Smaller clubs and the increasing quality of players

[Ish]

Interesting/good deals for the smaller clubs in my opinion:
Chester, Wickham and Cleverley

Don't know a few of them on that list, but I agree with most of the ones I do know, except the 3 listed.

Cleverley is an interesting one indeed though. He'll fit in with Martinez's style, but I can't see him start over Besic, McCarthy and Barkley when they're all fit. He'd be a good addition to their squad though.

Who knows, maybe I'm proven wrong. The other 2 I don't rate much.

 

[RoadTrip]

I think the calibre of players, and the size of the pool of available players might have something to do with that.

Don't get me wrong, there are bargains/value to be had (Darmian as an eg.), but if a player like Reus became available, the top 4 would be all over him.

It's just, the "world class" players who would definitely improve any of the top 4 aren't available or are too expensive.

Agreed. And the fact of the matter is that these world-class players are more likely than not to have greater attraction towards Barcelona/Real Madrid/Bayern, who will ultimately still have the financial muscle to compete with us or even better us in the PL.

I think what we will see is an overall strengthening of the PL - but more-so in the midtable region. They will be tougher to beat, the EL will be much more competitive to get into, and in the EL the PL teams will perform much better (should they take it seriously). We'll see it becoming much harder to beat mid-table sides and more dropped points from the top 4 to those sides, although i suspect they won't be able to bridge the gap so far that they make a real challenge for top 4. And I have a feeling that newly promoted teams will find it harder to stay in the PL.

 

[Ish]

Agreed. And the fact of the matter is that these world-class players are more likely than not to have greater attraction towards Barcelona/Real Madrid/Bayern, who will ultimately still have the financial muscle to compete with us or even better us in the PL.

I think what we will see is an overall strengthening of the PL - but more-so in the midtable region. They will be tougher to beat, the EL will be much more competitive to get into, and in the EL the PL teams will perform much better (should they take it seriously). We'll see it becoming much harder to beat mid-table sides and more dropped points from the top 4 to those sides, although i suspect they won't be able to bridge the gap so far that they make a real challenge for top 4. And I have a feeling that newly promoted teams will find it harder to stay in the PL.

Yeah, agreed. It's going to be interesting for sure. The scrap for world class talents is also intriguing - tons of teams can now compete and offer huge money, with Barca/Madrid hoarding the best talents from all over.

 

[RoadTrip]

The CL is an odd example for the competitiveness of the Premier League though. No other league had a more fixed group of teams qualifying for the CL every year. There's a clear cut off after the CL spots in England and only rarely a different team breaks into it and usually because one of the big four fecks up big time. In Spain and Germany you have teams making the CL spots and then dropping to midtable or even fighting relegation quite often in comparison.


If we talk about the Europa League spots, then you can look everywhere and see that it's highly competitive. Why do you think Inter and Milan finished outside of them last season? Do you really believe that Tottenham and Liverpool have a smaller financial advantage over the lower placed teams than Valencia and Sevilla in Spain? Liverpool's revenue last season was 305.9m Euro, Tottenham's 215.8 followed by Newcastle with 155.1m. So Liverpool has twice the revenue of the richest of the rest of the Premier League after we take the top 6 away.

For the revenues:
http://www2.deloitte.com/content/da...group/deloitte-football-money-league-2015.PDF

The gap between Liverpool and Newcastle was 150m Euro !!!. To put this in perspective, the 3rd richest Spanish team was Atletico with 169m. None of the other 17 La Liga teams had more than 120m, they're all much closer together. Yet you're saying that 150m gap is small, makes it competitive and impossible for Liverpool or Tottenham to compete in the Premier League and the Europa League at the same time?

It makes zero sense, zero!

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I do think, though, that this must be looked at deeper than just the financials. The PL is a very physical, energetic league. It is, in my opinion, much harder to play a challenging game on Saturday/Sunday, then a European game on Tue/Wed/Thu, then another competitive game on Saturday/Sunday in the Premier League than it is in the other European Leagues. I think the performance of the English teams in the CL and it's correlation with the overall increase in the competitiveness of the PL is more than just a co-incidence.

 

[Shark]

Meh. We say this every year, but in reality it's the bigger clubs in the league that are still lacking quality IMO. Arsenal for example have been backed as title winners and couldn't score a goal at home to West Ham. There's something wrong there.

 

[Balu]

I think the performance of the English teams in the CL and it's correlation with the overall increase in the competitiveness of the PL is more than just a co-incidence.

Of course it's not a coincidence. It's more competitive because the top teams got worse, and the fact they got much worse shows in Europe as well, where they fail to perform as well as they did when they were significantly stronger. Makes total sense without using cliches and myths as lame excuses.

 

[RoadTrip]

Yeah, agreed. It's going to be interesting for sure. The scrap for world class talents is also intriguing - tons of teams can now compete and offer huge money, with Barca/Madrid hoarding the best talents from all over.

I think the most likely impact will be an overall increase in price, but not necessarily a change in where they end up. Ultimately the reputable teams will still be able to rely on their history to bring in the world class players compared to those mid-table sides.

What will be very interesting is the tier below, the not world-class but very competent players who certainly would have a rotation place in a top 4 team. These guys are now going to be targetted by the mid-table guys and this will be interesting as the ability to pay them well and offer them regular football may see a switch to that direction.

 

[RoadTrip]

Of course it's not a co-incidence. It's more competitive because the top teams got worse, and the fact they got much worse shows in Europe as well, where they fail to perform as well as they did when they were significantly stronger. Makes total sense without using cliches and myths as lame excuses.

I don't think that that is true. Man City are stronger than they have ever been, Arsenal are as strong as they have been in a long time, Chelsea are not far off what they were in Mourinho's first spell. Sure United have tailed off, but only in the last 2 years.

It's a combination of the PL becoming more competitive and Barca/Real/Bayern becoming stronger, as well as the influx of other new European super powers such as PSG and Juventus returning to their former glory.

It is just incorrect to say it's because PL teams became weaker.

 

[Ish]

I think the most likely impact will be an overall increase in price, but not necessarily a change in where they end up. Ultimately the reputable teams will still be able to rely on their history to bring in the world class players compared to those mid-table sides.

What will be very interesting is the tier below, the not world-class but very competent players who certainly would have a rotation place in a top 4 team. These guys are now going to be targetted by the mid-table guys and this will be interesting as the ability to pay them well and offer them regular football may see a switch to that direction.

Yeah, indeed. It will make getting into the top 10 of the EPL even more difficult to attain as a number of teams can now compete for top 10.

 

[Balu]

I don't think that that is true. Man City are stronger than they have ever been, Arsenal are as strong as they have been in a long time, Chelsea are not far off what they were in Mourinho's first spell. Sure United have tailed off, but only in the last 2 years.

I disagree. Man City have never been as strong as Chelsea, United or Arsenal during their peak seasons in the last decade. And this Chelsea side isn't anywhere close to Mourinho's first Chelsea team. The gap is huge and since the beginning of this decade, so since 5 years, English top teams totally failed to fix their problems. The old guard helped United in 2011 and Chelsea in 2012 to reach/win CL finals, but it's so obvious now that we saw the last hooray of former great teams and so far there aren't any signs that the rebuilds are going well.

 

[m1y2]

great to see players going to such "small" clubs, it shows how highly the premier league is rated and of course money plays its role. Also some players might use it as a next step in their careers as premier league is more in the spotlight than any other league I'd say. Who would have thought that Stoke may have Affelay -Bojan - Shaqiri attacking trio one day

 

[RoadTrip]

I disagree. Man City have never been as strong as Chelsea, United or Arsenal during their peak seasons in the last decade. And this Chelsea side isn't anywhere close to Mourinho's first Chelsea team. The gap is huge and since the beginning of this decade, so since 5 years, English top teams totally failed to fix their problems. The old guard helped United in 2011 and Chelsea in 2012 to reach/win CL finals, but it's so obvious now that we saw the last hooray of former great teams and so far there aren't any signs that the rebuilds are going well.

For the record, I don't disagree that there has been a decline in quality of the top 4; I just question whether it is A) as significant as you make out, and B) does it solely account for the poorer performances in the CL by English teams.

I'm sorry but while it is true the teams today are not as good as the peak English teams, you cannot tell me the quality has dropped so significantly that Liverpool should be 3rd in a Group below Basel, Arsenal should be knocked out by Monaco, City should be last in a group in the CL with Ajax in, Chelsea should be 3rd in a group with Shakhtar, United finish 3rd behind Benifica and Basel, and City finish 3rd behind Napoli. All of which has happened in the last 4 years.

There is more at work here than just simply saying the quality has dropped.

Anyway, maybe we'll agree to disagree

 

[Balu]

I'm sorry but while it is true the teams today are not as good as the peak English teams, you cannot tell me the quality has dropped so significantly that Liverpool should be 3rd in a Group below Basel, Arsenal should be knocked out by Monaco, City should be last in a group in the CL with Ajax in, Chelsea should be 3rd in a group with Shakhtar, United finish 3rd behind Benifica and Basel, and City finish 3rd behind Napoli. All of which has happened in the last 4 years.

Well it shows perfectly that they struggle against these type of teams, just like they struggle more against midtable teams in the league. Why wouldn't the reason for both be the same? They're of course not worse than the teams they fell behind once or twice, but they aren't significantly better either, which the English top teams were before.

Say, in the last decade, when the Premier League was at its peak, the English teams had a 75-80% chance of beating these teams, now it's maybe down to 55-65%, so you'll see 'surprising' results way more often. Add to it a bit arrogance from the managers who don't realise that they aren't as far ahead of the rest as they were before, a bit tactical naivety, and you end up with these shit results. Obviously the numbers are made up, but I hope they help to bring the point across. English teams still overall perform as good/better than anyone else bar Spanish teams, so it's not all bad of course, but the frequency of 'upsets' clearly shows the lack of quality. Upsets is probably the wrong word anyway, because the lack of quality in comparison to top teams in other countries is quite obvious. So unless you're totally blinded by the hype around the Premier League, you shouldn't be surprised all that much by some of these results.

 

[ZDwyr]

Interesting/good deals for the smaller clubs in my opinion:

Aston Villa - Jordan Ayew, Jordan Amavi, Jordan Veretout, Idrissa Gueye
Bournemouth - Max Gradel, Tyrone Mings
Crystal Palace - Yohan Cabaye, Connor Wickham
Everton - Gerard Deulofeu, Tom Cleverley
Leicester City - Shinji Okazaki, Yohan Benalouane, Christian Fuchs
Newcastle - Georginio Wijnaldum, Aleksander Mitrovic, Chancel Mbemba
Norwich - Robbie Brady, Youssouf Mulumbu
Southampton - Cedric Soares, Juanmi, Jordy Clasie, Marteen Steklenburg
Stoke City - Xherdan Shaqiri, Ibrahim Afellay, Joselu, Phillip Wollscheid (6'4")
Sunderland - Younes Kaboul, Yann M'Vila, Jermaine Lens
Swansea - Andre Ayew, Eder
Watford - Etienne Capoue, Valon Behrami, Allan Nyom, Jose Manuel Jurado
West Brom - Salomon Rondon, James Chester
West Ham - Pedro Obiang, Dimitri Payet, Angelo Ogbonna

Pretty good list. Lens and Kaboul looked pretty bad for Sunderland though. Of course it is harsh to make judgments on one game.

 

[dasty]

Pretty good list. Lens and Kaboul looked pretty bad for Sunderland though. Of course it is harsh to make judgments on one game.

No idea why but players tend to become shit once they play for Sunderland.

 

[Gio]

Of course it's not a coincidence. It's more competitive because the top teams got worse, and the fact they got much worse shows in Europe as well, where they fail to perform as well as they did when they were significantly stronger. Makes total sense without using cliches and myths as lame excuses.

Aye, I think there's been a pincer from both sides. The top sides have deterioriated - the Champions League results are compelling. But all that TV money swilling around has improved the quality at the bottom, with the caveats that this is a locally inflated market and not all of it has been wisely invested.

 

[prarek]

The transfer market is not the same for every club. Smaller teams have to pay considerably more to get the same quality of players. Stoke lost their best player N'Zonzi to Sevilla for only £7 million. This despite the fact that Leicester offered £11 million and he would have earned more money at Stoke if he signed an extension. But he refused and they had no option but to let him go on the cheap or for free next year. Konoplyanka also rejected better financial terms from Tottenham to join Sevilla. This is where european football and especially CL comes in as the great equalizer. A team like West Ham would have to pay stupid amounts of money to get Schweinsteiger and put him on ridiculous wages and even then it would be a tough sell to convince him to join them. The best players want to play CL. This is why teams like Dortmund and Atletico will always have the upper hand over midtable english teams. They can pay less for a similar quality of players.

 

[RooneyLegend]

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I do think, though, that this must be looked at deeper than just the financials. The PL is a very physical, energetic league. It is, in my opinion, much harder to play a challenging game on Saturday/Sunday, then a European game on Tue/Wed/Thu, then another competitive game on Saturday/Sunday in the Premier League than it is in the other European Leagues. I think the performance of the English teams in the CL and it's correlation with the overall increase in the competitiveness of the PL is more than just a co-incidence.

Or the big clubs are simply getting it wrong.