Premier League season 21/22

[Mattyblue]

It was a weird name change from the Premier League to ‘The Premiership’ and then back again.

That name always reminds me of that brief ITV highlights show with ‘Townsend’s Tactics Truck’…

[davulsukur]

What a shocking league that Newcastle can win for just the 3rd time out of 18 attempts and that gets them out of the bottom 3.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

23 minutes ago, simongarnerisgod said:

utd have been abysmal in the 2nd half,completely outbattled

They’ve no fighters in the team, all big time Charlie’s. That’s why they’re going nowhere. They need to get Rice in as soon as they can.

[Tom]

An annoyingly decent point for Burnley, for me it’s Watford and Norwich guaranteed for the drop plus 1 from the rest, you have to think Newcastle will pull away though 

[Gav]

Imagine being 20 games into the season and only having 1 win?

No surprise the place is like a morgue.

Awful team, awful league.

[Tom]

2 minutes ago, Gav said:

Imagine being 20 games into the season and only having 1 win?

No surprise the place is like a morgue.

Awful team, awful league.

Bonkers isn’t it, more bonkers how they aren’t cut adrift yet 

[davulsukur]

4 minutes ago, Tom said:

An annoyingly decent point for Burnley, for me it’s Watford and Norwich guaranteed for the drop plus 1 from the rest, you have to think Newcastle will pull away though 

Everton are treading a fine line, if the Dingles win their 2 games in hand (as unlikely as it is), does Lampard have it in him to get them out of a relegation battle. Not sure, don't think he does tbh. Losing 3-1 to relegation rivals is a disastrous result. He needs some results, fast. Leeds and Southampton next, 2 huge games coming up.

Feels like (as we say every year) it's a bridge too far for the Dingles and surely this season, they will be relegated.

[Wheelton Blue]

Burnley have a fighting chance if they play like they did in the second half.

I wouldn't write them off yet,

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Everton could easily be the ones to fall into the bottom three. I think Newcastle will get out of it.

[roverandout]

Weird that maguire is shocking for man utd but solid for England.  Probably because he has two far better holding midfielders in rice and Phillips in front of him than mctominay or fred/pogba 

[DE.]

Yeah I'd be pretty worried if I was an Everton fan at this point. Newcastle have enough to get out of it now. Hodgson will get points on the board for Watford over the next few months. Dean Smith has got Norwich climbing towards safety. With that said Brentford are falling fast at the moment too, and Leeds are far from safe themselves. Now that the bottom three have all woken up at once, suddenly there's a lot of clubs who will be starting to worry.

[riverholmes]

1 hour ago, Gav said:

Imagine being 20 games into the season and only having 1 win?

No surprise the place is like a morgue.

Awful team, awful league.

The influx of money has added a great deal of *individual quality throughout the league. Burnley, though bottom and surely heading down, have been able to buy a striker in Weghorst who has been playing in the Europa League with Wolfsburg. Incidentally, it's a strange sight seeing a tall striker hold up the ball and play in a fellow striker. It's almost as if playing a striker in the middle might actually work.

However, the top clubs, especially, in the Champs League and owned by oligarchs, are just a level above financially, creating predictable league title contenders and then those below are the also-rans. In that sense, the procession at the top remains but just with bigger costs.

The huge sums being spent throughout the league is creating unrealistic expectations and toxic pressure. Clubs like Palace and Everton are spending vast sums and their fans are expecting them to at least compete with comparably wealthy clubs like West Ham. All in all, it's very competitive, below the top four/five, maybe, but, given the huge financial and expectation inflation caused by investment, its becoming increasingly a toxic and unreasonably pressurised environment unsuitable for players or managers to express themselves on the pitch.

I think you'll see increasingly homogenous teams and players playing safety first football. I also think you'll see fewer young players coming through as clubs abandon efforts to nurture and there is a demand for instant results. England will probably suffer from it in the following years, after reaching something of a high point lately.

A league where there is no patience to develop players and managers and where footballers are unable to express them freely, in fear of the consequences, will not be a good product, no matter how much is spent on commercialising and branding it.

*Edit: Added "individual" quality to that first sentence - because, I do wonder, given the huge financial pressure the clubs are increasingly under, whether it will or does translate into improved collective quality. 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by riverholmes

[jim mk2]

If the Premier League is so "awful" why are we desperately keen to get back in it? 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

9 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

If the Premier League is so "awful" why are we desperately keen to get back in it? 

Purely for financial reasons Jim. As a competition it’s as exciting as watching a submarine race. The big four to six clubs are just pulling further and further away as the seasons go by. They should let them leave and form their Euro Super League.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[jim mk2]

13 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Purely for financial reasons Jim. As a competition it’s as exciting as watching a submarine race. The big four to six clubs are just pulling further and further away as the seasons go by. They should let them leave and form their Euro Super League.

 Yes, I know Tyrone. But the armchair experts say it's an "awful league" while at the same time wanting promotion and criticising the owners for their stewardship of the club and their lack of ambition. Given that we'd likely be in relegation battle from the first match it's odd that these knowledgeable pundits would want us to be a part of this "awful league"

[Mattyblue]

7 hours ago, DE. said:

Now that the bottom three have all woken up at once, suddenly there's a lot of clubs who will be starting to worry.

Have Burnley ‘woken up’? Still one win all season by mid February, and that solitary victory was in October…

Edited February 9, 2022 by Mattyblue

[DE.]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

Have Burnley ‘woken up’? Still one win all season by mid February, and that solitary victory was in October…

I misspoke there, as I was actually referring to Watford/Newcastle/Norwich, so not the bottom three, but rather three of the bottom four. You could probably argue Watford haven't really 'woken up' either at this point, but I do think hiring Roy gives them more of a chance than sticking with Ranieri. 

Edited February 9, 2022 by DE.

[JHRover]

Sooner or later Burnley are going to have to put some wins together. All well and good being hard to beat but with 18 games remaining they will have to put some on the board. They can't survive with 1 win.

At the start of February with Rovers in the top 2 and fine form and the Dingles bottom with 1 win all season you'd be looking at the very least us playing them next season, potentially overtaking them.

But I can't dispel this horrible feeling that over the coming 12 weeks they will claw their way out of it simply through grinding out points and we will blow our opportunity. The signs are starting to appear.

I'll feel a lot better with 4 points from these next 2 games.

[Hasta]

13 hours ago, Armchair supporter supremo said:

And? 

All male footballers are not disgusting human beings.

A percentage of males in general in society are disgusting human beings.  The majority are not. 

[Mattyblue]

Indeed, silly post.

Footballers are often immature young lads, there’s bloody millions of said males out there, they just get up to daft/horrible/even criminal stuff away from the public glare…

[47er]

10 hours ago, DE. said:

Yeah I'd be pretty worried if I was an Everton fan at this point. Newcastle have enough to get out of it now. Hodgson will get points on the board for Watford over the next few months. Dean Smith has got Norwich climbing towards safety. With that said Brentford are falling fast at the moment too, and Leeds are far from safe themselves. Now that the bottom three have all woken up at once, suddenly there's a lot of clubs who will be starting to worry.

You're illustrating what I've felt for some seasons now---the most interesting battle in the Premiership now is who goes down--the League of Fear!

Leicester gave us some fun for one season, now its back to normal.

If West Ham made top 4 that would be a change but I won't be investing any emotion in it!

[roverandout]

11 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Purely for financial reasons Jim. As a competition it’s as exciting as watching a submarine race. The big four to six clubs are just pulling further and further away as the seasons go by. They should let them leave and form their Euro Super League.

It's still better than two team la liga 1 team Bundesliga 1 team league un and 2 team seria a

[Mattyblue]

To be fair, Italy is far more competitive now Juventus have fallen away after 6 titles in a row or whatever it was, three teams (not including Juve) currently  separated by a point.

[frosty]

24 minutes ago, roverandout said:

It's still better than two team la liga 1 team Bundesliga 1 team league un and 2 team seria a

Which are the two in La Liga? Madrid and presumably reigning champions Atletico? But then they're way down in 5th this year. Sevilla and Betis in the top 4 is also good to see.

Italy's got the best title race out of the top leagues and Juve - presumably one of your two - were miles away last year.

Bundesliga correct. Ligue Un too (Lille winning last season was great, but an anomaly).

[longsiders1882]

2 hours ago, JHRover said:

Sooner or later Burnley are going to have to put some wins together. All well and good being hard to beat but with 18 games remaining they will have to put some on the board. They can't survive with 1 win.

At the start of February with Rovers in the top 2 and fine form and the Dingles bottom with 1 win all season you'd be looking at the very least us playing them next season, potentially overtaking them.

But I can't dispel this horrible feeling that over the coming 12 weeks they will claw their way out of it simply through grinding out points and we will blow our opportunity. The signs are starting to appear.

I'll feel a lot better with 4 points from these next 2 games.

And it really is that simple. We have plenty of games to play - including against those around us - however we need to pick up wins somewhere. It remains very firmly in our hands and that is literally all you can ask for. It is interesting that we have 3 points from our last three games, which is all I expected. The trouble is we would have been better served by getting those three in the Watford game and losing against Arsenal and United. Still a lot of football to be played. butiIf I'm honest I do struggle to see us getting out of the bottom three. I exepct us to scrap to the very last kick though.

Same for you guys, a lot of games still to go - plus even if you do slip out of the top 2 with QPR and Bournemouth on your heels with games in hand, you have the chance to go up through the play offs.