When did the premiership become so 5hit?

PSG are also a good side to watch

agreed,french league one of my faves for making money:)

February 20, 1992, and has been going downhill ever since

Because the primary aim is to avoid losing as appose to winning games.

what happened then Barney:)? not that I disagree its been downhill since modern sky era........certainly last few years

start of the prem neworder

It will get worse when Wenger and Mourinho leave. If we are relying on British coaches we are in serious lumber.

Too many poor sides in the bottom half, middle of the league and the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool now are not as good as they used to be. Arsenal always unlikely to win the league. Chelsea a bit boring. Only leaves Man City as a team you can count on to watch and be entertained this season.

EPL starting to resemble 60s show The Prisoner. Potentially decent European players given double/triple wages, but forced to spend 5 years in Sunderland, Newcastle, Stoke, etc.

mourinho one of the worst culprits for serving up dire rubbish for the resources at his disposal

Sep 13, 2015 -- 3:41PM, DIE LINKE wrote:

EPL starting to resemble 60s show The Prisoner. Potentially decent European players given double/triple wages, but forced to spend 5 years in Sunderland, Newcastle, Stoke, etc.

yes ! great analogy.   a gilded prison.

went down my local to watch the United v Liverpool match. In years gone by the pub would have been packed, barely half full this weekend.

When Brendan rodgers is manager of a once great team and nobody gives a care its sends a statement to the rest of the premier teams that English football is finished.
back in the good old days all the x Liverpool players would not allow a non fit for purpose manager take care.
mancherster united fans use to demand success,now they settle for European football.
its over imvho.

I reckon they should do away with 1 point for a draw.

Lots and lots of overpaid and very average foreigners, playing in the League, is why it has gone downhill. Get back to having just British players and eventually, it would improve again.

I think that there is so much money in the English game that just getting there is the prize. A decent player can make much more in England than in Spain, Germany or Italy. Once they have a 4 year contract at an English team they coast, it's job done. That's just how I see it anyway.

extra points for a team scoring 3 or more goals

Even the commentators on the radio were saying the first half of the MU game was the death of football.  They're even realising it's dross for £millions with the transfers.

^ transfer fees.

fans should get free admission to the next home game if their team fail to score.

they,ll be the same radio pundits who,ve been banging on for 25 yrs about wanting centre halves to take it off the keeper and pass it between themselves,theyve now all realised it only works if you have messi,ronny,pirlo,zlatav etc at the other end and we havnt in this country, so it all becomes pointless,
i dont mind managers like brenda wanting to play a certain way [not my way] but they do themselves no favours when they go from setting a blueprint for the club training 6 days  aweek to achieve it,to braying the ball up front to the big fella the second they go behind in a game

Nobody can tell me that Loveren is better than Gomez.  Dele Alli seems better than most of the dross at Spurs.  How Oxlade-Chamberlain can not hold down a regular place at Arseanal is a national scandal imo.

Managers going for the safe option and buying foreign.  The vast majority are average joes who are coasting and offer no value for money.

lets be honest about it,if stoke were playing Bournemouth and it was on live on sky,how many of you would tune in to see it if you had no betting interest on the game?.my guess is not many.

can't imagine any but the biggest games get very many neutrals watching these days. even united liverpool was shocking beyond belief first half

I would because most of Bournemouth's players are british and here in this game Leicester and Villa, plenty of foreigners on the pitch and its 2 British lads, that have given us 2 quality pieces of finishing.

Liverpool go out to play these days with a plan of not to lose,they believe that a draw is progress.

Just now and then, it aint too bad....

The 'curse of the forum' strikes again, Leicester Villa in a 5 goal thriller.

I hope I do not offend anybody,but in this day and age I can not see the sense in the board of management at Liverpool football club persisting with the situation that is going on at the club.i can not see why the fans put up with the negative football being played,and most of all I can not understand why the x players who were so proud to wear the Liverpool shirt allow the once great club disintegrate .it has to stop,someone must grab the bull by the horns and get Brendan Rodgers out.
the surprising thing about it all is that everyone knows and agrees with what I say but still allow it to happen.
it is surely beyond belief that the powers that be stand by and allow it.

Wrong fred

Sep 13, 2015 -- 5:53PM, Mr Spock wrote:

The 'curse of the forum' strikes again, Leicester Villa in a 5 goal thriller.

Even the Argie-ball league had a six-goal thriller the other day.

To answer your question no69, the day Sky invented it.

If somebody handed me a contract for 4 years, which made me a millionaire overnight, a contract they have to fulfill once signed and all I then have to do is show up and go through the motions to cover my side of the deal, I wonder how motivated i would be to perform my best?

If the club who gave me this are a mid or low table side, with little to no chance of significant silverware, where me working my arse off week in week out may make the difference of finishing 12th or 13th in the table, would I bother to put that work in?

If the club i joined has nothing to do with who i supported as a kid, my hometown or home country, has no emotional connection to me whatsoever, and a team i just joined because they offered me the most money, would i really care deeply if things turned out bad for them?

When I watch the Premiership, this is what i wonder about the vast majority of players in it. Almost all join whichever club pays them the highest salary and after a few years of that, they look like they just don't care less. They will happily desert any sinking ship if they are offered a better deal. There is no loyalty and no genuine connection to the fanbase.

There are of course exceptions to this, but not that many players.

When I watched the Man Utd v Liverpool match, that first half, i couldn't find a single player on either team who looked like it truly mattered to them. I hope i am wrong.

its a funny game,in most professions if you don't do what you are paid to do,you lose your employment,but in football it seems to me that all you have to do is turn up and you get paid.in fact a lot of guys sit on a bench week in week out and get 70 or 80 grand a week for doing it.
imagine a plumber who never fixes a leak but is paid a large amount of money for not doing what he is paid to do.
and imagine all the other plumbers high fiving him and hugging and dancing around with joy if by some chance the plumber happens to fix the leak.

The problem is that the rewards for being in the Premier League are so high due to the £5bn TV deal, that for approx 14-15 clubs every year, the summit of their ambitions is to finish 17th.  Only those half dozen clubs with the means to get into the top 4 and the further riches of the CL will really bother once safety for another year's Prem survival is achieved.

Newcastle a prime example.  So long as they are in the PL, it's the perfect shop window for Ashley's real business, ie, Sports Direct.  It's not worth the investment in the top players to get into the top 4, so as long as they don't get relegated that's good enough.  Cup competitions are sacrificed in order for this to be achieved.  For all the laughing we do at Geordies for taking it so seriously, I do feel genuinely sorry for them that their once great club has been turned into a vehicle for simply flogging chav companies like Sports Direct and Wonga.

three words - greed, greed, and greed its as simple as that

perhaps the answer is for some clubs to merge,but I can not see the supporters agreeing.
but some teams will go out of existence if the league keeps going the way its going.
the transfer market has got out of hand altogher,and small clubs are caught in a catch 22 situation.
they either buy better players(that they cannot afford)or they stay struggling in the lower leagues.

Sep 13, 2015 -- 9:33PM, BARNEY15C wrote:

three words - greed, greed, and greed its as simple as that

That's eight words, Barney.

^ different

gradually from the year Ronaldo left. English teams were dominating Europe then and have got progressively worse year on year as the money has gone up. Europe is the barometer for me in comparing leagues and the English Champions the last 5 years haven't been at the same level as in previous years

brassneck you sound like you are not really a fan of football, or competitive sports even.

what are you expecting? what is this elusive standard?

this is the top level of football. if there was something else, and it was better, it would exist, but it doesn't, so this is it.
and you all pay for it. with your betting, with sky subs, tickets and merchandise, the latest fifa game etc.
their pay directly correlates to this.
so theres this huge expectation, and bitterness.

look at the way people talk on this thread. you are consumers. waiting to be entertained.

thats why you get de bruyne and sterling going for 50m, why you get these champagne loans for millions like falcao - theyre trying to entertain you, trying to buy your appreciation.

but bacontrout,the bubble will burst,look at the financial situation of all the premier clubs,those clubs that have sugar daddies are ok,but the others will go into receivership soon,and very soon.it is a time bomb and it is ticking.
Barcelona are in trouble,lazio increased their ticket prices this week to make ends meet,and it caused a strike from supporters.(who handed their season tickets back).And these teams would be classed at top quality clubs.

I do not want to sound negative,but I think that football throughout Europe is creating a massive bubble,and its the fault of board of managements.but when the bankers of all these clubs call time on borrowing many of the clubs will go into receivership and board of managements will resign and it will be left to the supporters to pay up and clear the bill that is left.
while City and Chelsea,Arsenal and United,will divide to spoils on sponsorship and the premier league will be a four horse race every year.

when was the Premier League ever more than a four horse race?

only Manchester United, Blackburn, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Man City have ever won the Premier League

in the old days teams were more evenly matched,nowaday its the richest club that wins the league right across Europe.
if you want to know who will win the league its better to study the financial record of a club rather than the past results.imvho.
And some teams break into the closely little group of fat cats by borrowing,and if it goes pear shaped it destroys the club for ever and a day.

Fans acting like Shareholders, Spurs fans for example would rather they qualified for a competition they would have absolutely no chance of winning rather than Europa league

Same thing with winning cups fans would rather their team qualified for Champions League than winning trophies. That's part of the for that set in IMO

In this country we seem to think it is all about ' pace and power'. Thus we have teams full of athletes who can run around  at a hundred  miles an hour but lack skill and wouldn't know what ball retention was if it smacked them on the nose. Many of these players would never be professionals if they weren't fast runners.

some good points made on here,I think the ones that say too many players are overpaid and don't give a f**k make the most sense to me,I think I only like football still because of a results/financial interest/tribal view,as an entertainment its pretty poor,especially in this country,funny the point someone made about I start this thread and we actually had a game yesterday:) perhaps I should tempt fate a little more often?!!

When Rupert Murdock/Sky bought it.

Atmosphere at OT on Saturday was as bad as I've ever seen. I thought it could be quite rowdy but it seemed like everyone had been on the juice since midday and were ready for a nap.

Also was on County Road while the Everton game was on and I seriously didn't hear a peep from the ground even when walking past The Brick. Weird to think it was so quiet when they're beating the champions.


As long as the TV contracts keep the money rolling in though, the clubs just won't care.

A longer term problem must be that most youngsters will only support the big teams (top 4 mainly), rather than their local team.  So if you went to Doncaster, Exeter, Lincoln or Halifax, all the kids are wearing Man Utd or Chelsea shirts.  So when the fans who do support those regional teams get too old to stop going, there will be nobody to replace them.

The whole football hierarchy is often referred to as a pyramid.  But if noone is supporting the base of the pyramid, the whole structure becomes top-heavy and collapses in on itself.  Do any kids go and watch their local team any more?  I've lived near Brentford's ground for 15 years, and can't recall ever seeing a kid under the age of 16 wearing a Brentford top locally in all that time.

I don't believe the rot set in with Sky.  Some of the Sky years have been great.

Man U:  The Fergie team with 2 flying wingers(Giggs and Kanchelskis), Keane, Cantona and Schmeichel in goal moaning at anything that moved.

Arseanal: In the early and middle period of AW's reign he constructed wonderful teams.  Henry, Veira, Berkamp, Adams, Wright, Pires, Petit.  The names just roll off the tongue.

Chelsea:  I loved the flamboyant pre-Roman teams of Vialli and Gullit.  Great fun.

Liverpool: Rafa's team with Alonso the brains and Gerrard the heart.  El Nino, in his pomp, was a wonderful sight. Fact.

Newcastle:  KK's toon army were a breathtaking attacking team.  They were also invovled in many great games. The Liverpool 4-3s.  Newcastle 5 Man U 0.  Can't forget Albert lobbing Schmeichel and wheeling away in sheer delight.
The problem, i think, is that too much money is chasing too little quality.

agree re sky money, the taking over of top clubs by opportunist billionaires and turning them into pure profit making businesses has more to do with it. In the true sense, legally, a club is supposed to be a collection of members (fans) who pay subs to cover the cost of running the club. They are not meant to be run for a profit, just meant to cover their costs and any surplus is invested back into the club. If they get a load of cash from TV then that should benefit fans not owners.

But the cash flow from all the TV money is what has attracted so many of these people to buy PL clubs.

post something and then it disappears, whats all that about...

great points made by john 92 & ibrahima....

I think that 15-20 years ago, when we had nearly all good quality foreign players coming here to play, even when a lot of them were coming to the latter stages of their careers, the premier league was probably at its best...

after all, even clubs like Middlesbrough managed to get Juninho @ Ravanelli...

now, more than not,  we just get average foreigner after foreigner, and I think its got to, or at least its getting to the stage where the majority of fans are just getting fed up with it all...

In this country we seem to think it is all about ' pace and power'.

nailed it.

on the continent they start with technique and thinking.
they have slowly added workrate and athleticism and so now have players who are equal at our main abilities but still hiher in the ones they were always better at.

The passion has gone out of the game, it went along time ago for some players and is starting to rub off on the fans.

The FA Cup is a fine example, The Premiership killed that off. Next were the UEFA Cup and Cup Winners Cups, killed off by the Champions League.

Now we are tiring of these because it is being rammed down our throats by SKY and BT out of pure greed. It has become monotonous drivel with "experts" to match it.

I told BT to stuff it for the extra £5/month. I can afford it but is a matter of principle. Sky will be next if it goes up again.

Thankfully I support a lower division club where a bit of real life still exists, but for how much longer?

It has reached the top, only one way now.

ps I forgot to mention FIFA.

dont agree that the top 4 will always be the same interesting point made on the ss yesterday[ for a change ] by martin samuels expanding on what mouhrino had said pre season,
he said theres probably only 10 exceptional players in europe and either due to their fee or players preference there unlikely to end up in the epl,chelski could have bought cabaye instead of palace but chelsea already have 6 or 7 players of cabaye,s ability so doesnt improve the team, but due to the new tv money teams like palace,n,castle,everton etc can now afford players once only available to the elite clubs,so in the next 3 or 4 seasons the epl should be come more competitive

The best of the rest rarely end up with top players (see the money Liverpool and Spurs have spent on dross) and if they do accidentally stumble across one they are quickly snaffled by an elite club (5 year contract or not!)

@ barstool...

you summed that up really well mate...

good post

It is correct that Newcastle only had two English players in the squad of 18 last night?

Most of the 380 matches in the league were always shyte but it was when people were over exposed to it, it accentuated what was already apparent to hardened away fans especially, a few years ago the big games were what Sky were interested in and they usually provided better games, especially the Arsenal/United games that had a lot of bite, then fans start whinging about their teams not getting enough air time, and lo and behold people start whinging about the quality of the league off of the back of watching West Ham and Newcastle on a cold Monday night, what were you expecting.

If you really think Italian football is better, you don't watch Italian football.

The truth is more likely that you are unhappy about paying a lot of money for a lot of matches you wouldn't even think about watching if they weren't there, if they were free to air, I imagine your outlook would be different.

Not so bad for me though as an Arsenal fan, Champagne football on tap.

Sep 15, 2015 -- 10:27AM, DIE LINKE wrote:

It is correct that Newcastle only had two English players in the squad of 18 last night?

dunno, but perfectly likely, yes.  What i think I do know (ie i could be wrong, but its too good a story so i'll say it anyway) is that Newcastle one game last season started a game with 11 Frenchmen.  Thats merntal

Champagne football is 100% mesmerised, particularly until they get to the oppositions box. The one thing about supporting Arsenal is that you have to be content with the fact that you will never win anything . There are only two competitions taht count for the big clubs and Arsenal dont count in either.
Newcastle on the other hand deserve every  defeat they get for the way they hounded Pardew out. Talk about imbecilic.

newcastle have a wally as manager.....simple reason

Newcastle have had some top managers but always hound them out.

Ask yourself:

If every Premier League match was individually PPV (say £1), how many would you pay to watch per season?

If you didn't have a bet on it, but the matches were free to air, how many Premier League matches would you watch?

Probably fewer than 10 for me.  And if I'm honest, it would only be the "big" teams.  Couldn't really care less about Sunderland v Bournemouth and the like.

premier league is suffering from a lack of real star players.

The money is there to attract them but the glamour is in Spain & Italy.

de Gea's girlfrind nearly got it right when she said Manchester is like the back of a fridge, she just forgot to mention the rain and the chavs.

Chelsea is also full of chavs.

I think more people myself included would get back to loving our football if our teams were predominantly Home based players and in turn this would surely help the national team.
Yes in the short term we might suffer in Europe but we are hardly doing great any way in the last few years.

The have been some incredible imports over the years but not that many and what we have now is at best mediocre getting silly money.

Its a shame that the game has probably gone too far now to turn back,perhaps the best thing that can happen is what another poster put on here that teams go bust and people finally realise the stupidity of it all.......bring in wage caps(real ones),limit foreign players things like that

city and united both bang in trouble after 1 game in the CL. hardly surprising given the dross games served up in the prem week in week out

saw an interesting stat there, from 2012 on, all English clubs have gone out of the CL before the QF stage apart from Chelsea twice, one of them was the year they won it playing absolute turd football.

Wasn't aware it was that bad, I suppose the 'best league in the world' nonsense from sky might have some effect whether you like it or not. Europeans must really laugh at that drivel. Sky have to repeat that ad nauseum because the prices are so high.

theres got to be a tipping point at sometime when the fans wont pay for all the crap,esp the sports packages on tv,some awful games...now this in europe

I totally agree Rommel...

I only have Sky now, and that's out of habit really...and I don't watch many of the games that are on now...

I certainly don't miss the champions league group stages, and as for the Europa League, the only game I watched from that last season was the final...

ive actually just started going to watch my local non league side again in the Ryman southern division, and I also have 3 County League sides in a 5 mile radius, ok, its not top drawer football, but at least the players are actually giving it there all, unlike many prima donnas we see each week with their inflated wages and egos

I am starting to sense a seed of change.........at least I hope I am:)
I have cancelled sky and bt i refused to carry on paying stupid money and not really using unless I had a financial interest and even then rare.

I have android box now,watch what I like when.....from all around the world,no issue with pic or comms,does not cost me a penny,bar a minor sub i pay less than 6 quid a month to one online app.

The bottom line is I was getting shafted,terrible value for money and I hate that,might be my age but I will always prefer listening on the radio......unless its doggin wife beater,can't be coping with him!

the premiership bubble is just like the property bubble that caused the worldwide recession

a glorified pyramid scheme that is coming to an end

no doubt about that

its a beautiful sight that on ch lg nights sky spending fortunes advertising next weeks carling cup games,