Stop Saying The Premier League Has Got Weaker, It's Got Bigger & Better!

[Guest]

I prefer it this way...

 

And yes, I prefer it this way too, over the monopoly of the previous decade.

[Grewks]

Last seasons champions currently sit 16th in the league, they only added to their squad in the summer aswell.

 

 

The league has become stronger (Cabaye at palace, inler, fuchs and even okazaki at leicester etc), and as a result the big teams have become less dominant and weaker.

[Foxhateram]

I'm afraid the league is weaker this year. Many of the club's who used to boss it are in transition, Chelsea, Man City and United have all clung on to players for too long and their replacements haven't had the character to survive the pace of this league. Liverpool and Arsenal have been in that same position for years now, they had amazing squads but players have grown old or left and the ones coming in haven't been the right signings.

This means there is no stand out teams and proves that in this day and age of football where there is a requirement for better athleticism which in turn requires a totally committed attitude that money no longer makes the game go around. In earlier days skill was enough to make a player make a huge difference to a team, hence why the highest bidders could win the league, now there is far more to it and managers like Mourinho just don't seem to have the skill set to find the right players in this new world of football.

[Number 6]

The traditional top teams being weaker does not make the league weaker. If you wanted to compare strength across leagues you'd need to let every position play its opposite number. Suspect the middle and lower middle reaches of the Prem would have a lot of joy.

[Lestoh]

It always gets me just how bad Man City are in European tournaments. Over the past few years they've torn apart the domestic league, but throw them in against a half-decent side from the continent and they're way out of their depth. Reality is that England has a lot of good teams, which imo gives it the status of the best league in the world, but it's missing those one or two amazing teams. Other leagues have those teams, and so other leagues have European title winners.

[Loggy88]

The premier league is better now because it is less predictable and more competitive, the big clubs find it harder now to win games against the smaller clubs, and that makes it much more exciting. We have the most entertaining league in the world and there's still plenty of quality football being played (especially by the foxes!)

[davieG]

Rather than sitting back and hanging on for a draw the 'other' teams are taking the game to them and the top teams are finding it a tad uncomfortable and in many cases being found out as not as good at defending as they thought they were when no one dared to test them.

[Viva]

The league is certainly entertaining and is probably the best to watch in the world. However the quality of the top 4 is far less than recent years which makes it much more interesting. 

 

Teams have lost the players that have been the heart of their team for years, such as Lampard, Gerrard & Ferdinand. Others players such as Rooney, and Terry are not a shadow of their old self. There are not many players from Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal that would get into their teams from 10 years ago. You could easily say no Man Utd players and only a couple of Chelsea. There might only be 3 or 4 at the most for Arsenal too.

Liverpool are certainly no better and that just leaves Man City, who are obviously stronger now but still have flaws when it comes to Europe.

[whetstonefox]

The national newspaper journalists are having to get used to doing research and visits to clubs outside the traditional top 4, perhaps shows weaker journalism than a weaker league

[Captain...]

I'm not really saying it's a negative formation wookie it's more that we can play against it well

 

There was an interesting point someone made on a podcast the other day, that 4231 was a revelation when it came in as it was all about playing in between the lines, targeting the space between the full back and the CB and the CB and CMs, and teams weren't used to that sort of movement, defenders were being pulled out of position and just couldn't adjust when they had been used to dealing with the main focus of attack being out wide crosses in to the big man and the little man sniffing round.

 

But now teams have worked it out and are countering with a defensive 4231 with the 2 sitting back to close the gaps pick up the runners so effectively it is 4 attackers against 6 defenders at both ends with the holding midfielders rarely joining the attack, full backs tucking in to close the space and 2 CBs are picking up 1 man. So they are starting to cancel each other out.

 

Then we start playing a 442/4411, look at Watford playing a similar formation with 2 centre forwards and 2 wide players and defenders can't cope as they are used to outnumbering the opposition every time, but the wide players are stretching the back line and with a 4231 the attacking wide players don't get back and defend, we are at times playing a 424 and with a player like Mahrez that can take 1 man out the game easily and quickly we then have the numbers to attack quickly. Also why Kante is so important, he has such an engine on him that he is supporting the attack and the defence at the same time.

[ARM1968]

Agreed all round. There might be some truth in the fact that the top teams are a little more inconsistent this year. Man Utd though have spent a quarter of a billion on players and yet look turgid and boring. Chelsea have imploded. Man City look brittle and Arsenal have key injuries to accommodate.

Yet a lot of their 'inconsistency ' can be explained by the other teams being better, fitter and more tactical in their approach. The attacking ethos shown by May 'smaller' sides is, as has been mentioned, stretching teams in ways they aren't used to.

Look at the way Chelsea topped their CL group. I think most teams in the EPL could give Europes big sides a real fright. That then adds extra pressure to the top EPL sides. They cannot just turn up anymore and win. They have to fight.

[fuchsntf]

The national newspaper journalists are having to get used to doing research and visits to clubs outside the traditional top 4, perhaps shows weaker journalism than a weaker league

Post of the day..

[shailen]

Let's be fair. The PL is probably the hardest league to predict out of all the domestic top leagues because the gap between the top clubs in England and the lesser clubs isn't so great. It's also that some of the lesser clubs play with no gear against the United's, Arsenals...etc. In other countries they play for the draw almost, playing a safe game. I definitely would say the bigger teams are not the same as they were 10 or so years ago, and the quality amongst them has definitely diminished. But that has been offset by the smaller clubs becoming stronger. 

 

The way I like to think about it is if at the end of the season, clubs played their respective club in the same position in the league from the other countries, we would come out on top as a whole. 

[Oxfordfox83]

Let's be fair. The PL is probably the hardest league to predict out of all the domestic top leagues because the gap between the top clubs in England and the lesser clubs isn't so great. It's also that some of the lesser clubs play with no gear against the United's, Arsenals...etc. In other countries they play for the draw almost, playing a safe game. I definitely would say the bigger teams are not the same as they were 10 or so years ago, and the quality amongst them has definitely diminished. But that has been offset by the smaller clubs becoming stronger.

The way I like to think about it is if at the end of the season, clubs played their respective club in the same position in the league from the other countries, we would come out on top as a whole.

I think that's probably true. I also think that if you switched the English champions with any other from Europe for a whole season, ours would flourish, while they'd struggle to keep their game raised every week.