosphere and entertainment value.
That's why ze germans are so defensive of if. I'm not talking about the resident BDL, i'm talking real, beer drinking, kraut eating, tennis balls throwing germans!
La liga has become a joke with the Barca ref bribery and the liked of that Real Madrid Almeria game.
The Bundesliga is good but Bayern are too dominant financially and even if they don't win this year I could see them winning 45 out of the next 50 titles. Will get dull eventually?
PL is not perfect either, City are dominant and probably get relegated eventually which will likely damage the league I think.
The money waste by teams is pretty incredible at times.
All the leagues have some big flaws. Surely wonder if there isn't something better that isn't the awful sounding super league.
The Bundesliga is good but Bayern are too dominant financially and even if they don't win this year I could see them winning 45 out of the next 50 titles. Will get dull eventually?
PL is not perfect either, City are dominant and probably get relegated eventually which will likely damage the league I think.
The money waste by teams is pretty incredible at times.
All the leagues have some big flaws. Surely wonder if there isn't something better that isn't the awful sounding super league.
Uh. Tottenham - Liverpool ring a bell?
It's funny how poor PL teams have been in Europa the last few years. Especially when it's clubs from the "big 6".
Have English teams been poor? Or at least any poorer than the sides from other leagues.
In the five years prior to this one England have produced, 1 winner, 2 runners up and 3 losing semi-finalists. English sides have been the most represented nation in the semi-finals in the past five seasons, and that's included United, Chelsea and Arsenal.
Spain have 3 winners and 1 losing semi-finalist. Germany 1 winner and 3 losing semi-finalists, and Italy 2 runners up and 2 losing semi-finalists.
Not poor, but also not running away with it as you could expect it to do. Considering that people on here think every other league is a farmers league and closer to the Championship than the PL the results are poor.
Also considering the financial advantage of the PL it should do even better than it does.
But looking at the table RM haven't scored a lot, I think they have been overrated.
The people that think every other league is a farmers league are clowns though.
I'm not sure how much better English sides could have done in Europe.
In the past five seasons, they've produced 3 CL winners, 3 CL runners up, and a losing semi-finalist.
Spain have produced 1 winner and 4 losing semi-finalists. France 1 runner up and 2 losing semi-finalists. Germany 1 winner and 1 losing semi-finalist. Italy 1 runner up and 1 losing semi-finalist.
EL stats are above.
Even in the Conference League, England had a semi-finalist in the first season, and a winner in the second.
Yes in the CL the PL clubs have done as well as one can reasonably expect. But I think the EL results especially have been underwhelming. The PL clubs participating in it usually have a huge financial advantage over the clubs who won it. It's often seen as beneath them and not caring about it, especially for the top clubs in England. Liverpool have gotten less points for the coefficient in this years EL than West Ham, even if they are both in the same situation now. Why? Because Liverpool obviously don't care as much about it. So they get worse results than they could and should, and they are not alone.
Actually West Ham are the English club who got the second most UEFA points behind City in the recent three seasons (including this). That's ridiculous.
Only Spain have produced more winners in the previous 5 seasons in the EL, and even then, England are still the most represented nation in the final 4.
It's simply not true that English sides have been poor in the EL or that they don't care about it, and when you focus on the "big 6" (which is what I responded to) over the previous 5 seasons, City and Liverpool haven't been in it, Chelsea have won it, and Arsenal and United have both reached the final. The facts simply aren't consistent with this idea that they don't want to win it.
The points about West Ham aren't true. Liverpool and West Ham are both on 18 for this season. Similarly, Liverpool are second to City over the most recent three seasons, not West Ham. Additionally, West Ham's coefficient is heavily boosted by the Conference League win. They were tied for joint second most points of any team last season, and got as many points as Inter did for reaching the CL final. They also got more points for reaching the EL semi than Atletico Madrid did for reaching the CL quarters (where they lost 1-0 over two legs to Man City).
This also ignores factors like Arsenal competing for the title last season, and Liverpool this season as obvious distracting factors from caring too much about the Europa League.
Money is all relative, you can end up paying too much for mediocrity so you have no real advantage and also there's only so much talent around and other leagues/countries can easily maintain their attractiveness with CL spots, club status and lifestyle. This idea of needing a super league to compete with PL money is farfetched.
Yeah I actually made a mistake. So those two are on par - 18 points this season, both 70 points in this and the previous two seasons combined.
West Ham are on 68.
They got 29 last season.
Ok that's funny... you seem to be right: https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/club/#/yr/2024
I looked here because that page usually is faster updated directly after matches, but obviously not official: https://kassiesa.net/uefa/data/method5/ccoef2023.html
I use that site for the years pre-UEFA officially implementing it but I have noticed a couple of discrepancies compared to the official data, so I'm not sure what's gone on there. Possible it's literally just one person manually entering it so typos or miscalculations can occur.
I found it in the information about how it's calculated on kassiesa (which indeed is a single person project afaik)... apparently both numbers correct
"Matches in qualifying rounds are awarded with 1 point for a win, and 0.5 point for a draw, but only for the country coefficient. Clubs that are eliminated in qualifying rounds of the Conference League are rewarded with a number of points for the club coefficient based on the reached (qualifying) round."
So for the individual club ranking West Ham indeed got 29 points, but for the country coefficient they won 31, the difference is the two qualifying playoff matches they won
I guess in a way it makes sense in a way, because this way clubs aren't awarded for being so bad that they have to play the playoffs instead of directly qualifying through their leagues.
I found it in the information about how it's calculated on kassiesa (which indeed is a single person project afaik)... apparently both numbers correct
"Matches in qualifying rounds are awarded with 1 point for a win, and 0.5 point for a draw, but only for the country coefficient. Clubs that are eliminated in qualifying rounds of the Conference League are rewarded with a number of points for the club coefficient based on the reached (qualifying) round."
So for the individual club ranking West Ham indeed got 29 points, but for the country coefficient they won 31, the difference is the two qualifying playoff matches they won
I guess in a way it makes sense in a way, because this way clubs aren't awarded for being so bad that they have to play the playoffs instead of directly qualifying through their leagues.
I was just about to post the same. They've got West Ham on 29 here:
https://kassiesa.net/uefa/data/method5/tcoef2023.html
I get that this isn't entirely serious, but given lots of people literally refer to one off results, it's probably worth pointing out that these isolated matches have almost nothing to do with the relative strength of the respective leagues.
Uh-huh.
Relative weakness of the PL
The league is simply so competitive that they have to focus on that while Spanish, Italian, French and German teams can focus on European competitions.
Maybe I'm just romanticizing my childhood but perhaps PL was stronger in that 2005-2009 period. There were regularly 2 and even 3 English teams in semi-finals and at least one in every final of those years. Got weaker afterwards (except for our final in 2011 and Chelsea's win in 2012) until Pep and Klopp came in + Tuchel's Chelsea win.
The thread that keeps on giving
The PL had two golden periods, the one you are talking about and the one recently where Chelsea, Spurs, City and Liverpool all reached finals and there was 7 finalists out of a possible 12 between 2018 and 2023 which is an incredible record. The other measure of the strength of the PL in the past 5 years is how for the first time in my lifetime, PL teams are making the elite of Europe park the bus, I never remember that happening, English teams used to be the ones having to nullify the technically superior Europeans and reduced to defending resolutely to have a sniff. These things are alwats cyclical though and just like La Liga took over from the PL around 2010 when they had the likes of Messi, Cristiano, Benzema and all those superstars, someone else will do the same to the PL.
The team that won 7/12 EPL titles, and may make it 8/13, has won only one UCL in 13 seasons, and made just two finals (scoring just one goal in both matches).
Nice PR spin dude.
If that's the criteria you are using, which league is the best in the world according to you?
It is an explanation that was often given in the past.Nice PR spin dude.