If you look at the UEFA coefficient points for the traditional top leagues so far this season England are comfortably top whilst Italy are currently second. The early stages give us some indication of the depth of leagues and it appears that Italy are on an upward curve as you say.
lets hold our horses until the knock outs. Arsenal won their group last seasons ahead of PSG, PSG were able to beat Barca 4-0 while Arsenal shipped 10.
See you here again and so sooooooon... is it a top 2 already by Sep 30 then?
Don't bother with facts mate, it doesn't mean much with some people.
'Top Anything' is a relative term, as in the six best teams in our League in this instance. The table will even out and the six teams in question will spend the majority of the season there. I don't get why people are finding this so outlandish? The other teams are nowhere near in terms of quality.See you here again and so sooooooon... is it a top 2 already by Sep 30 then?
Wasn't your main argument that the strength of the league is holding the top teams back, but in your opinion the top teams were already elite just couldn't show it in Europe because of the demanding games in England? I'm fairly certain that we even had discussions with a few users on here 2 seasons ago when Leicester won it, that future Premier League winners will struggle to get past 80 points from now on because the small teams are so strong.
Yes but obviously they’d win the league without breaking a sweat over here....
It’ll be very interesting where Barce and Real go now. They’re no longer the go to place for younger players.Clearly this means La Liga is the most competitive league in the world now
You made this shitshow of a thread a year and a half ago when English teams were still dire in Europe. Now you're bumping it when we finally seem to have our act together (in the group stages at least) as if you were right back then
Dembele? where is the go to place now?
You’re right, this thread can’t possibly be read as everyone taking the piss out of me and then me being ultimately proven right.You made this shitshow of a thread a year and a half ago when English teams were still dire in Europe. Now you're bumping it when we finally seem to have our act together (in the group stages at least) as if you were right back then
You're a great WUM but it's just too obvious these days.
No it wouldn't because you were wrong. Very wrong.
For once you're right.
No, because of when it was made, it cannot.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
Not really, though. The Premier League top teams are much stronger now than they were a year or two. Pretty much every one of the top six aside from Arsenal has improved immeasurably from when you made the thread.
I think Spurs squad will struggle to challenge in both Europe and the latter stages of the CL, and they're over reliant on some individuals. City definitely can though.
You’re right it must have happened that in 18 months every single English club has got stronger whereas every single foreign club has got worse.
Well...five of the six current top English clubs have all improved significantly in the past 18 months. While a couple of the top European clubs have clearly regressed. So yes...I don't see what's so strange about the fortunes of big clubs changing massively over what's effectively two seasons?
They’ll start to falter then when their squads start to accumulate the injuries that generally pop up from a season in the Prem.
You're right, it has been exactly the case, apart from Chelsea and PSG though.
That is literally what has happened, aside from Chelsea
The thread was originally made back when Chelsea were lingering around mid-table so they've improved massively since then as well. Arsenal are the only ones who I'd say have regressed as opposed to progressed. And even then you could argue they're about a similar level but have just suffered from the sides around them getting better.
]That is literally what has happened, aside from Chelsea
No we did better than the previous season. It's just those around us improved by a bigger margin than we did. In fact i think i remember reading somewhere that we average the same number of points every year for the last decade, so we don't improve/regress at all and just keep it consistent.
Yes it has.
Suppose it depends on the wider context. During the PL "golden era" of 04-09 there were only actually two PL wins, one of which involved a team who'd finished 5th somehow winning it against the odds. Generally that's looked upon as a period where the PL was the strongest league in the world but the reality was that it was more just a case of the big four managing to stack themselves in the semi-finals, as opposed to a PL club always winning it. Being generous you could extend that era till Chelsea's win in 2012, but that's still just three out of eight...which is the exact same as Barca managed over the same period, and only one more than Italy...in spite of the fact it was far from the greatest era for Italian football.
More so than investment - I also think it has to do with our European competitors declining. A lot of Spain's dominance is beginning to dwindle due to age, so too is Juve and Bayern etc. These top, top players that we use to yearn for are starting to come to the end of their careers.
