Will top six dominance ruin the on-pitch product?

[KingsX]

Odd that it would be the NY Times targeting this issue in English sport.

Or is the story so obvious that UK media don’t bother to put it together?

The patient may seem in rude health but this is a potentially crippling disease.

Not light reading; but I hope it generates some discussion.

In a Top-Heavy Premier League, More Teams Rush to the Bunker

LIVERPOOL, England — There was a moment, a few minutes into the second half, that encapsulated it all. Not just this game and these teams, but what the Premier League has been this season, and what it might become.

 

A Manchester United attack had just broken down, and Everton’s defense had cleared the ball. Phil Jones, United’s central defender, collected the ball deep inside his own half. Oumar Niasse, Everton’s hardworking forward, chased him down. Jones hurried a pass to his teammate Marcos Rojo, whose touch was not entirely clean.

 

The boisterous Goodison Park crowd, scenting weakness, stirred. Niasse sprinted toward Rojo, but could not make it in time. The striker turned, expecting another blue shirt to bear down on Rojo and keep the pressure up. And then he stopped, exasperated. None of his teammates had even left their own half. Rojo strolled forward, unmolested, and United began to attack again.

 

A pattern has taken hold in the Premier League this season. This game was not the most egregious example of it in recent weeks — far from it — but there was nevertheless something eerily familiar about Manchester United’s visit to Everton: A sense that we had seen this game before, and that we would see it again, and again, in the weeks and months to come.

 

Goodison Park can be one of the most intimidating stadiums in England. It is raucous and rowdy, and just a little ramshackle. Everton is one of the country’s most history-laden teams. Its fans duly have certain expectations. One of them, perhaps, is that on home soil, Everton will assert itself, regardless of its opponent.

 

Yet on the first day of 2018, Sam Allardyce, the club’s freshly installed manager, sent his team out not to stand toe-to-toe with Manchester United, but simply to stand firm: to absorb pressure and cling on.

 

“Our attacking powers are limited,” Allardyce explained afterward. “I knew that before I arrived. If we can keep a clean sheet, then we know that one goal can get us a win. Our ratio of chances created is very limited.”

 

He is right, of course: Most Everton fans would accept that his team does not have the offensive firepower to match Manchester United. His employers certainly would — that is why Everton is preparing to spend $33 million on the Turkish striker Cenk Tosun. Allardyce’s attacking options are limited, a situation exacerbated by a grueling schedule of four games in ten days over the festive period. He was simply playing the hand he had been dealt.

 

In this instance, it was not enough. Though Everton crackled sporadically into life after Anthony Martial gave United the lead, it did not muster a shot on target for the second home game in a row. The resistance lasted only until Jesse Lingard artfully sealed a 2-0 victory for the visitors in the 81st minute.

 

But what is most significant about Allardyce’s approach is that it is not a one-off, a measure he is employing for his specific circumstances. It is a very clear trend. Newcastle United provided perhaps the most obvious case study against Manchester City — the Premier League’s runaway leader — on Wednesday.

 

From the kickoff, Newcastle midfielder Jonjo Shelvey took a shot from inside his own half that was easily fielded by City’s goalkeeper. As the ball was in the air, Shelvey’s teammates retreated a few feet, and then prepared for an evening in the trenches.

 

As Gary Neville, commentating that night, said, Newcastle “did not want to get involved” with trying to assert itself against Manager Pep Guardiola’s team. Instead, Newcastle Manager Rafael Benítez opted for what could be described at best as containment, and at worst as appeasement.

 

As with Everton, a kind eye might suggest it nearly worked — Newcastle gave up just one goal and was in the game until the end, unlike many of City’s victims this season. A less generous interpretation would point out that Guardiola’s team missed a raft of chances, and easily could have been ahead by 2 or 3 at half time.

 

More extreme still was Stoke City’s approach at Chelsea on Saturday. Mark Hughes, Stoke’s manager, sent out a drastically weakened team at Stamford Bridge with the aim of saving his best side for Monday’s meeting with Newcastle, a direct rival in the battle to avoid relegation. (The ploy failed twice: Stoke was beaten 5-0 by Chelsea, and then went and lost to Newcastle anyway.)

 

This is not to single out Hughes, Allardyce and Benitez: This has been the defining characteristic of this Premier League season. When the vast majority of the division’s lesser lights face one of its more illustrious members, they first cede possession, then initiative, and finally agency.

 

Occasionally, even the elite succumb to the temptation, as United and José Mourinho did when confronted with Guardiola and City last month.

 

It would be misleading to suggest any of this is new. A joke used to make the rounds at Anfield, when Liverpool was England’s pre-eminent team. “For those of you watching in black and white,” it went, “Liverpool is the team with the ball.” The set-up dates it to the days when television was not yet in color. It has always been this way: The best teams monopolize possession, which means their opponents have always focused on damage limitation.

 

And sometimes, like Stoke did, they have decided that the gap is simply too wide to bridge, and have left their fate in the hands of fortune. In 2009, when Manchester United was the league’s dominant force, Mick McCarthy, then the manager of Wolves, made 10 changes to his team for a game at Old Trafford. His decision forced the Premier League to alter its rules regarding the fielding of weakened teams.

 

The difference lies in both the scale and the ramifications of the problem. The Premier League has long sold itself as the most competitive league in the world, as a division where might does not make right, in which teams never know when they are beaten, where the emphasis is always on attacking.

 

That notion is central to the marketing that has made it such a fearsome, global success. The fans, of course, also play a crucial role, providing the sense of occasion that accompanies every game: the full stands, the echoing songs, the electric atmosphere.

 

Both, though, are threatened by the idea that all anyone outside the league’s Big Six —the Manchester clubs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool — can hope to do when confronting them is endure.

 

In part, simplistic as it sounds, that is because there are six of them. When Manchester United — or the great Arsenal or Chelsea sides of earlier this century — “had opponents beaten in the tunnel,” as Hughes, a former United player, once said, only one or two teams inspired such fear. Now, with six, there are weekends when the majority of Premier League games follow the same pattern. That jeopardizes the uncertainty that has become the league’s calling card.

 

Just as important, it serves to muffle the fans. “It is hard for the crowd to engage,” Neville said of Newcastle’s supporters during the game against City. Goodison Park was quieter than usual, too, for much of United’s visit. Watching what amounts to a training exercise — one attack against one defense — offers precious little reason to cheer.

 

It is an issue that is often framed in moral terms, as though those managers who veer towards caution are in some way abrogating their sporting duty. The alternative, when faced with teams with vastly superior players and resources, remains unclear.

 

Besides, much more pressing is the more practical side of it. There may come a time when we feel we have all seen this game before, and will see it again. At that point, some may ask the question: Where is the thrill in watching?

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/sports/soccer/premier-league-top-six.html

 

 

 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

I think basically our title win in 15/16 ruined football. Instead of giving the smaller clubs hope, it just made the big clubs realise how complacent they had become. They subsequently reinvested and retooled their squads. Now clubs outside the top 6 are just trying to avoid relegation again, and won't get a sniff of success unless the big clubs become complacent again (which probably won't happen for a few generations, if at all).

[Countryfox]

 

All other clubs in the entire league should be disbanded and everyone made to support one of the top 6 teams. All grounds should hold 50,000 fans max for a bit of atmosphere and everybody else would have to watch on sky tv eating a sky prawn sandwich. 

[SheppyFox]

Funny though how we outside of the top 6/4 consider those above to be so good, and yet there is only one English team even remotely close to the European Elite.

 

The gulf between Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and especially Arsenal in comparison to Bayern, Real, Atletico, Barcelona, Juventus, PSG is absolutely massive. Their performances against said clubs are an embarrassment to English football.

 

[davieG]

The Champions League is also a vital factor not only does it encourage the existence of an elite but it also financially supports it's existence and it's virtual closed shop.

 

 

[davieG]

2 minutes ago, SheppyFox said:

Funny though how we outside of the top 6/4 consider those above to be so good, and yet there is only one English team even remotely close to the European Elite.

 

The gulf between Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and especially Arsenal in comparison to Bayern, Real, Atletico, Barcelona, Juventus, PSG is absolutely massive. Their performances against said clubs are an embarrassment to English football.

 

That in itself gives them the justification for being given more money so that they can compete, well so they say.

[tom27111]

Top 4 = Champions League qualification. Therefore, give price money for place 1-4 for 17-20.

 

Then the most money goes to 5th placed team, gradually going down the table.

 

There's enough reward for coming first, as there is 2nd to fourth.

 

A similar idea to how American sports use the draft system.

 

You couldn't give the most money to 17th place, then scale it upwards as teams would want to come further down the table once they are safe. 

 

It's at least a little bit of a leveller.

[shade]

just do something drastic like cap the teams wages, yeah you can pay one player 250,000 a week but that leaves less for the rest of the squad.

[Livid]

40 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

I think basically our title win in 15/16 ruined football. Instead of giving the smaller clubs hope, it just made the big clubs realise how complacent they had become. They subsequently reinvested and retooled their squads. Now clubs outside the top 6 are just trying to avoid relegation again, and won't get a sniff of success unless the big clubs become complacent again (which probably won't happen for a few generations, if at all).

I feel exactly the same, it must have been quite humiliating for the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal to see us win the league after trying for years. They are all starting to flex their financial muscle again.

[1972 Fox]

43 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

I think basically our title win in 15/16 ruined football. Instead of giving the smaller clubs hope, it just made the big clubs realise how complacent they had become. They subsequently reinvested and retooled their squads. Now clubs outside the top 6 are just trying to avoid relegation again, and won't get a sniff of success unless the big clubs become complacent again (which probably won't happen for a few generations, if at all).

Well thank God it was us that interrupted the 'big 5' and won the title which may never happen again for a club of our size. We will have the memories of that season forever.

 

Purposely used the term 'big 5' as Tottenham don't deserve to be included with the other elite English clubs.

[davieG]

8 minutes ago, Livid said:

I feel exactly the same, it must have been quite humiliating for the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal to see us win the league after trying for years. They are all starting to flex their financial muscle again.

.....and that financial muscle comes from the Champions League.

[Leeds Fox]

10 minutes ago, Blue Fox 72 said:

Well thank God it was us that interrupted the 'big 5' and won the title which may never happen again for a club of our size. We will have the memories of that season forever.

 

Purposely used the term 'big 5' as Tottenham don't deserve to be included with the other elite English clubs.

 

I agree. Once Kane and Alli leave, they’ll start to slide. 

 

They have some really talented players but they won’t be good enough to compete with the best on the field and in the transfer market. 

[reynard]

It already has.

Media distortion in favour of the top 6, more money all the time, completely obscene tranfer fees and wages. Basically everyone else is pretty much playing to avoid relegation. Our win was a once in a hundred years type of thing and unfortunatley has just meant the top 6 spend even more obscene amounts of money and players are happy just to sit on the bench etc. and in most clubs young British talent doesn't get a look in.

[Livid]

36 minutes ago, davieG said:

.....and that financial muscle comes from the Champions League.

Which their participation in leads to increased merchandise sales world-wide, subscribers to their TV channels etc which just gives them more revenue.

 

It's a not so vicious circle for them.

 

[Foxxed]

I read about 30% of that article. Nicely written. Seemed to make a decent point. But what sort of **** says "on pitch product"? What are we doing, selling a product or enjoying a game of football. Nobheads.

[Donut]

Not really interested in reading the article.

 

Some teams are better than others. Thats it.

 

Some teams are richer than others. Thats it.

 

 

[CosbehFox]

To answer the OP’s question, it’s written by Rory Smith whose a British journalist hired by the NYT. He’s excellent and his dad is from Leicester.

[funkyrobot]

8 hours ago, Donut said:

Not really interested in reading the article.

 

Some teams are better than others. Thats it.

 

Some teams are richer than others. Thats it.

 

 

Some girls are bigger than others

Some girls are bigger than others

Some girls mothers are bigger than other girls mothers

[HighPeakFox]

Yes. And the fact that we are now being asked to consider football as 'product' tells its own story.

[Vacamion]

22 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

To answer the OP’s question, it’s written by Rory Smith whose a British journalist hired by the NYT. He’s excellent and his dad is from Leicester.

 

I already found it difficult to accept that someone would write an article about the dominance of the "big 6" without mentioning that Leicester City briefly and thrillingly smashed that dominance two years ago.

 

Now you tell us that the author's dad is from Leicester, it makes it even weirder that we were not mentioned in the article.