LOL. Wilshere isn't even on the same level as Koke. What madness.
The relative strength of the Premier League
- Thread starter Wumminator
- Start date
Well then what does Tottenham's efforts in it this year show? Because like other English teams before them they rested a lot of their key players and went out wanting to focus on the league.
Right I'm off now. I wonder if people will finally accept that the Prem is better than the Bundesliga now? (Got quite a bit of stick for that originally, those fans seems to have quietened down now)
Using one-off matches is inherently flawed, whether that logic is used by you, or others.
If Spanish teams in genera are out performing their English counterparts, or visa versa, and there's a pattern/trend over a few years, which is evident, then you can draw a conclusion.
I think they played a strong team in majority of games until Dortmund. I don't get their approach for the Dortmund tie honestly.
I remember Everton playing their strongest team last season, also remember Southampton playing their strongest team this year too. It's only West Ham this year who ignored the competition completely. Usually when they make it there, they play their best team with maybe 2-3 exceptions sometimes.
BTW - I'm nominating this for thread of the year in the Redcafe awards. Can't wait till someone leaves Villareal for Bournemouth this summer. 
It isn't six massive organisations? Arsenal stand still for 10 years now, they didn't feck up, they didn't get worse or better. They do the same every year. Spurs improved a bit, Liverpool was in turmoil, focused on cups but came short in the end. I wouldn't even say City fecked up that much, the players just lacked determination in the league, but they did surprisingly well in Europe, better than ever before. They reached their minimum goals without putting too much effort in and are probably looking forward to the exciting future under Guardiola.
Chelsea and United fecked up massively, City a bit in the league and Leicester deserves endless praise for playing an exceptional season. The rest is pretty much the same as it was the last 10 years.
BTW - I'm nominating this for thread of the year in the Redcafe awards. Can't wait till someone leaves Villareal for Bournemouth this summer.
Yep for €30m to be replaced by a superior €5m player who will join Liverpool for €45m in two years to be replaced by a superior €6m punt.
That's not possible. A 30 million player is always better than a 5 million one.
Going for the cheap wumming again, I see.
As Bournemouth get relegated and Villarral continue to compete for European places....
Of course, he'll get better by virtue of being more expensive. Like Sterling became this season after his transferEven when it's the same person?
The PL is much worse than it was a few years ago. There used to be a huge gap between the PL and the Norwegian league in terms of quality, but now the Norwegian league is probably just as shit as before, but the PL has fallen closer to those standards. People talk about how the lesser teams in the EPL would struggle in the PL because of relative strength between top teams and bottom teams, but the truth of the matter is that the difference in quality between the three best teams in the EPL and the three best teams in the PL is huge; therefore, there is no given that the quality of the bottom teams in the EPL is actually any worse than the bottom teams in the PL.
I am hopeful that over the next 1-3 years the PL actually makes use of it's wealth and the top teams (hopefully United the most) rise as they really should. Would make for a better league if you have 3 proper top class teams.
English clubs rarely makes profit on their signings, does that mean that players leave England worse than they were or that they weren't good in the first place?
I'd like this too. However I expect what will actually happen is that transfer fees increase exponentially for the same quality of players as before, because that's always been the case in the PL.
I'd say Spanish and German teams and watering their mouths at how much money the likes of Stoke and West Ham are going to pay for their players now.
Players like Son going for £27m is about to become the norm.
It will inevitably happen. It is almost impossible to foresee top English clubs run forever by imbeciles.
However, the problem is that to compete in Europe all the time, you need more than that. EPL is richer than the rest, but United/City/Chelsea aren't richer than Barca/Real/Bayern/PSG, so to be able to beat them (consistently), we also need to produce better players and/or have better scouting.
True. The PL transfers are spiraling out of control. And while we have raised the price for young gems with the Martial transfer, the whole league has gone bonkers with spending good money on really average footballers.
I do see teams getting it right though. Maybe not throughout the league; teams have lots of money and are under pressure to spend it without seemingly having the intelligence to spend it well. But at least the top 3. With Pep, Mourinho (hopefully) and Conte possibly sorting out their 3 teams, and Wenger, Klopp and Pocehttino, continuing doing what they're doing, it could make for a tasty top 3/4 sides.
Sniff. *slow clap*
The majority of players at English clubs either stay in the league or are on such high wages that the clubs can't get rid of them for profitable transfers (unless they want to go to China now). That's another big problem that makes it difficult for English clubs to operate the same way as other leagues. If Sevilla takes a chance at a player who doesn't work out, they can still sell him to a market that pays the same or more for similar talent. English clubs can't do that. If Liverpool buys a similar player and he flops, they're stuck with him, because he's instantly on wages no other club will pay. It's why you see so many loan deals of older players often with the English club susbidising the wages at the player's new club. It's the only way to get at least a part of his wages off the books. These transfer failures cost English clubs a big chunk of their financial advantage.
I hope so.
I think what this Twigginater chap is forgetting at times is that most of us (I think) actually want the PL to be the superior league to La Liga. This isn't an argument based out of favouritism towards La Liga. For me it's actually born out of frustration that the PL has declined so massively in the last 5-6 years despite all the money being pumped into it. So many bad decisions, poor transfer policies and a lack of quality coaching on a basic level at clubs. I watch the PL far more than any other league, every game I can, whereas La Liga is more of a "I'm not doing anything this evening, may as well throw it on". He on the other hand seems to have a blind bias towards the PL because he loves it so much that he refuses to acknowledge that some other league somewhere else might be better.
I really don't understand why the clubs act that way, I'm fairly sure that the PL could replace a good part of the average players with the young english talents who are rotting in Championship or league one.
I don't think the PL buys mediocre players, they're just really badly managed. Standards are low in the PL in terms of performance. No way should Newcastle with the likes of Wijnaldum, Mitrovic, Sissoko and Thauvin relegate, yet they did.
Shaqiri was not good enough for Bayern, not good enough for Inter, and is a star player at Stoke!
He is rellevant only in your head because he played for Bayern.
And there's a good chance that they would be highly motivated to make it at an elite level while many of the average players coming in from abroad look happy to take the paycheck without actually putting maximum effort in. It's a problem, no doubt. It probably starts with so many foreign owners who often prefer the quick fix over the better longterm solution and don't have any interest in developing the domestic talents.
At no point has Wilshere ever been as good as Koke.
2015/16
League 2015/16
2014/15
Champions League 2014/15
League 2014/15
League 2014/15
2013/14
Champions League 2013/14
League 2013/14
League 2013/14
2012/13
League 2012/13
You are right and it's also a good way to diminish the price of english talents and allow english clubs to allocate more money on foreign top players.
Also a good point. I think they A) buy players for exorbitant fees and B) don't use them well.
Cheers. Sounds like something out of Football Braveheart.True.
Of course I do want to see the PL become the best league around like it used to be 7-8 years back. It's the league we all watch and like the most.
And I'd also add, that I used to echo a lot of the sentiments that people who barely watch La Liga do now. I used to trash it, call it a silly league etc. all without really being as much into it as I should have been, to draw those biased conclusions.
But over the years, I've started watching more and more La Liga and it's only then that I've realized what an engaging and fantastic league it is. A lot of my opinions on La Liga, Barcelona, the "rest" of the league etc. have been reversed by simply watching much more of it.
Are they also known as Seville?
I often make that mistake.
This is what the internets tells me about the place itself:
Seville or Sevilla?
Both spellings are correct:
- Sevilla is Spanish. It is pronounced 'Se-bi-ya', never 'Se-vil-a'.
- Seville is English. It is pronounced 'Se-vil'. When speaking in English, this pronunciation is the only acceptable pronunciation.
But the club is Sevilla.
To be fair, he hasn't been that good at Stoke too (for a large number of games).
He's just an another player who was labelled for great things, but never managed to achieve them. Of course he played at Bayern, cost a lot, gets a lot of money in wages so by default that makes him better than any player in Spain outside of the big 2 or 3. In Twigginater's head, of course.
What? Quoted below:
On 11 August, Shaqiri completed his move to Stoke for a club-record fee of £12 million (€14.5 million), on a five-year deal.
He cost £12m which means he's been very good and better than vast majority of La Liga players considering very few of them cost more.
I'm just not sure yet if he really thinks what he writes, or is it just trolling. There's just too much effort from him to be doing it for fun.
I wouldn't want to live in that head.
Considering that it has been going for years, I think that he isn't trolling.
But then, he also claimed that David Moyes has been the second best manager in EPL (after Fergie), so who knows. Either trolling or living in a parallel universe, likely the latter.
My thoughts exactly. Some people have a predetermined conclusion on this question and no amount of facts can shake them from that belief. Must work for the Premier League's communications office or something of the like.
He's a fisher of men
Pretty much yes.
When people like Gareth Bale and Jose Mouronho are saying the same thing people still put their hands in their ears and ignore it.
The same Mourinho who said La Liga is the best league in the world yet you still ignore it.