What has happened to English football

scrumhalf

The Premier League is a very good product, it is marketed worldwide and is of more interest to locals in countries where their own domestic football isn't up to much.

It is also a very competitive league in that anyone can beat anyone else on the day, you rarely get a team that wipes the floor with everyone all season long.

And that is also its downfall as a provider of players for the national team. Clubs won't risk playing young inexperienced players when you can get someone from abroad who will do the job more reliably for less money. Local talent has all but priced itself out of the market. Moreover, club owners have no allegiance to the national team, not being English many of the really don't give a toss.

Most club academies are there to provide something to do for the one or two players they have on their books who may make it, the vast majority of academy players have no future in the game and clubs really don't care about them.

What has also happened is that the "later bloomer", an Ian Wright or Cyrille Regis who came in late from non-league football no longer exists.

The myth of the First Division that could be won by any of a dozen teams is a myth, it never happened in my time watching the game. You had some close seasons, but that was when most clubs were just crap. You won't get a Forest or Ipswich getting promoted and winning the league in the next season, and how long ago were those?

Bidley

Makes you laugh, everyone seems to denounce English football, but the likes of Spain, Italy and Germany are hardly better, competition-wise.

In La Liga, you have Barcelona and Real racking up cricket scores against the teams below them every other week. In the Bundesliga Bayern have pissed the title for the last two seasons, probably because they buy the league's best players every summer. Italy are a joke and now only have 3 CL berths.

Rocker

lloyd said:

Champions League is knock out football

....

True up to a point.  The group stage is a league.  Teams progress to a home & away knockout system.

Mkjackary

Rocker said:

lloyd said:

Champions League is knock out football

....

True up to a point.  The group stage is a league.  Teams progress to a home & away knockout system.

Yes, and Arsenal, Everton, Chelsea, Manchester City all got through the group stages, into the knockouts. So the previous point about them being unlucky going out in the knockouts is still valid. All bar liverpool progressed through to the last 16

Chelsea on another day could have got an extra goal easily and got through. 

Arsenal should have, they were the much better team, but after their home performance they deserved to go out.

Man City were unlucky to say the least, again on another day they could have got a decent result. Also had a dip in form that no doubt affected their game

Liverpool were on shite form, look at them now though, them and arsenal are on awesome form at the moment.

Everton just didn't show up, probably because league is more important to them.

I can say pretty confidently if you took the mean team from all the leagues, the EPL would have the best. In other words, it has a much better distribution of wealth than say Bundesliga. 

Same with our divisions below the PL, I would say that the division below the PL is much better than he division bellow the italian top league. 

crunchman

Philly_Q said:

The winter break is a red herring.  If there actually was one, the Premier League teams would use it to indulge in money-spinning tours of Dubai or China, from which they'd return richer but just as knackered and with jet-lag to make things even worse.

Wisdom awarded.

capo4th

Too many top teams in transitional periods with multiple new players. Next year will be a different story.

xSkarloey

crunchman;565743" said:

Philly_Q said:



The winter break is a red herring.  If there actually was one, the Premier League teams would use it to indulge in money-spinning tours of Dubai or China, from which they'd return richer but just as knackered and with jet-lag to make things even worse.





Wisdom awarded.

Yes I think that's bang on too.

lloyd

Rocker;565673" said:

lloyd said:

Champions League is knock out football



....





True up to a point.  The group stage is a league.  Teams progress to a home & away knockout system.

Yeah I'm aware of the format....I was commenting on the most recent round on the whole.

RobDavies

The EPL, while possibly quite exciting, is a long way from being the best in the world. Which is probably why the worlds best players choose to ply their trade in Spain and Germany rather than England.

crunchman

RobDavies said:

The EPL, while possibly quite exciting, is a long way from being the best in the world. Which is probably why the worlds best players choose to ply their trade in Spain and Germany rather than England.

I'd disagree.  They ply their trade at Barcelona, Real and Bayern because they can afford wages English clubs can't.  They get to keep all the TV money for themselves.  It's not split with the rest of the league.  There is no way an English club could afford the wages Real pay.

The rest of the Spanish and German leagues are worse than the rest of the Premier league.

RobDavies

crunchman said:

RobDavies said:

The EPL, while possibly quite exciting, is a long way from being the best in the world. Which is probably why the worlds best players choose to ply their trade in Spain and Germany rather than England.

  There is no way an English club could afford the wages Real pay.

I think you're wrong.  Abramovich and Sheik Mansour are worth about 30 billion between the two of them.  I'm sure they could afford Neuer, Messi, Ronaldo, Schweinsteiger etc if those players actually wanted to leave....

Babones

Falcao's £260,000 a week is obscene and he's shit.