The relative strength of the Premier League

Think top to bottom PL is stronger. Bottom 10 in Spain are seriously poor this season, much worse than in England, and top 10 aren't particularly better anymore either

Agree with you that the bottom of La Liga is poor this season but the Premier League is even worse imo. Top 6 aside, Burnley and Leicester are decent on a good day but all the rest are very bad. I'm seeing these Premier League clubs full of money starting ex-Sporting players that were not even close to being up to standard here.

Maybe I'm looking too much at the money these teams spend and so the Premier League teams just look a lot worse in comparison.
 


When you see stats like that hard to argue that La Liga isn’t a level above us.

Think their sides are the antithesis of English football.

Allwe did when we got the ball is hoof the ball while they tried to play through. It was ridiculous.
 
Allwe did when we got the ball is hoof the ball while they tried to play through. It was ridiculous.

The were excellent at getting to our box.

If we could play like they could in the first two thirds of the pitch and find players supposedly as talented as ours in the space they found theirs, we’d be laughing.

Lukaku would’ve got a hat-trick in that Sevilla side tonight. Martial would have had a field day in Correa’s position.

Quite frustrating to think about.
 
The were excellent at getting to our box.

If we could play like they could in the first two thirds of the pitch and find players supposedly as talented as ours in the space they found theirs, we’d be laughing.

Lukaku would’ve got a hat-trick in that Sevilla side tonight. Martial would have had a field day in Correa’s position.

Quite frustrating to think about.

Exactly. They lacked a finisher and we saw what happened when Ben Yedder came on.

Our approach play is non existent.
 
This is the weakest Sevilla for many a season.

They still have good players of course but their results away in La Liga this year speaks for itself.

Imagine if they had the chance to spend 300m a season and not sell likes of Bacca etc but add to it.

That's what I admire about Spanish clubs tbh below the top 2. Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Villareal all selling clubs really but they scout brilliantly and have really consistant performances in europe season in season out.

English clubs spend 200m in a summer and then moan they need another 2 players when they struggle to keep the ball in europe or lose a key player to a rival.
 
The were excellent at getting to our box.

If we could play like they could in the first two thirds of the pitch and find players supposedly as talented as ours in the space they found theirs, we’d be laughing.

Lukaku would’ve got a hat-trick in that Sevilla side tonight. Martial would have had a field day in Correa’s position.

Quite frustrating to think about.

Not on a wind up Krafty, that’s not my thing, and as a Liverpool fan, you lot did us fair and square last weekend (though I never expect much at OT - had more hope with our current crop admittedly) but seriously, felt for you tonight with those tactics and line up. What was/ is going on? You have enough firepower to blow that Sevilla team to bits twice over mate. Hey, it’s a crap feeling but you’re more than capable of an FA cup in the cabinet this year. As I said, playground stuff isn’t my style but what is Jose doing? One week it’s perfect tactics, then this seemed like you forgot you we’re Manchester United (unfortunately :) ), one of the great world clubs. As an outsider I just don’t think he’s the right fit. He wins trophies and he mastered Klopp though, so what do I know I s’pose.
 
Agree with you that the bottom of La Liga is poor this season but the Premier League is even worse imo. Top 6 aside, Burnley and Leicester are decent on a good day but all the rest are very bad. I'm seeing these Premier League clubs full of money starting ex-Sporting players that were not even close to being up to standard here.

Maybe I'm looking too much at the money these teams spend and so the Premier League teams just look a lot worse in comparison.
Players like Bryan Ruiz and Mitroglou counter that argument, in my opinion.
 
Interesting to note that none of the PL teams won their home ties in the Round of 16. Well admittedly City and Liverpool were through already but maybe the poor home record has a correlation with their underperformance in Europe in recent history.
 
La Liga smaller sides are not only better tactically, but they can sign south american talent with no permit issues. EPL focuses on african and scandinavian players who are less tight space savy. Of course they also have great french players and spanish players. Sevilla for example signed Arana this window, I rate him massively for the next years.
 
Players like Bryan Ruiz and Mitroglou counter that argument, in my opinion.

Why is that? Brian Ruiz hasn't been a success and Mitroglou has never even been the main forward at Benfica. There are a lot of players that fail in England or Spain and succeed here, that's obvious. But currently in the lower Premier League teams I just see a bunch of players well below the required standard going for large sums of money without doing anything to deserve it. I don't see any good project or a team developing interesting players, just a lot of averageness from 9th to 20th.

I think the bottom Premier League teams are still very poor and their recent showings in Europe support that.
 
La Liga smaller sides are not only better tactically, but they can sign south american talent with no permit issues. EPL focuses on african and scandinavian players who are less tight space savy. Of course they also have great french players and spanish players. Sevilla for example signed Arana this window, I rate him massively for the next years.

La Liga only allows 3 non-EU players per team. Arana, Muriel and Ganso for Sevilla.
Other southamerican players has italian, spanish or portuguese nationality, so they can play for premier league teams too.
 
La Liga only allows 3 non-EU players per team. Arana, Muriel and Ganso for Sevilla.
Other southamerican players has italian, spanish or portuguese nationality, so they can play for premier league teams too.

But, players from former Spanish colonies can get Spanish citizenship in only two years compared to the usual 5.
 
La Liga smaller sides are not only better tactically, but they can sign south american talent with no permit issues. EPL focuses on african and scandinavian players who are less tight space savy. Of course they also have great french players and spanish players. Sevilla for example signed Arana this window, I rate him massively for the next years.

"Tight space savy" what like Salah and Mahrez?
 


When you see stats like that hard to argue that La Liga isn’t a level above us.

Think their sides are the antithesis of English football.


True. The technique and overall team play Sevilla showed was several levels above us. Our long ball was ineffective, and we had nothing else to offer. They were first to every loose ball, every second ball, everything just came off for them. It was no fluke, they are just better at playing as a team, despite them not having the same individual quality as us. It's baffling.

That Bilbao side that smacked us about in 11/12 finished 10th in La Liga that season too, and they made us look foolish over 2 legs. They were turned over by Atletico in the final. Just imagine what Atletico could have done to us.
 
It's sort of an odd point he's made but: Salah isn't particularly good in tight spaces and Mahrez is French

Salah is very good in tight spaces in comparison to the average player and even winger, if he wasn't the goal he scored for example at Spurs wouldn't materialise.

Only other African player I can think of is Ndidi, who is alright technically also.
 
Not sure how much you can judge from last night.

We were unbelevably poor, Sevilla are unbelievably average. Bare in mind Sevilla are La Liga's equivalents of our Chelsea.

And we'll be able to tell more from Chelsea-Barcelona tonight.
 
True. The technique and overall team play Sevilla showed was several levels above us. Our long ball was ineffective, and we had nothing else to offer. They were first to every loose ball, every second ball, everything just came off for them. It was no fluke, they are just better at playing as a team, despite them not having the same individual quality as us. It's baffling.

That Bilbao side that smacked us about in 11/12 finished 10th in La Liga that season too, and they made us look foolish over 2 legs. They were turned over by Atletico in the final. Just imagine what Atletico could have done to us.

Then again we should've beaten Real Madrid in 12/13, so shows that with the right approach and manager, anything's possible.
 
But, players from former Spanish colonies can get Spanish citizenship in only two years compared to the usual 5.


Fair. But look at Sevilla squad: Layun, Pizarro, Pareja, Banega, Franco Vazquez, Correa, all of them got their EU passport before going to Sevilla.

Only Mercado got his spanish passport while playing for Sevilla, and they have 3 EU slots anyway, so it isn't important.
 
Spurs and Manchester United should have gone through. The latter in particular. Spurs was unlucky. I still believe the premier league has the best accumulation of players and managers.

Should? They didn't though, did they? And the laughable record of PL clubs against those from La Liga makes statements such as yours equally laughable.
 
Should? They didn't though, did they? And the laughable record of PL clubs against those from La Liga makes statements such as yours equally laughable.

Well we'll see who's laughing at the end of the season when a Premier League club wins the Champions League.

Anti-English vibes i get from the likes of you is one of the reasons i want all English clubs to do well in Europe.
 
Should? They didn't though, did they? And the laughable record of PL clubs against those from La Liga makes statements such as yours equally laughable.

I totally agree with you

Dunno where that "should" comes from. On paper english teams look strong but thats because the PL has the most overrated players of all the leagues.

On what autority someone claims that Spurs should get thru against Juventus? And yesterday we showed that the 2nd PL team has nothing to do against the 5th in la liga
 
Well we'll see who's laughing at the end of the season when Premier League club wins the Champions League.

Anti-English vibes i get from you though is one of the reasons i want all English clubs to do well in Europe.

Im sorry mate but youre just writing from emotion, and we are watching otherwise on the screen right now
 
In recent head to heads - yes, La Liga looks stronger.

However, in every major tournament (World Cup, European and even Copa America) for the last 2 decades, the premier league has had much stronger representation than any other league.

If that isn’t a strong indicator of “relative strength” I don’t know what the feck is.
 
I totally agree with you

Dunno where that "should" comes from. On paper english teams look strong but thats because the PL has the most overrated players of all the leagues.

On what autority someone claims that Spurs should get thru against Juventus? And yesterday we showed that the 2nd PL team has nothing to do against the 5th in la liga

And the second placed Spanish team went out in the group stage to the 5th place English team.
 
In recent head to heads - yes, La Liga looks stronger.

However, in every major tournament (World Cup, European and even Copa America) for the last 2 decades, the premier league has had much stronger representation than any other league.

If that isn’t a strong indicator of “relative strength” I don’t know what the feck is.

And the fact that England is not winning a WC since 1966?? Isn't that a indicator of "relative strenght" too??
 
And the second placed Spanish team went out in the group stage to the 5th place English team.

I remember that. But its kind of irrelevant because in group stages there are other games which determine the final result. In the current scenario, PL teams look useless in knockout ties against teams who propose a different tactical approach that they encounter only outside england, and PL star players suddenly look more and more average.

I dont understand what some of you win defending the PL. Its a very good competitive league, with the most resources currently but somehow it doesnt have the best teams in europe by a margin. Whats so hard to accept
 
And the fact that England is not winning a WC since 1966?? Isn't that a indicator of "relative strenght" too??
Your Premier League representation from other nations across numerous national teams is going to heavily outnumber the amount of English players in the Premier League represented on the English national team.
 
Man United and Chelsea have embarrassed England this week; spending astronomical amounts of money and still failing to progress. It's just not good enough.
 
I remember that. But its kind of irrelevant because in group stages there are other games which determine the final result. In the current scenario, PL teams look useless in knockout ties against teams who propose a different tactical approach that they encounter only outside england, and PL star players suddenly look more and more average.

I dont understand what some of you win defending the PL. Its a very good competitive league, with the most resources currently but somehow it doesnt have the best teams in europe by a margin. Whats so hard to accept

I don’t really agree. Spain has led the whole of Europe by a margin in recent seasons but England is rated second in the coefficient rankings in the whole of Europe over the past five years. This year England currently leads the rankings.

Granted that the Spanish or even the Italian league might take over by the end but the gap is narrowing with the Spanish clubs showing decline overall and England already have collected more points this season than they had in the past 4 seasons. With high investment expected in the PL again this summer I would expect the English sides to get stronger again for next year.

https://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/

I don’t think City, or to a slightly lesser extent Liverpool, will fear any side left in the competition.
 
There's definitely been a significant improvement in the English lot, but the talk of five teams potentially going through was always a bit silly. It's easy to forget how good Barca are right now and Chelsea managing to sneak a first round draw against them was partly a surprise in itself.
 
There's definitely been a significant improvement in the English lot, but the talk of five teams potentially going through was always a bit silly. It's easy to forget how good Barca are right now and Chelsea managing to sneak a first round draw against them was partly a surprise in itself.
Except that they probably should have won that first leg, and on another day with another goalkeeper should have pushed Barcelona much closer today. Tottenham should have beaten Juventus given the overall balance of the tie, hard to argue we shouldn't have beaten Sevilla also. Then it could quite easily have been at least 50% of quarter finalists English teams.

Except of course with regards to these *shoulds* English clubs are 0/3. Concentration and mental resilience appalling.
 
Except that they probably should have won that first leg, and on another day with another goalkeeper should have pushed Barcelona much closer today. Tottenham should have beaten Juventus given the overall balance of the tie, hard to argue we shouldn't have beaten Sevilla also. Then it could quite easily have been at least 50% of quarter finalists English teams.

Except of course with regards to these *shoulds* English clubs are 0/3. Concentration and mental resilience appalling.

But whether they’re should’s or not is largely besides the point. Even if Chelsea should’ve won the first game it’s hard to argue they’re even anywhere near that Barca side (who’ve lost once are unbeaten in the league and CL still) and while I didn’t really rate Sevilla our exit against them was down to our poor performance – something that’s not the fault of anyone but us. Similarly, Spurs gave Juve a good go but it was a mostly even tie that they happened to emerge from in the end. The PL’s shown significant improvement, but the hype has probably been overdone at times.