I don't support Liverpool in Europe though.
You're in Venice mate
The relative strength of the Premier League
- Thread starter Wumminator
- Start date
Living in Venice, supporting United From your armchair criticising someone who goes pretty much every home game.
I do wonder what planet some of you live on.
edit: "if a lose guaranteed Van Gaal getting sacked immediately I would take it"
So a man who actually wanted United to lose games last year criticising my support. Brilliant
This is not really true. Players like Pogba or Mkhi have been the best Player in top Clubs so it is not the Quality of the single Players.
City should have gone through yesterday but scoring 6 Goals and still go out tells you something about the Quality of your defense. Overall I do not think that the attacking Players like KDB, Aguero or Sane are overrated.
However, the humilation of Arsenal made me think about the Quality of the PL quite a bit.
The gap in Quality has been shocking. And I do not think that Bayern is better today than 2 or 3 years ago so as a result this would mean Arsenal is getting worse.
However, they are still one of the top Teams in the PL.
Like somebody said maybe Chelsea could develop into a European force again challenging the ones like Barca etc.
They have to Keep Hazard, Costa etc. though and get 2 or 3 additional top Players and they could soon be up there.
I believe that we are not too far off as well although results and the table tell something else.
Yeah, I am bad. Not as bad as that guy who celebrated Liverpool defeating Villareal and so reaching them an European final, and then wanting them to defeat Sevilla and win an European trophy (+ get entrance to UCL) just in order to prove his narrative that the EPL is the strongest league.
Pogba Herrera Bailly Martial Mkh can eaisily fit in as well
No they cant, Pogba maybe and maybe MKhi at Bayern.
Oh come on Barcelona Bayern would love to get martial or even TFM as a defensive talent suiting their possesion based philosophy. Bailly is also a better talent than umtiti
No they wont if we are talking about 1st Xai's, they'd add to the selection though. Martial is nowhere near Neymar, Arda, Ribery, Douglad Costa on the left wing. Fosu Mensah barely gets a game at us, never mind Barcelona or Bayern. Umtiti has been immense, Pique, Mascherano, Umtiti arent really worse than him but he'd be a good option still.
Bayern have (or well, haven't) seen plenty of Mkhitaryan when he played against them. If they thought he was starter material for them they would've at least tried to sign him.
I think that's part of the problem - people tend to ignore context.
Mkhitaryan is obviously very talented, but he's played (only) one truly good season when all the stars alligned for him and even in that season he's been a bit of a bottler. But to a lot of fans he's apparently an elite world class player who would walk into Bayern's team.
In a way it's similar with Pogba, he's been looking great in a functioning, dominant, top team which gave him sort of a free role and set up their midfield to accomodate him perfectly.
Now at United a lot of people seem to expect him to simply carry over his performance level from Italy (as if he had delivered it in a vacuum) and fix United's problems by himself.
You can already see the same thing happening again with Monaco and some of their players.
The problem is there's no incentive or requirement for anyone to improve, when the team who wins the league one year, ends up falling to pieces the next. In the past 5-6 years, United have done this, Chelsea have done this, Leicester have done this...City have won it then failed to come close to challenging the next season.
You have to go a long way back to find the last time a PL team remained strong for longer than a year. How can anyone expect the quality or standard to improve when as soon as anyone reaches the top of the pile, they immediately allow themselves to get worse again?
Pogba just show that he can't do it alone and needs to be surrounded by big players to be a big one too. Yes it's true that in a Madrid team with Ronaldo, Benzema, Bale Kroos and Modric even Cleverley would turn in a absolute beast
As far as Herrera he's not even a starter for Spain so how can he be better than Busquets or Koke ?
Martial is not even in the French NT so he's not that level, he doesn't produce for us so never mind for a Madrid or Bayern.
My point is that we should watch a bit abroad and see that the level of the PL dropped and the level of it's stars dropped also.
Average players are composing most of the "top" teams when big teams in Europe are composed by real footballer (Bayern defense, Madrid midfield, Barca attack... we don't have that in the PL)
I just hope for the PL sake that we'll be in Champs League next year with Mourinho buying real players (in comparision with LVG and Schneiderlin, Basti, Memphis and Darmian).
By being in CL, we'll go further forward in quality and with Chelsea also building a strong team, that'll force Chitteh and maybe Pool, Arsenal or Spurs to do so. But the true PL's locomotive are us and now Conte's Chelsea.
We should avoid buying average PL players (rumors of Oxlade-Chamberlain, Celtic's Moussa Dembélé etc)... We should go full power, get some Mkhitaryans and Pogbas (Meaning Griezmann and co)
They most certainly did not. They only built their midfield around him in his final season, and he earned it with his performances in the three seasons before, where he very much had to fit into an already fantastic, functioning midfield
Well, they probably didn't do so with the explicit intention of getting the most out of Pogba, but when I think about what would suit him the best,a DLP who takes care of the build up and a hard working CM next to him would be the ideal setup for him imho.
Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that Pogba was very much a just as much of a workhorse as Vidal for the first 3 seasons there. In fact, he was the very definition of a box to box midfielder. Worked his ass off on defence, helped Pirlo in the build up, and helped the forwards and vidal in the final 3rd. And he did all of that at a very high level. Vidal was the guy afforded the most tactical freedom. If anything, it's just proof that Pogba doesn't need to be catered to completely to be world class
Who is we?
Maybe it was because he was young, hungry and eager to impress. Kind of like in his Southampton debut. He wanted to impress. Now it seems to project the " I have made it" mindset and does not have that same hunger as he is already the star
Yes. That's why i think Juventus move was a wrong move for Pogba's game development as he just only developed in confidence and a brand in juventus . Juventus has a Facination With Zidane and sought pogba as the next Zidane who needs tactical freedom to show his skills without having to take the responsibility to control the midfiled and be defensively responsible at the same time, and as italian league is slower with low tempo, But even when given free role in english game Pogba's cant go past 2- 3 players in english league with his skill set as its just not possible in a high energy hight tempo end to end epl game where winning the first and second balls in the midfeild is every thing thus he would end up loosing the ball more often if he tried to take to much time on the ball and tries to dribble past 2-3 cdm's or defensive midfield and its just not possible against the likes of epl midfieldrs who are so fast to close the space and be physical to put in a tackle as thet are competing for the first and second balls in very agressive manner. In english league midfeilders have to play simple one touch football when on the ball and be positionally diciplined and put in a work rate shift off the ball to win the first and second balls and defensively aware to not let space for the opposition midfeieldrs to shoot Which a player like kante did twice when opposite to him.
He would have better developed under the advice and Coaching of sir alex ferguson or Lvg who have a history of developing world class top level midfielders in Scholes Cantona Carrick Bastian Schweinsteiger Andres iniesta and Xavi hernandez without having to need the offensive freedom ahead of him and defensive security ahead of him.
United missed the Buck with N golo kante though who when paired with pogba in a two man midfield would have got the best out of him. Paul Scholes too struggled defensively at times but alteast had the game awareness to make a professional foul in midfield when defensively beaten.
heh, it's possible. Kind of like Gareth Bale refuses to play as a classic left winger nowadays
This is sooooo wrong. Juventus never tried to make him into anything he isn't. The one time Conte tried him in Pirlo's role, it was against galatasaray and he was bad. That was the only time they ever tried to use him a controlling midfielder. If anything, Mourinho is trying to turn him into that. As for tactical freedom, he didn't have that in the first 3 years at juventus. He was still great
Never seen Martial, never felt we needed Martial. If we needed someone, it probably would rather be Kroos back. *sigh*
With the financial resources the English teams have I cannot see the problem, I would be more worried if I was an Monaco fan.
What I have been saying for a while is if the amount of money spent in the last years in England means better football or no, and looking at the European performances from the last 6/7 years I would say no.
It is strange because at this moment you have working in the top 6, probably top 5 coaches that could be working in another European League or Top Clubs, for me only Wenger is outdated.
Probably with the amount of money spent the fans and media want imediate results, but for me only Wenger and Pochettino have been working the same team for more than 3 years, I really believe that Mou, Pep, Conte and Klopp will improve their teams and with more 1 year of work the European performances will improve.
Another thing one needs to look, is that in 99 that United team probably at that moment did not spend more money than Real Madrid or Barcelona, maybe they spent more than Bayern, and if one looks with impartiality they played better football than today, but there is so much money, evolution in the game, better scouting, more and more younger coaches coming in, that today even Mou, Klopp or Pep are being questioned as outdated, I still think that yesterday in the second half City deserved more, and today everyone would say Jardim is overrated, I guess that is what modern football is about.
The money is irrelevant though. I mean it isn't in the sense it can attract the best talent, but what's relevant is the quality of the teams and results.
The top English teams aren't at a level where they can even really compete in Europe. They aren't even at a level where they seem to be able to compete with each other consistently. One climbs the rope then falls off, then another does the same. Everyone is constantly stumbling and then starting over rather than building something better.
There's no signs of that changing yet. The earliest sign there can be of it changing is if Chelsea build on their form this year and a few of the other top six improve on their form or quality this year.
There's some good coaches there but results and performances matter. As yet we don't have them. It's not as if the PL was poor and suddenly came into money this year.
money is only good if the coach spends it wisely
From Italian/Spanish dominance to English dominance to Spanish dominance. At least that was the cycle from the late 90s. Now we're probably comining close to the end of the Spanish cycle of dominance. I assume we will be seeing 2-3 English teams in the CL semis within the next couple of years.
Actually that's pretty much a description of Vidal. Indeed he was defined as a "tuttocampista" that is a player that played almost all roles during the game
He had no responsibility during the first two seasons, but last year he was given the keys of our midfield, he was expected to carry it on his shoulders. Something which he did, though with a lot of criticism at first.
The rest it's absolutely true, he loves to keep the ball and can be frustratingly slow as he often wants to show off his skills. Honestly I don't think he'll ever get used to the style of the PL, and if he does then he'll inevitably have to put away some of his genius
What is anyone supposed to do with Mikhytarian? Except as a squad player? ESPECIALLY at Bayern?
Dont exaggerate it, in this form he could easily fit in a 4231 and especially with all the injuries..i'd have him ahead of Coman, current form Muller, but ofcourse Ribery, Robben, are better. To me he's around Cista's level. Not sure if Thiago has occupied the no 10 position lately.
Not like this, we won't.
That's Thiagos position all season. And Müller found his form again it seems. Costa his still quite a but younger.
By the way, not a single Bayern player is injured right now.
Why not? Except for Arsenal, arguably all of the top PL teams made progress from last season and are on the right track. The Spanish golden generation (with Messi and Ronaldo) is coming to its end.
When two Italian teams faced each other in the CL final at Old Trafford back in 2003, did you expect that only two years later there would be an English team in the CL final for the next five years? That there would be an English team in the final in seven out of the next eight finals?
I expect a similar shift in the near future.
No, not really. That's a description of Vidal in his first season. From the second season he was afforded more tactical freedom to better exploit his absurd combination of intelligence, energy and athleticism. He was basically a far superior version of kante who scored 10/15 goals a season. Pogba was the more tactically resctricted of the two under Conte. Allegri shifted that, giving a bit more fredom to pogba and a bit less to vidal, which was part of the reason why vidal's final season with you was seen as underwhelming
Bayern has no injuries at the moment (totally jinxed it) and as strange as it sounds, but currently no United player could crack their starting XI.
As long as the English think they can solve their problems by throwing money at it, they won't get beyond the odd surprise performance. And resting on the title "most competetive league" isn't exactly doing the trick, as we see these years.
Why do you think every manager who enters the Prem recently like Mourinho, Klopp and Guardiola haven't realised this? Why do you think they're all seeming failing to get this fact?
Pretty much because they keep throwing money at the problem and show no results...
Why were they able to do so much better abroad? Why is it all these world class talents keep coming from abroad and then not doing as well in the premier league?
The league will stop being competitive when a truly great side emerges. Actually, a decent side emerged this season and they are absolutely running away with the title.
Mourinho did not do much better abroad. He has had the most success in Premier League (and Italy 7 years ago). He has 3 Premier League titles and only 1 La Liga title, 2 or 3 Serie A titles I think.
Pep managed two excellent teams abroad. He excelled with them in Europe too, he absolutely failed with City in Europe and it is not because of incredible strength of Premier League.
Just seems odd to me that all these managers who do so well abroad do worse when they come to the Prem.
Because, and please do not take this the wrong way, English football is incredibly stubborn about how it should be played. Everyone else is playing a different game of football, but just like in the olden days, the English will not budge and play how it's "supposed to be played". Those players do better abroad, because they're trained to play a certain way abroad. Tactical, technical and patient form of football. But in England, they are faced with an entire league that expects hard, physical play rather than tactical finesse. And they get tackled much, much more aggressively than they're used to. And the fans boo them for acting like anyone would on the continent. That's why they don't do as well in your league.
You're inviting Özil, who even we consider a featherweight, into a league that is quite easily the most brutal of all football leagues and then people are surprised that he doesn't perform as well as he does elsewhere?