All the leagues are declining, both from a technical performance perspective and in terms of entertainment. In the EPLs case, that is despite ever increasing amounts being spent on transfers. At least Arsenal have challenged City this year making things more entertaining.
The relative strength of the Premier League
- Thread starter Wumminator
- Start date
Yeah i agree, he's borderline.
I disagree. There have been some fantastic matches this season from all leagues and I actually think football is far less predictable than it was a few years ago.
Apart from the Bundesliga of course which is dire.
Foreign players being cheaper is a bit of a myth, though. Any time a big PL club gets involved it is going to be expensive is the truth of the matter.
Pepe - €70m
Fernandez - €120m
Mudryk - €100m
Antony - €100m
Why would that be a myth? Price is a question of price and demand and since the richest league in the world has a homegrown rule in place this automatically means that English players will be more costly. When Dortmund is negotiating a fee for Sancho or Bellingham, they will obviously have in mind that an English club can hit two birds with one stone by signing the player.
Bundesliga, Ligue 1 both really dull generally. La Liga declined enormously over the last few years, used to watch it quite a lot before. Serie A is more interesting but still a shadow of what it was 20 years ago.
Premier league is still pretty entertaining, though City's super team makes it a bit predictable. It was better 20 years ago, all the money did was inflate the prices of average players to insane levels.
The myth is that people believe foreign players are cheaper than English when it is not actually true. You just have to look at the biggest transfer fees to see that the vast majority are foreign players.
The actual point is that any player signed by a big PL club is going to be expensive because they have a lot of money. It doesn't really matter who they sign; they will be forced to cough up by other clubs.
Well, there are more foreign players than English players so it makes sense that they dominate a list of most expensive transfers. Plus you could also argue that they have shown more/are better/bigger talents/whatever and that's the reason why they are so expensive. There's no way a CB of Maguire quality or a RB of Wan-Bissaka would go for these kind of fees if they weren't English.
And as said, it's just logical. English players are in higher demand by the richest clubs in the world, there's no way they aren't more expensive.
The claim is made all the time by people who boast of PL as the superior league. Except it's usually a hypothetical: the 13th placed PL club would, hypothetically, beat the 13th placed La Liga /Serie A / Bundesliga club.Mr. Robot said:
Not ideal but hardly underperforming
and soo.
They are underperforming badly not winning much when La Liga and Serie A are in serious decline. Since 18/19, they won 2 CL out of 4 and 1 EL out of 4. This is embarrassing considering how much they invest. The undisputed PL king City has zero CLs.
Imagine what would happen if Serie A and La Liga are back to their glorious days.
I'm not saying the PL hasn't been the best league in Europe for the last few years. Some posters however have been pretty insufferable with ridiculous assumptions about the relative levels between teams in different countries.
Eh. 2 out of 4 CL is hardly underperforming, especially given how 1 of the 2 they didn't win was down to Covid schedule and the other was just destiny. In EL yeah, 1 win out 3 isn't great, but still, it's a final, anything can happen
And i don't think the PL will allow other leagues to get back to their glory days from here
I'm not sure what you mean when you say they a PL club didn't win in 19/20 because of "covid schedule."
Chelsea lost 0-3 to Bayern before the lockdown and were essentially out (would finish 1-7 on balance). Spurs lost 0-3 to Leipzig over two games, both played before the lockdowns. Liverpool were also eliminated by Atletico before the lockdowns.
The only PL club left after the lockdowns was Manchester City, who lost to Lyon. Had they won, they would have faced Bayern Munich, who they'd have likely lost to.
Chelsea lost 0-3 to Bayern before the lockdown and were essentially out (would finish 1-7 on balance). Spurs lost 0-3 to Leipzig over two games, both played before the lockdowns. Liverpool were also eliminated by Atletico before the lockdowns.
The only PL club left after the lockdowns was Manchester City, who lost to Lyon. Had they won, they would have faced Bayern Munich, who they'd have likely lost to.
This is not a strong season in PL. Only really good teams seems to be City and maybe Arsenal.
Across the table i think PL is the strongest league though but not by that much and the top 4 is overrated. It seems like the PL-clubs rely too much on buying overhyped mercenaries that the selling club sells overpriced because they can and not that many clubs seems to have a long-term plan. I don't follow PL that much but that is my impression.
Across the table i think PL is the strongest league though but not by that much and the top 4 is overrated. It seems like the PL-clubs rely too much on buying overhyped mercenaries that the selling club sells overpriced because they can and not that many clubs seems to have a long-term plan. I don't follow PL that much but that is my impression.
agreed
It was no coincidence that german and french teams performed the best in the restart, as they were the most well rested and prepared by the time the CL started again. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyways, but it was a definite thing. PSG only made it past atalanta thanks to that for example, and OL were clearly in far better shape than City as well, same with Leipzig and Atletico Madrid
I know the EPL is still first in UEFA's 5 year ranking but how would that look like without City's and Liverpool's performances?
I'd find it pretty hillarious if the only argument for the arrogant belittling of other leagues by (some) United fans in here was the success of their two biggest domestic rivals
For the amount of money the PL spends it does a terrible job, rarely do we produce an undisputed "best team", and currently we have 1 good team. Other leagues seem to produce teams that do well in the European competitions with a much smaller budget.
I think part of the issue, certainly not all of it though, is that in a compacted season like this because of the world cup, the queen's funeral causing even more delays has caused a ridiculously tight schedule for premier league clubs post Christmas this season
PL teams overpay for average players.
Whenever clubs knows that PL teams are interested in one of their players, they raise the price by 50% at least cause they know PL teams can afford to pay a lot, it doesn't matter if the player worths the price or not.
80-100 millions for players like Anthony, Joao Felix, Grealish, Maguire, Kepa,etc it's criminal
Especially when you see how much Madrid payed for Vinicius, Rodrigo,Camavinga, Modric, etc
Yeah I couldn't believe it when Chelsea paid 100 million for Felix, you wouldn't catch a la Liga side doing that
True, but there are better options out there that wouldn't cost a fortune. In general City don't pay a lot.
When did this happen? Unless you mean Enzo and then you would be right. Good player but let’s be real the only player to ever be worth the ludicrous prices we have today is Ronaldo. No one else has come close to paying back these fee’s, at least on the pitch.Yeah I couldn't believe it when Chelsea paid 100 million for Felix, you wouldn't catch a la Liga side doing that
I was joking, the guy I quoted talked about premier league clubs overpaying for average players and listed felix for 80-100 million in that, when it was atletico in la liga that paid over 100 million for felix and he's only on loan at Chelsea
We (PL) definitely overpay in terms of wages though. It's why the likes of Nottingham Forest are able to sign 2-3 players from Atleti, or Everton & Aston Villa from Barca etc.
Yeah I get that, it was just really odd to use joao felix as an example of premier league overspending listed alongside la liga's shrewdness
Well they did pay £16M just to loan him for six months.
OK, but the poster wrote 80-100m for players like felix, as an example of premier league overspending. Which never happened, 110m for felix was spent by atletico on him
I think the overspending on foreign players rather happens in the mediocre player category. When you're following Bundesliga transfer rumours of rather 'meh' kind of players, you often read that the club is waiting for an EPL club to become interested. If a player can walk for three meters without a major accident, some EPL team will most likely offer you €10+m. On the contrary, the expensive transfers are usually players who have justified this price tag with good performances.
But what really makes you scratch your head is the amount of sums EPL clubs spend for EPL players. Just skimmed through a few transfers and learned that Leeds spent €30m on Dan James And then all those Maguire, Wan-Bissaka, etc. type of moves. Downright absurd at times.
But what really makes you scratch your head is the amount of sums EPL clubs spend for EPL players. Just skimmed through a few transfers and learned that Leeds spent €30m on Dan James
And then all those Maguire, Wan-Bissaka, etc. type of moves. Downright absurd at times.been saying this for the longest. Literally Ronaldo the ONLY one.
Think your pretty spot on here especially top 4 but add the caveat that some teams from 6th to 10th are really strong right now, Villa, Brighton, Fulham and Brentford would all do ok in La Liga, Bundersliga and Serie A.
The reality is the Prem league has one super team; City, a good side in arsenal, 2 rapidly developing teams in Newcastle and Man united who could both be elite teams the next two years with Middle East money and a declining Liverpool, fading Spurs and a completely shot Chelsea.
Having said all of that if Liverpool sort their midfield, SJ takes over United and Todd Boehly starts to delegate to best in class for Chelsea the PL could dominate European competition in the next few years, especially with 5 CL places from24/25 season.
But how does this work?
Will qualification for the 24/25 UCL take into account the results of 22/23 or the 23/24.. If it’s the latter then we start the season 23/24 not knowing for sure wether 5th place grants a CL spot or not ?
We arnt guarenteed a 5th place, a place will be given to each of the two countries whose clubs collectively performed best in Europe the previous season which is 23/24
Good point it will be based on next season from 23/24 in Europe however the two countries with the best co efficient gain an extra space in the last 5 years England and Spain would have occupied 9 out of those 10 spaces. Only Germany once would gain an extra bundersliga space.
It’s important to note that next year We could have ; City(1), Arsenal(2), Newcastle(3), Man United(4), all CL then
Spurs(5), Liverpool(6) Europa League? Brighton(7), Villa(8) not qualifying for The last European Conference League because West Ham win Conference League and Qualify automatically for the ECL which could be Liverpool or Spurs.
Basically coming 6th for any of the top teams and that includes United would be a disaster if West Ham won the Conference League.
I'd say mbappe was probably worth it given that Madrid made an offer that would have let psg recoup their money so he certainly hasnt declined in value, van dijk as well for Liverpool, though obviously in context 80m then wasnt the same kind of fee as 80m in 2009.
Point is PSG haven't progressed since Zlatan despite spending 300m on Mbappe and Neymar
True, but PSG squad is unbalanced as feck.
They need better midfielders, defenders, and goalies who don't commit bloopers in important UCL games.
Most of their eliminations have been due to poor defending and goalkeeping.
Donnaruma, Maquinhos, Thiago Silva, Kimpembe, Hakimi,Bernat, Verratti, Wijnauldum, Gueye, Keylor Navas, Herrera, Paredes, Rabiot,
Nkunku, Di Maria, Dani Alvez
Good little collection of Defenders, Keepers and midfielders
Most of those players have fecked up UCL knockouts for PSG, not sure how that's a good collection of players aside from Di Maria, Verrati and Navas.
PSG defense has always looked shaky as feck in important UCL matches, even in ties they won, like that game tie against Bayern when they got dominated but Bayern couldn't score cause Lewandowski was injured.