Is the Premier League easier or are City/Pep this good?

[Ish]

Man, I'm a big Pep fan/admirer and rate him as the best out there but what i would give to have a peak SAF go toe-to-toe with him (& Klopp) .

On topic, coupled their squad depth, their spend, their good football structure/management and Pep being an exceptional coach....it's a recipe for domination - no matter what league he'd be in with this City team, he'd steamroll them. Klopp's achieved amazingly well keeping in touch with them IMO.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Abu Dhabi United Group are that good

Fixed

 

[Josh 76]

A few more league wins and they are in route to being the greatest epl side ever

This season I’m hoping City win it as I dont want the scousers to ever win it again. But next season is going to be mad. I don’t want City to win 4 in a row and don’t want the scousers to win it either. Come on Ten Haag you can do it!

 

[GhastlyHun]

City who struggled to win two games after going two goals down in them? That City?
Edit they went 2 goals down in 3 of their last 6!

How many of these games did they lose? How many teams do get something from games once they're 2 goals down?
They surely like a wobble at the back though, and the season has only started.

 

[CarbonStoolBites]

The sad thing is that we spend more money than they do

Yes, we’re not very good at this “buying the league” thing.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Pep is amazing, but I'm not buying the Prem is better than ever argument from people.

 

[Fortitude]

Brighton have beaten Arsenal, Spurs, and United away from home in the past year.

Palace have beaten Spurs, City, Arsenal, and United in the past year.

Southampton have beaten Arsenal, Spurs, and Chelsea in the past year.

Brentford have beaten Arsenal, Chelsea, and United in the past year.

Do people in here not actually watch football anymore?

You realise you've only one win against the actual top two in the league? Most times it's 'gg, thanks for playing in a way that enabled us to absolutely hammer you. Appreciate the effort.' In the past, it'd been Pep and Klopp complaining about teams not playing ball and making things as hard as they possibly could for them.

Those teams you've listed is more indicative of how far they've fallen than how good those teams are at what they've done. United haven't been a scalp for some time now beings as we're fighting against our self until coherent. Arsenal have only just found their feet and Spurs are a mean, which I doubt is better/worse than in the era being spoken about. Chelsea are all over the place in terms of disarray and haven't been the machine-like side of yore for a long time now.

You'll probably see this as discrediting the wins, but the reality is that you'd be hard-pressed to say any side other than the top 2 have had themselves in order enough for losses against lesser teams to be a shock or outliers over the past few years.

 

[Tigersam]

For me, SAF was THAT good, dominating without the United Arab Emirates oil-level money.

Pep is good, don't get me wrong, but it is much easier to be good when you are given two squad's worth of top players

But to each their own. Some cherish Pep, some are more meh

You say "....dominating without the United Arab Emirates oil-level money", but that's a little disingenuous is it not? In SAFs time Man United dominated due to in part to spending the most money, for example Rio Ferdinand was £29 million, that is £130 million in today's money. Wayne Rooney: £27 million in 2004, equates to £110 today (which is more than double Erling Haaland's transfer cost). To mention the UAE is just an attempt to have a dig at Man City & if they were spending money and you were not, I could understand it, but MUFC have also spent big in the last decade - American money or Middle Eastern money, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day.

The sad thing is that we spend more money than they do

MUFC have spent big, but sometimes on the wrong players operating under the wrong managers in the wrong setup.

 

[Oranges038]

Completely disagree. The league conforms to the big teams now by trying to play out from the back with terrible footballers, playing to City and Liverpool’s strengths. Arsenal got rattled by the likes of Stoke, Bolton and Blackburn bombarding them with crosses, diagonals and long throws - today’s smaller teams are too polite to dare try to unsettle the superior opposition.

it’s also glaringly obvious elite doping capacity sets them apart. With City it’s more subtle due to the quality of the players at Pep’s disposal, but Liverpool are a load of turbo-charged bums - Big Sam’s Bolton had more legit quality.

If Pep was so good he wouldn’t need £60m players in most positions. People seem to lose track of the fact practically every player he buys is exceptional at their previous clubs too, hence their pricetags. Wenger and Ferguson polished both diamonds and turds to facilitate their success.

Dyche tried it with Burnley. Only beat City once & got 2 draws, Liverpool 2 times and 2 draws.

That's not to say that if more teams tried it they might lose or draw more games.

 

[christy87]

Completely disagree. The league conforms to the big teams now by trying to play out from the back with terrible footballers, playing to City and Liverpool’s strengths. Arsenal got rattled by the likes of Stoke, Bolton and Blackburn bombarding them with crosses, diagonals and long throws - today’s smaller teams are too polite to dare try to unsettle the superior opposition.

it’s also glaringly obvious elite doping capacity sets them apart. With City it’s more subtle due to the quality of the players at Pep’s disposal, but Liverpool are a load of turbo-charged bums - Big Sam’s Bolton had more legit quality.

If Pep was so good he wouldn’t need £60m players in most positions. People seem to lose track of the fact practically every player he buys is exceptional at their previous clubs too, hence their pricetags. Wenger and Ferguson polished both diamonds and turds to facilitate their success.

I'd generally agree with this, you had different styles of shit house football back then from the lower teams, big Sam's style was different to Stokes style.
Now everyone is trying to play football, either the klopp approach or the pep approach and with players of less quality they get found out easily by pep.

 

[Ekeke]

I think the Haaland signing giving City directness, height, a fox in the box, physicality etc. just fixed some of the flaws in Pep's gameplan

We had seen him use a less physical striker and we had seen him go away from strikers all together to get another man dropping deep and playing others in. But now with Haaland they have gone to the other extreme and have the perfect target/CF for when chances are created around the box, to not just score but cause panic.

So I think they've found another level by Pep giving up some of his stubborness about certain types of players that he didnt use previously. I know they signed Bony but he didnt play and they got rid.

 

[The White Pele]

I think the Premier League is incredibly strong right now.

5 of the best managers in the world in Guardiola, Klopp, Conte, Tuchel and Ten Hag with Arteta also making a case for himself.

The top 6 have enormous resources and Newcastle are richer than any of them.

The financial clout across the league is huge and you have players that are attractive to the top clubs in Europe turning out for clubs outside the top 6: Isak signing for Newcastle, Nunes and Neves at Wolves, Gakpo was being linked with Leeds and Southampton, Villa taking Diego Carlos from Sevilla, Leicester have the likes of Tielemans and Maddison.

And some of the clubs that don’t have the same financial muscle are extremely well coached outfits with a clear plan and identity like Brighton, Brentford, Palace.

Add to that Forest and Fulham being particularly strong for two newly promoted sides.

It’s extremely competitive across the league this year and you could make a case for it being as strong as ever and being akin to a “Super League”.

It’s scary that even in that environment City could absolutely walk the league this year if Haaland continues in this vein of form.

 

[tomaldinho1]

I'd generally agree with this, you had different styles of shit house football back then from the lower teams, big Sam's style was different to Stokes style.
Now everyone is trying to play football, either the klopp approach or the pep approach and with players of less quality they get found out easily by pep.

It’s all about timing for Pep, always has been. Football now is more open, teams don’t sit in and even then he’s gone to a club who disregard FFP. They even introduced the winter break basically as soon as he arrived to help with CL runs.

Leicester won the league, Conte came in and set a points record, Pep and Klopp then both set higher totals. That is hallmark of a weak league. Think how average we were under Mou and Ole and we got 2nd under both.

There is more money than ever in the PL but the spread has never been so wide and obviously one club, who I still find it weird people just don’t get this point and praise them, cheated to become No1.

We’re happy because Pep has limited Klopp domestically but it’s only going to keep getting less competitive over time.

@Tigersam how did you get to £110m from a £26m transfer in 2004? It would be about £40m in today’s money.

 

[gibers]

Pep is that good and he has turned the league into a farmer's league. If they win the league this season that's 5 in 6. That's the very definition of farmer's league. Haaland's scoring at a higher rate than he did in Germany as well.

 

[el3mel]

Kinda both. They are that good but most other big teams are shit currently.

 

[11101]

I think it's fair to say the standard of football across all leagues has gone up, that's the nature of improvements in training, sports science etc, but clubs with bottomless pits like City have accelerated far beyond the rest. The difference between top and bottom has never been bigger and its going to keep growing, so in that respect for those top clubs the league has got easier.

It's also gotten more streamlined in tactics as everybody tries to emulate possession football, but as Pep's first league season and successive CL failures show that only works if you have the best players on the field, and to do that you need to have a bottomless pit of money.

 

[Fortitude]

Homogeneous football with extreme pressing also benefits those with vaster squads of an almost uniform level of ability. When the small sides play like maniacs and are spent half way through a campaign, the wheels fall off and the levels plummet because their replacements in the team are not of the required standard. Teams like City, rotating like for like are better from the outset, but also far, far fresher come the run-in because of rotation from an artificially boosted squad.

Whether you hate him or not, Klopp doesn’t get this privilege and nor does anybody else - Pep’s dilemmas revolve around which piece to move on and off the board rather than managerial crises which is part and parcel of normal football. These are huge advantages compounded because they already have the majority best players per position before the squad factor is added.

It’s not some feat for them to run roughshod over the league, nor is it some kind of revelation. It’s a given.

 

[bond19821982]

League has become weaker in comparison to mid 2000s. Barring Liverpool don't think any other side are that good.

Any stats to back it up ?

 

[Cascarino]

The league is currently very strong. Pep is very good, and their squad is very good

You see this happening in the Prem too now with loads of teams deciding to play out from the back. Realistically most teams cant and shouldn't try and play out from the back yet they do, and this just invites the press from City and the inevitable ball loss.

If you don’t, you just surrender the ball for the full 90. There’s a reason teams have a commitment to playing it out from the back (at least to some extent), it’s because it’s suicide to go long all game.

 

[ThierryHenry14]

5 of the best managers in the world in Guardiola, Klopp, Conte, Tuchel and Ten Hag with Arteta also making a case for himself.

I am not sure about Ten Hag but Arteta at this moment have no place there. He is doing a good job for Arsenal though.

I think it's fair to say the standard of football across all leagues has gone up, that's the nature of improvements in training, sports science etc, but clubs with bottomless pits like City have accelerated far beyond the rest. The difference between top and bottom has never been bigger and its going to keep growing, so in that respect for those top clubs the league has got easier.

Utd spent as much in wages as City, if not more, and spent more on transfer net spend. I don't see the big difference you mentioned however in your game against Southampton.

 

[Popovic]

The league is much stronger than it was in the 2000s but this is also the natural progression in football. The prem has more money, better players, managers, facilities than it did 15+ years ago. Pep of course had an incredible backing and has spent an obscene amount of money but I don't think any manager could just produce the results he has. To go 4/5 and cracking 90-100 points pretty consistently is an insane feat. I think on our run we hit the 90+ total once in 09? And that was because we had a fantastic defensive record that season. We weren't thumping teams like this though.

 

[Ludens the Red]

Brighton have beaten Arsenal, Spurs, and United away from home in the past year.

Palace have beaten Spurs, City, Arsenal, and United in the past year.

Southampton have beaten Arsenal, Spurs, and Chelsea in the past year.

Brentford have beaten Arsenal, Chelsea, and United in the past year.

Do people in here not actually watch football anymore?

Yeah we meant city and Liverpool. Actual top teams. Between arsenal spurs and United they’ve all failed to even finish in the top four in the last two seasons. Spurs and United barely try to impose themselves over the opposition in terms of style of play. This is not relevant.

 

[JSArsenal]

How do you determine how strong/weak a league is?

The points total of the top teams?

In 2008-2009 the points distribution was as follows

Teams in the top 4 - 90, 86, 83 & 72
Teams 10-12 - 50,45, 45
Teams 18-20 - 34,32,32

In 2017-2018 (I chose this team because it was the last league before Covid)

Teams in the top 4 - 100, 81, 77, 75 (Liverpool only really started to match City after this)
Teams 10-12 - 44, 44, 44
Teams 18-20 - 33,33,31

Fairly similar points distribution save for City being far above everyone else. In the league United lost to other big teams and Fulham in 2008-2009. City only lost to Liverpool and United in the 2017-18 season.

Someone could probably do a more in depth analysis, I don't write for The Athletic, but to my layman's eyes big teams don't lose any more to smaller sides than they did before, probably less so.

If the points totals for the best teams are the same or increased, how can the league be more difficult now? If it was more difficult, wouldn't there be a more equitable distribution of points and less of a points gap?

 

[Bastian]

The bigger teams are worse, the mid-table teams are much much better, and most teams put up a good fight and like to scrap. Everyone has money so there are dangerous players in almost every team. City though have a new dimension now and their midfield is just so incredibly good that they make light work of it, though they've been a bit vulnerable when they don't have their best defenders available.

This season will be very difficult for all the teams but of course if you have depth and the requisite managerial know-how of managing the squad you have a huge advantage.

I reckon teams like Brighton, Newcastle, West Ham, even Leeds, Palace and Brentford could cause other European teams quite the hassle. I also think that Southampton team is starting to take some shape with quite an energetic core of players even though they've been penny pinching for years and years.

City to finish top with at least a 12 point margin.

 

[royboy16]

Reminds me a bit of the championship sometimes where everyone is capable of beating anyone.
Pep is that good also though.

 

[Mogget]

Yeah we meant city and Liverpool. Actual top teams. Between arsenal spurs and United they’ve all failed to even finish in the top four in the last two seasons. Spurs and United barely try to impose themselves over the opposition in terms of style of play. This is not relevant.

That's pretty fantastic logic, I have to admit.

"City and Liverpool are the best PL teams we've ever seen because they dominate the weaker teams so thoroughly"

"They're not actually, the league is just weaker now"

"Oh, why is the league weaker now?"

"Because City and Liverpool dominate the weaker teams"

 

[giorno]

The PL is as strong as it's ever been and City really are this good. Next question

 

[MuFc_1992]

Pep is insanely good at building league winning team and has resources to build extremely good 25 man squad which allows his team to execute his gamelan without suffering any burnout. Just look at how weak Liverpool's midfield looked against us, Pep would never have milner and henderson starting for his city team.

 

[Redlyn]

Thrashing Forest is hardly worthy of a thread about the strength of the entire league.
They'd do the same against the fodder clubs in any league. City are very are strong and so is the league.

 

[Isotope]

Ye much rather them then the scousers but I’d rather the league be more competitive in general.

True.

 

[arthurka]

City's planning is top notch and I won't be surprised if they already have a plan for Pep's exit. Its a well oiled machine and unfortunately can't see anyone getting close to them for at least a decade.

This, the club is built up by people who were top in their position in the best functioning club in the world at that time when they got bought over. Barca have since taken a nosedive while City have flourished.

 

[Lynty]

I think this is the most entertaining the league has ever been. You can genuinely watch any match and be entertained because there's so much quality.

Imagine spending the afternoon watching Stoke v Sunderland in 2009 waiting to be thrilled by Cattermole, Delap or Kenwyne Jones.

 

[tomaldinho1]

I think this is the most entertaining the league has ever been. You can genuinely watch any match and be entertained because there's so much quality.

Imagine spending the afternoon watching Stoke v Sunderland in 2009 waiting to be thrilled by Cattermole, Delap or Kenwyne Jones.

You joke but they had that one entertaining game where Etherington kicked someone and got sent off. Jones was such an enigma, completely unplayable every 4/5 games and terrible the rest of the time.

 

[TheLiverBird]

People get caught up on this whole “strongest the league has ever been” etc

wether you believe that or not, what is true is the league is certainly very strong at this moment in time

And Pep is just a phenomenal manager at a club on steroids financially hence why they have won 5 of the last 6 League Title

 

[Kush]

Pep is simply that good, a lot of their players won’t look this brilliant under a new manager

 

[Ludens the Red]

That's pretty fantastic logic, I have to admit.

"City and Liverpool are the best PL teams we've ever seen because they dominate the weaker teams so thoroughly"

"They're not actually, the league is just weaker now"

"Oh, why is the league weaker now?"

"Because City and Liverpool dominate the weaker teams"

Being deliberately obtuse is never a good look.
You’ve thrown yourself into the middle of a point me and @Orion Made about basically the naivety of some of the lesser teams against top sides. You’ve then seemingly thrown together random unrelated comments from the thread to make some sarcastic point which makes no sense… but yeah carry on

 

[DJ_21]

I think this is the most entertaining the league has ever been. You can genuinely watch any match and be entertained because there's so much quality.

Imagine spending the afternoon watching Stoke v Sunderland in 2009 waiting to be thrilled by Cattermole, Delap or Kenwyne Jones.

I have a lot of respect for stoke, didn’t they thrash the scousers like 5/6-1

 

[Ram1fy]

1. Football and transfer market are broken, so he didn't have any constraints. Any manager that didn't operate under tight constraints haa never been truly tested
2. United's failure as a club makes him look great because there is another club that also spent similar money


hence SAF, Klopp, Wenger and even Mourinho to an extent can be measured somewhat objectively and can be considered incredibly successful. Pep is just a smart guy who puts himself in cushy circumstances

 

[Lay]

The EPL is the strongest league but most of Europe and most teams in the EPL are average. The top teams are so far ahead of the rest that only self implosion will allow rivals catch up.

 

[ExoduS]

They are good. Real Madrid should have lost to them in both games last year by at least 2 goal margin. They imploded in both games and allowed Madrid to go through. Basically they dominated eventual UCL champion both at home and away. When you can dominate UCL champion, what are average EPL teams going to do to them? Not much.

City is still far from perfect. They have serious concentration lapses so scoring against them seems to be always a possibility. The problem is that they usually score more.