Sly

Let’s go and join the Saudi Pro League!

So……. My idea about a breakaway league?

I can see more starting to fail it though, as the rules are farcical.

When the Premier League broke away from the football league in the early 90s, it changed the landscape of English football. Sport at its heart should be competitive and for the people, allowing any one competing a chance to win. Everyone loves an under dog story and it’s why we will go down as one the greatest fairy tail stories in sporting history. However I actually think the PSR rules could be the straw the broke the camels back. They are creating a massive divide in what clubs can spend and it’s further pulling apart the greedy six, even from the chasing pack of teams like Aston Villa, Newcastle, West Ham etc, as they aren’t allowed to invest to try and catch up with the likes of Manchester City. The rules crippled us (alongside some poor management) and even with us tightening our belts, we’re set for an uncertain future in terms of financial income and potentially being almost sentenced to relegation from the league before we start with a points deduction. Could this unfair playing field, initiate clubs to start conversations on a breakaway league with its own streaming service? We’ve seen it happen in other sports over the years and some have flourished, some haven’t. The IPL has been a major success but that rocked a major boat. It would need to featured promotion and relegation, some form of salary cap to make it competitive maybe, allow clubs from any league to join, whilst not restricting outside investment, every game kicking off at 12:00 on a Saturday to avoid the watershed rule, thus allowing people to watch local football at 15:00 if they wanted to! Maybe allowing other non English teams to join a league setup might take the sting away from us being booted out of European competitions as well? Would you want us to play Celtic, Parma or Sevilla? Maybe a nice trip to Brugge in a relegation decider? Or a League title decider to Forest, or even Rangers? It’s almost like the European Super League but booting out the teams that are perceived to get the favourable treatment I guess! Would you support it, or would it be a further nail in footballs coffin?

The Premier League is becoming a farce. The long term impacts of this will be painful, not just for us but football in general. I still can’t get my head around how it’s legally binding to stop the growth of a football club and preventing them breaking into the top 6, whilst allowing the greedy six clubs to spend more. Elon Musk could own us and want to pump half his money into making us the biggest club in the world, he wouldn’t be allowed though. Football is done if this persists.

Can we all agree that what you pay for a player, then what you pay them in wages, has no actual reflection on the ability of that player? Chelsea have clearly overspent and are over paying for the players they have on the books. Likewise, Ipswich have been shrewd and built a solid squad. Both deserve to be where they are right now, as we deserved to get relegated last season. You might not like it, but we sleep walked into it after not altering the factor that was sapping morale from the squad.

Looking at the fixtures left, it could go anyway really. We are at the business end of the season and with the likes of Hull, Coventry, Preston, Norwich, WBA and Middlesbrough scrapping for play off places, they’re dangerous. On the flip side, we’ve already started to see the teams in danger of relegation pick up unexpected wins. Week Leicester Southampton Leeds Ipswich 37 Middlesbrough 38 Bristol Ipswich 39 Norwich Blackburn Watford Blackburn 40 Birmingham Coventry Hull Southampton 41 Millwall Watford Coventry Norwich 42 Plymouth Preston Sunderland Watford 43 West Brom Cardiff Blackburn Middlesbrough 44 Southampton Leicester Middlesbrough Coventry 45 Preston Stoke QPR Hull 46 Blackburn Leeds Southampton Huddlesfield Red - Top 4 Orange - Play off hopefuls at this stage Green - Relegation a possibility at this stage I didn’t realise until reviewing the above, we have a rough set of fixtures really, as Bristol aside now, every team still has something to play for. This picture will obviously change as we get closer toward the end of the season. I’m not so confident in my “5 points clear of Leeds” comment I made yesterday now It’s quite feasible that no club surpasses 100 points but we have three, clubs on 95+ points.

If we don’t get promoted this season, then I think our plan B would be to release the likes of Vardy, Iheanacho, Vestergaard, Ndidi, Praet and Albrighton and do a reset basically. We’ve not offered them new contracts for a reason, as it’s unsustainable to do so if we remain in the Championship. If they all left, we’d be taking around £20m off the annual wage budget in wages alone. That’s before you factor in annual loyalty (signing on fees) that could in effect, also total a further £5m for those players alone. We would be losing ability, however we’d be looking at a different team next season. We’d most likely need to sell KDH for a reduced amount in early June to keep us profitable and within PSR rules. Questions would understandably be asked about Maresca, as not getting out of this league, with this squad would be a failure. I do feel we’ve wobbled and this short break will hopefully allow us to dust ourselves off. The next game is always the must important one and we can’t worry about everyone else. Let us take it one game at a time!

If you take the results insolation, then you’re right. However, I’d say we “could” have beaten Leeds, Boro, Hull and Ipswich if we’d have taken our chances. Football is a funny old game and it changes in an instant, that’s why it’s admitted by the billions, due to its unpredictability, which itself adds excitement.

Adjacent to the losses, if you are Nottingham Forest (take the historical significance as a rival away) and you want to catch up with the top 6, it seems unfair to punish them, if they are operating within investment capability. Clubs almost need a “project bank account” that clubs put money upfront into, so they can be assured they won’t go under. A few other points as well, * Deducting points seems unfair, when the greedy six didn’t get deducted points for the super league fiasco as “it wasn’t fair on the fans”. * No real rules as to what the punishment is, so it’s open to abuse. * The rules don’t allow clubs enough wiggle room to grow and push the established clubs at the top end of league, that we’re allowed massive outside investment prior to these rules being introduced. Is the English football system oversaturated with professional football clubs? Are we trying to subsidise something that’s unsustainable in the football pyramid? If Leicester City Centre has 92 shops that only sell fruit, would you expect them all to survive, if they’re trying to be a sustainable business without owner investment? If Mr FruityMcFruitFace is richer than Elon Musk and wants to make his market fruit store the next Supermarket; he can’t with these current PSR rules.

So, I went hunting around to find out the situation with other clubs and PSR status. https://www.givemesport.com/premier-league-psr-tracker-every-clubs-ffp-status/ So my understanding is that PSR rules allow clubs to make an average loss of £105m over a three year period? Team Profit/Loss (£m) Chelsea -552 Everton -381 Aston Villa -281 Fulham -208 Arsenal -194 Manchester City -153 Bournemouth -139 Brighton & Hove Albion -125 Nottingham Forest -113 Manchester United -114 Crystal Palace -111 Newcastle United -97 West Ham United -78 Liverpool -53 Brentford -35 Sheffield United -27 Burnley -24 Wolverhampton Wanderers -23 Luton Town -18 Tottenham Hotspur 5 So according to the table from that website, lots of clubs are in breach of the -£105m, however it’s not as black and white as that, as infrastructure, women's and academy sides cost are not counted toward PSR calculations. Then you’ve got the entire amortisation of transfer etc, however it’s a mess. I’m looking at that list though and thinking if everyone above the -£105 threshold needs to sell players / homegrown talents for profit to stay within the rules, who on earth is going to buy them? Very few clubs will be able to afford the Premier League wages for the players that Chelsea have stacked on massive wages for example.

The way this is playing out; every club will be on a bloody points deduction at the start of the season. It’s like a golf handicap with how things are going. Either put a salary cap in, or just let it be. The entire system is flawed and if it’s challenged in a court of law, I’m sure will fall apart.

We’ve had loads of players that fit this bill Hume, Tiatto, Amartey, Faes etc etc

I have generally football fatigue.

We will win the league by over 5 points. I said it …….

You forget all of those awful displays where Vardy did next to nothing? We lack a defence. We took Ndidi off and worth the red card, invited pressure and fell apart. Justin was horrible once on. Akgun offered nothing, I’d have pulled him rather than Mavididi. Vestergaard can’t press high but is still our best defender. Faes can get sold. We miss Ricardo as Choudhury isn’t a full back. Jacob had a good game. Other than that, all good!

Good goal that in fairness. Justin was absolutely horrible can I add in that passage of play.

He’s the best player in this Chelsea team. No idea why Manchester City sold him.

Vestergaard up top?

Did Pearce just say “break Manchester City Hearts”?

That’s been coming !

Chilwell is on.

What a save!

Get a look at Maduke, a player we should have signed last season.

I think we’d have been better draggin Akgun, rather than Mav