Another boring one horse race

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

This will be 6 times in 7 years one team has run away with the league. What a painfully boring league the PL has become.

Should introduce a salary cap of some sort to stop the dominance we’ve seen from the 2 oil clubs over the last 10 years or so.

 

[Shane88]

Only ourselves to blame. 5 points dropped against relegated teams and another 2 dropped against a shite Everton side who dominated.

We should be level, two games away from playing City.

 

[peridigm]

You want entertainment? Find a way to get 20 billionaires to own 20 PL teams.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

You want entertainment? Find a way to get 20 billionaires to own 20 PL teams.

Ideally there would be 0...

 

[Cloud7]

This will be 6 times in 7 years one team has run away with the league. What a painfully boring league the PL has become.

Should introduce a salary cap of some sort to stop the dominance we’ve seen from the 2 oil clubs over the last 10 years or so.

The only club who have spent more than us during this time are City. It’s tough to point fingers at Chelsea and talk about them being an oil club when we’ve spent more and have less to show for it. We have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing the league to run away from us season after season.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

The only club who have spent more than us during this time are City. It’s tough to point fingers at Chelsea and talk about them being an oil club when we’ve spent more and have less to show for it. We have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing the league to run away from us season after season.

We’re a horrifically run club, no doubt.

 

[AshRK]

Who cares about finishing 1st, the real race is for 2nd place.

 

[Cloud7]

We’re a horrifically run club, no doubt.

I do agree with your sentiment that the PL has become boring in the last few years though, but I do genuinely think a big part of that is down to us falling away. During the Sir Alex era, you could always guarantee there would be some semblance of a title race, because we were always near the top. Since then there’s usually just been one standout team per season and the rest meandering along.

 

[Sky1981]

Salary cap? We'd be midtable with salary cap

 

[passing-wind]

Salary cap is absolutely pointless, I'm sure we have players who are of considerably less quality on higher wages compared to the likes of city's best players.

I know the top teams beginning with C hardly have the revenue and income through the clubs mediums to obtain purchases but the reality is that we have spent what's short of a billion over a decade and our most prestigious award has been a Europa League win.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Yeh let's blame the oil clubs for us dropping many points against relegation/mid-table sides.

 

[R'hllor]

Its not really surprising, if you look at top PL teams, how many of them have proper ambition to win big? United and Arsenal cnut owners just wanna top 4 to milk that money, think Liverpool owners aint any different, difference is their spending depends of their sales, if they didnt trick Barca to go balls deep for Coutinho where they turned what 14mil. euros player into 140mil. one, doubt they would invest that much in VVD.

If you exclude whole blood money part, give me owner who wont leech and even is willing put just little bit of his own money to invest into a club, over those American fecks.

 

[smi11ie]

What a massive let down Utd have been over the past month. Not sure what is wrong with this team. Don't seem to have enough players that want to win. Maybe it is the semi final mentality. Their record against the big teams has been poor. They threw away a glorious chance to win the group stage of the champions league. Now they are hijacking their own title challenge. You have to say that this team has no bottle.

 

[NewGlory]

Only ourselves to blame. 5 points dropped against relegated teams and another 2 dropped against a shite Everton side who dominated.

We should be level, two games away from playing City.

This 100%

 

[NoPace]

Eh, Liverpool have one player who they really can't afford to lose (sure Salah is great but Mane-Firmino-Jota could do a job)in Van Dijk because they refused to spend any money (or just sell one of Shaqiri, Oxlade Chamberlain or Keita and used the funds on a CB replacement) to bolster his position despite its obvious weakness in depth and he's out for the year. Otherwise City would be hot on Liverpool's tail in a tough race.

And the fact Chelsea and United aren't making real title runs isn't a financial thing, it's just being poorly run. No reason one of those two teams shouldn't be making it a 3 team race.

The Prem would be better off I think with a tighter squad limit so that teams have say 18 players over 21 plus academy so that talented players like Mata, James, Shaqiri, Emerson, Dele, Giroud/Abraham and guys like that don't just sit on the bench not entertaining fans (many would move foreign sure, and if this sort of limit wasn't UEFA wide it would cause problems competing in Europe) and instead young players would get minutes and teams would spend more on academy guys. Always annoyed me to see a player like Berbatov in his final year with us on the bench; careers are short, and football is beautiful, guys like him should be giving joy to fans each week not trying to make a bench.

 

[adexkola]

Farmers league

 

[Sky1981]

Eh, Liverpool have one player who they really can't afford to lose (sure Salah is great but Mane-Firmino-Jota could do a job)in Van Dijk because they refused to spend any money (or just sell one of Shaqiri, Oxlade Chamberlain or Keita and used the funds on a CB replacement) to bolster his position despite its obvious weakness in depth and he's out for the year. Otherwise City would be hot on Liverpool's tail in a tough race.

And the fact Chelsea and United aren't making real title runs isn't a financial thing, it's just being poorly run. No reason one of those two teams shouldn't be making it a 3 team race.

The Prem would be better off I think with a tighter squad limit so that teams have say 18 players over 21 plus academy so that talented players like Mata, James, Shaqiri, Emerson, Dele, Giroud/Abraham and guys like that don't just sit on the bench not entertaining fans (many would move foreign sure, and if this sort of limit wasn't UEFA wide it would cause problems competing in Europe) and instead young players would get minutes and teams would spend more on academy guys. Always annoyed me to see a player like Berbatov in his final year with us on the bench; careers are short, and football is beautiful, guys like him should be giving joy to fans each week not trying to make a bench.

Why is this the case?

18 squad limit is a downer, players got injured, suspended, fatique, etc. And our squad is bloated because there's no taker for our deadwoods (we're talking about Mata, Rojo, James, Lingard, Jones), how's having an 18 players quota help? they'll still at the club, they'd still got paid, worse we have them on the book but can't play them because of a stupid rule.

You'd argue this would make teams buy more prudently, well hindsight is 20/20 we always buy and think it's the best choice but sometimes we don't always get what we buy for.

 

[Red & White]

I was just talking about this, such a letdown. Of course, I’m bitter we were only in the conversation for 5 minutes but it is becoming boring. There was a time not that long ago that you could be 7 points off of top in February and still be right in the title challenge (and even win it a few times). Now, as soon as a team like City get a few points lead it’s just a stroll to the title. It’s like every team they’ll face now will just do their duty and rollover for them.

 

[Infordin]

I honestly think that Man City, with their financial superiority, will eventually establish a Bayern Munich-style grip on the Premier League.

 

[Castia]

Only ourselves to blame here. We’d be in ‘the race’ If we didn’t drop points to the bottom 2 clubs.

 

[Nickelodeon]

Do we seriously want a two-horse race with Liverpool in it?

 

[Judas]

City are the best team in the league, the rest are ordinary. We'd be closer to the top if we weren't laughably inept.

Do we seriously want a two-horse race with Liverpool in it?

Nope, rather this than that.

 

[Lentwood]

This will be 6 times in 7 years one team has run away with the league. What a painfully boring league the PL has become.

Should introduce a salary cap of some sort to stop the dominance we’ve seen from the 2 oil clubs over the last 10 years or so.

Take out the one club who have been artificially pumped full of billions and billions of pounds and this season’s PL would have been amazing entertainment.

It’s not just the money City can spend on players that gives them a huge advantage, it’s the fact they don’t have to operate like a business, there’s no need to worry about balancing the books.

Buy a GK...doesn’t work out, stick him on the bench and buy another.

Buy about five CBs with mixed results...just keep buying more until one works out.

Same for the fullbacks...but actually to save time we’ll just buy two £45m players in their prime AND another £35m Brazilian international just in case.

No other club can do that. They have to live with their bad decisions and manage those players out. That takes time and means you lose ground in the transfer market.

 

[Judas]

City should simply never not win the league again for as long as they're allowed to run like they do. Their advantage compared to the rest is obscene.

 

[Lay]

Most competitive league they say. Liverpool won the league in February last year, City would have done the same at the end of February

 

[SER19]

City should simply never not win the league again for as long as they're allowed to run like they do. Their advantage compared to the rest is obscene.

There are still people who deny this and somehow use Uniteds 4 years of horrific management post Ferguson as evidence. Pretend United don't exist for a second, and then pretend it is a remotely fair competition

 

[Robertd0803]

We may not have won the league (or win the league) this season but dropping 7 points out of 9 against Sheff Utd, Everton and West Brom has killed it regardless of what City were doing. So frustrating.

But then again City are a joke anyway.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

Salary cap? We'd be midtable with salary cap

No we wouldn’t. We have one of the better academy’s. We’d likely benefit from it.

 

[Solius]

It's boring for us yeah but we can't really complain when we're the team that have let them run away with it. Not really City's fault because they have the audacity to keep winning.

 

[Fortitude]

Can't be blaming anyone else when we've had it in our hands to be competitive and repeatedly come up short all by ourselves.

Not only that, City - or Pep - are showing managerial nous this season and it's not just a case of storming the league with the usual M.O. in particular, switching out almost like for like at the 70min mark in games.

Just a couple of months ago, people in here were writing City off and have gone silent since they've taken a wholly different approach to solving their problems, namely, building from the back and playing without a striker, pretty much.

This season is not like most of the others where obscene points totals were amassed and the only way to win was to match that; this is a very different case indeed, and one where questions have to be asked of others rather than City and their resources.

 

[sun_tzu]

This will be 6 times in 7 years one team has run away with the league. What a painfully boring league the PL has become.

Should introduce a salary cap of some sort to stop the dominance we’ve seen from the 2 oil clubs over the last 10 years or so.

Last 10 years Winners
France: Lille*1, Montpelier*1, Monaco*1, PSG*7
Italy: Milan*1, Juventus*9
Spain: Athletico, Real*3, Barca *6
Germany: Dortmund*2, Bayern *8
Scotland: Rangers*1, celtic *9
England: leicester*1, liverpool*1, Chelsea*2, Manchester United*2, Man City*4

Last 5 years winners
France: Monaco, PSG*4
Italy: Juventus *5
Spain: Real*2, Barca *3
Germany: Bayern*5
Scotland: Celtic*5
England: Leicester*1, liverpool*1, chelsea*1, Manchester City *2


yeah Im gonna say that I dont think the premier league has a massive problem here

 

[Amir]

Only ourselves to blame. 5 points dropped against relegated teams and another 2 dropped against a shite Everton side who dominated.

We should be level, two games away from playing City.

True, but to be fair, the situation in the table fairly relfects the gaps in quality. They are just better.

 

[SirAF]

Do we seriously want a two-horse race with Liverpool in it?

No!

My position is that as long as United are not winning then City might as well run away with it. They are the lesser evil.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

Last 10 years Winners
France: Lille*1, Montpelier*1, Monaco*1, PSG*7
Italy: Milan*1, Juventus*9
Spain: Athletico, Real*3, Barca *6
Germany: Dortmund*2, Bayern *8
Scotland: Rangers*1, celtic *9
England: leicester*1, liverpool*1, Chelsea*2, Manchester United*2, Man City*4

Last 5 years winners
France: Monaco, PSG*4
Italy: Juventus *5
Spain: Real*2, Barca *3
Germany: Bayern*5
Scotland: Celtic*5
England: Leicester*1, liverpool*1, chelsea*1, Manchester City *2


yeah Im gonna say that I dont think the premier league has a massive problem here

So the richest club in the league wins every year? Well that trend is coming to England too. This will be City’s 3rd in 4 years.

 

[sun_tzu]

So the richest club in the league wins every year? Well that trend is coming to England too. This will be City’s 3rd in 4 years.

How many leagues did we win when we were the richest club...(7 of the first 10 for example) ...

There has been 9 separate occasions since the premier league started in 1992 that we have won the league 3 out of 4 seasons

2016 is the first time in 24 years that we had not won at least 2 of the last 5 titles.

I don't recall our fans clamoring to artificially even thing up then

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

How many leagues did we win when we were the richest club...(7 of the first 10 for example) ...

There has been 9 separate occasions since the premier league started in 1992 that we have won the league 3 out of 4 seasons

2016 is the first time in 24 years that we had not won at least 2 of the last 5 titles.

I don't recall our fans clamoring to artificially even thing up then

When did we ever spend the most money during our dominant years? 2001, with Veron & Ruud. When else? We were outspent the majority of the years we dominated. We were not a City, throwing money at our team every year. We had the same core players for years, many of whom were from our academy.

 

[giorno]

City's superior spending power is a bit of a myth from the perspective of manchester united

The plain truth is, they put Soriano in charge of the club. United put Woodward in charge. There's the real difference

 

[CM]

Only ourselves to blame. 5 points dropped against relegated teams and another 2 dropped against a shite Everton side who dominated.

We should be level, two games away from playing City.

Exactly. We've dropped 9 points since the Sheff Utd game, and all of those games were very winnable.

We'd be right in it if we did our job, now we're closer to dragging ourselves into a battle for top 4.

 

[Noot]

This will be 6 times in 7 years one team has run away with the league. What a painfully boring league the PL has become.

Should introduce a salary cap of some sort to stop the dominance we’ve seen from the 2 oil clubs over the last 10 years or so.

You're kidding yourself if you think United's wage bill is the reason you're not keeping up. Salary cap? I'm pretty sure that would screw you over as badly as it would screw us. United can compete financially, but it's plain to see that the personnel aren't up to the standard we have at City. This isn't about the difference in bank balance, really, it's about the difference between Woodward and Soriano, Ole and Pep, Dias and Maguire. With better decisions and fewer dropped points against bad teams United would be right in this title race right now.

Let's not forget that until recently you looked like you were more likely to win it than City. The "City have a huge advantage" stuff always emerges when City are top of the league, but everyone forgets that we were shite for about a year back there.

 

[Water Melon]

You're kidding yourself if you think United's wage bill is the reason you're not keeping up. Salary cap? I'm pretty sure that would screw you over as badly as it would screw us.

Unfortunately, I agree.