The Premier League

[KevSpur]

Do you really think it's a healthy competition, when the aspirations of teams like : Stoke, Hull , Burnley, Bolton, Wolves, Birmingham, Blackburn, Portsmouth and maybe Wigan is to finish 4th bottom, have a lap of honour and say it's been a success ? That's nearly 50% have no ambition whatsoever.
Fvck me there's more teams battling for 4th bottom than 4th top, and that's pathetic.
Why doesn't any manager of these teams have the balls to go down the same route as Arsehole Wenger.
Buy young , talented players who no one has heard of , coach them the right way, and actually try to win most games ?
Instead of that we get the same old players moving between these shitty clubs, they go damage limitation against the top 4, and say " Oh we've got Bolton at home next week which is a must win"

Rant over.

[Shelfside]

Some fair points Kev but this is the reality of the Premier League.A lot of clubs will take no risks to ensure that they finish 4th bottom to remain in the 'greed is good' league.And in the same vein,teams like us and previously Newcastle would spend gazillions of pounds to break into the top four.Different priorities but essentially the same:It's all to do with money.

[Spur]

I questioned the other day whether or not 30 or 40 years ago when a team got promoted the first thing they would state publicly is that their one target for the season was to stay in the league for a second year.

A team gets promoted from League Two to League One and they can give a good go at getting promoted again. A promoted team to the PL has one ambition - 17th.

[Rojoknapp]

It's sad, and it makes for a dull league - it's why everyone was so excited by Hull until Christmas - but I think you're being unfair in expecting managers of newly promoted teams to take the sort of gamble you're talking about. They need their jobs just like anyone else, and who's going to tell Tony Pulis that he's doing things the wrong way? It's difficult to argue with what he's achieved with Stoke.

[GQCoolest]

Do you really think it's a healthy competition, when the aspirations of teams like : Stoke, Hull , Burnley, Bolton, Wolves, Birmingham, Blackburn, Portsmouth and maybe Wigan is to finish 4th bottom, have a lap of honour and say it's been a success ? That's nearly 50% have no ambition whatsoever.
Fvck me there's more teams battling for 4th bottom than 4th top, and that's pathetic.
Why doesn't any manager of these teams have the balls to go down the same route as Arsehole Wenger.
Buy young , talented players who no one has heard of , coach them the right way, and actually try to win most games ?
Instead of that we get the same old players moving between these shitty clubs, they go damage limitation against the top 4, and say " Oh we've got Bolton at home next week which is a must win"

Rant over.

Because they see what happens when you try and play proper football with players that can't hack it. You end up like Mowbray's West Brom.

[choda]

Good thread Kev.

I think if Mowbray had stayed at West Brom they'd have come back up and gone from strength to strength. You just need more time to do it that way imo, but long term you will start to build a serious side. He just had no money to get short term stability.

Now, there are other sides to management than the bravery and intelligence to stick to the soundest football principles and Big Tony has to prove he has those other qualities as well. But so far he has impressed me.

Alternatively you can build a senior team with lots of old heads and dig out 4th bottom, but never get anywhere long term and probably eventually go down.

There are exceptions to that too, but how far can they really go? Sam's Bolton, for example. They were always going to hit a wall playing that football, plus what are they really adding to the league?

So, in short like I've said many times, I don't think there are that many good managers out there to be honest. There are a handful of excellent managers, a handful of very good ones, some good ones, a the basket of 'steady hands' and a raft of shit ones.

If there were more good managers I think it would be a lot more competitive. Sir Bob broke into the top four from a team in trouble because he was a top coach. He had money but he still broke the glass ceiling and the 'monopoly'.

Interesting to see how far our Arry can go? I rate him in the very good category, he has a fair dig of resources at spurs thanks to the still large fanbase and in my opinion an excellent ambitious chairman that has regenerated that cashfund and set a plan of progress and high standards again.

I think we can break in there or at least scare them shitless because despite all the hulabaloo about the invincibility of the top four Chelsea and Arsenal have been showing loads of chinks in the armour lately.

Chelsea may regain their solidity and power under Ancelotti as they did under Hiddink, but Arsenal still look vulnerable.

It's not outlandish to suggest that Rafa will at some point try to shoot himself in the foot with a cannon as well and that could result in anything. Selling Alonso and not buying a striker for when Torres is out, for example, could hurt them very badly.

There will always be times to strike and get some of the cl gold to give yourself a leg up and teams like spurs, newcastle and now city (unaturally) can take that leg up and sustain a yearly cl place challenge or even conceivably get to the level of tilts at the title, because they are also huge clubs. In fact Newcastle did have a realistic tilt at the title one year under Sir Bob.

[Shuggie13]

That fully fit starting Eleven of Arsenal that scored 6 against Everton yesterday looked like they are going to get terribly exposed this season. :stupid: Arsenal aren't vunerable. They looked weak last season, coupled with strong performances from Everton and Villa and they stilled ended up 4th. Citeh maybe the only possible reason the Scum lose their 4th spot.

One other point Choda, Newcastle got far closer to winning the league under Keegan I think than under Sir Bobby.

Back to the original point. Times have certainly changed. Look at Watford in the early 80's under Graham Taylor. Promoted and then challenging. 30-35 years ago Liverpool went through that period of being the best side in England who were also on a number of occasions were the best team of league winning teams in Europe. Now they are a succesfull Champions League side that haven't won their domestic league for close to 20 years. Forest, Villa, Ipswich, Watford & Everton all won the league or came close to it in that period from mid-seventies to the mid-eighties. Cloughie even managed to win the European Cup too.

The problem is these days there are too many prizes. Coming 4th and not winning anything for 4 years still gets the Scum a prize. Money is a huge financial prize but in reality it is a Golden Egg. A team survives, retain the TV money for the next season, for what?

Then some prizes have been diluted. Before, getting into the UEFA Cup actually mean't something to fight for a place, these days it's winning the European trophy that really is nothing compared to the Champions League - so much so that teams that fail in the Champions League drop into the UEFA Europa Eurovision League. Then they ditched the Cup Winners Cup also.

To sum it up, teams had something to fight for in terms of success, being top and winning European cups, FA Cups, League Cups were an achievement. Now there is a culture in the sport that success is actually not being top but a wish-wash of positions and cups plus lots of money in your pocket.

[Shelfside]

I questioned the other day whether or not 30 or 40 years ago when a team got promoted the first thing they would state publicly is that their one target for the season was to stay in the league for a second year.

A team gets promoted from League Two to League One and they can give a good go at getting promoted again. A promoted team to the PL has one ambition - 17th.

With regards to a newly promoted side's first season in the Premiership,I think that Blackburn finishing fourth in1993,Ipswich finishing fifth in 2001 and Sunderland finishing seventh in 2000 have been the best.
Pre-Premiership however is very different.We got promoted in 1950 and followed that up with the title in 1951.Ipswich repeated that feat in 1962.Forest also famously did this in 1978.And the Forest example is even more startling:they got promoted,won the league at the first attempt and then followed that with two consecutive European Cup wins.That would be a billion to one shot for any newly promoted side to emulate that now.
Even in the 80's,Watford finished second in 1983 and Norwich and Wimbledon finished fifth and sixth respectively in 1987.
When you strip the Premier League free of it's Sky hyped gloss,it is a sad little league full of players and managers who would consider it a career highlight to finish fourth from bottom or fourth from top.

[Shuggie13]

Two great posts being typed at exactly the same time. :cheers:

[Shelfside]

Two great posts being typed at exactly the same time. :cheers:

Two great minds thinking alike etc etc.:blush:

Can you ever imagine Bill Nick saying to his players,"if we finish fourth lads,it will have been a great season".And as for the survival at all costs merchants......I still find it incredible that a manager will win plaudits for guiding his team to fourth bottom in the Premiership.
What we,Ipswich and Forest did with getting promotion and then fearlessly taking the top flight title the following season is REAL football glory.

[Shuggie13]

Two great minds thinking alike etc etc.:blush:

Can you ever imagine Bill Nick saying to his players,"if we finish fourth lads,it will have been a great season".And as for the survival at all costs merchants......I still find it incredible that a manager will win plaudits for guiding his team to fourth bottom in the Premiership.
What we,Ipswich and Forest did with getting promotion and then fearlessly taking the top flight title the following season is REAL football glory.

Without trying to sound patronising the younger kids/Sky generation will never understand this. I'm, not referring to younger posters on here who have a good understanding of the club and the history but kids in general these days.

I'm only 38 but remember that period so well, Clough & Forest, Watford & Villa early 80's, Everton mid-80's. For the first 10 years I watched football Liverpool were phenomenal and they drove everyone around them to try and topple them. These days it's who can dislodge Arsenal from 4th for the last 5 seasons.

Sir Bill would never of had that attitude. Burkinshaw didn't too, look what happened after we came back up in the late 70's. Pleat didn't have that attitude and Venables, had he stayed would have definetely got us there or thereabouts.

The game has changed so much. I still love it mind you.

[KevSpur]

And I'll tell you something else about all those shitty teams I mentioned at the start of this thread.
They all substitute skill with "commitment" and "work rate" which basically means they will try to kick the shit out of any teams who play football against them.
Just think, last time Bham graced the PL, they broke Eduardo's leg, and it's took them 4 games to do it again.