What might have been for wolves yourself and everton.....

[Finnegan]

Wolves, Everton and Leicester are where we are because we aren't good enough to be any higher. The table doesn't lie. 

 

It's easy to say we "should" have beaten those teams below us but there's a reason we consistently take points from better teams and consistently drop them against the dross. 

 

Beating a team parking the bus is much harder than BEING the team parking the bus. Beating teams like Man City and Arsenal at home with an effective high press and clinical counter attacks doesn't take a hugely creative team. 

 

Breaking down teams like Newcastle and Crystal Palace who refuse to actually leave their 18 yard box with their flat back 6 is a much different prospect. It requires patience and vision and accuracy of execution that's beyond Watford, Leicester, Wolves and Everton on a consistent basis. 

 

The way you tore through us at the Emirates in the second half, we can't do that. Ozil, Ramsey, Mhiki, Laca, Auba, they're all streets ahead of what we have at our disposal even if your defence is absolutely gash. 

 

Edited 25 April 2019 by Finnegan

[urban fox]

49 minutes ago, henrik_62 said:

This is very true and does my head in.

 

These clubs believe they are some sort of cartel now and think they have a god given right to Champions League football just because of their so called brand and balance sheet as opposed to getting there on merit by what they do on the park, which is how it should be.

 

Smacks of a spoiled toddler approach whereby they threaten to take their ball and go home and form their own league and what's worse UEFA pander to it year on year.

 

They should call their bluff and let these clubs go and do their own thing and they'd soon come crawling back when they release they have sold their souls to play what would be glorified friendlies, against the same sides year on year in places like China, the middle east and the US.

 

Rant over lol!

I genuinely think that if this happened it would actually be good for football in the UK in the long term.   Once the teams joining were locked in to a no promotion/relegation close shop and barred from all other domestic competitions I also think players would then see it as a career end pension fund much like china/US currently. In the meantime, the national leagues would all become far more competitive therefore generating far more interest amongst genuine supporters.   once the TV audiences dropped off after an initial honeymoon period when people got fed up of watching non competitive matches, the main source of income would suddenly be drastically reduced and they would all come crawling back with their tails between their legs, along with the TV companies also. The FA and other national associations of course should then have the bottle to demand that any clubs allowed back into their respective domestic leagues do so at the bottom (ALA Rangers in Scotland) and then lets see who would want to sign for them and how quickly the oil sheiks and oligarchs abandon ship. 

In fact the more I think about it the more it seems we should actively encourage them to do it.  Maybe then the league would go back to being played at 3pm on a Saturday, clubs could genuinely develop and then keep their local talent without the constant fear of poaching and everyone would be happy and intrigued to see how the likes of the so called current big 6 were getting on in their battle for play off places in the second division.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

In reality it's very hard to assemble a group of players who can combat all styles of football, without huge amounts of money to spend. And it's not that easy even with it (see Man U, Arsenal etc). 

I agree but shouldn't it be easier to play against limited opposition who have little interest in attacking? Park the bus seems to have worked much better this year, which hopefully will lead teams to finding new ways to unlock them. We need that bit of magic for those occasions.

[Lambert09]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

I agree but shouldn't it be easier to play against limited opposition who have little interest in attacking? Park the bus seems to have worked much better this year, which hopefully will lead teams to finding new ways to unlock them. We need that bit of magic for those occasions.

I do think the best solution is to play teams like this at their own game... a big sh*thouse striker whose going to be able to actually compete for the pointless knocks into the box. I honestly think had we had Leo (in his prime) this season we would have got results in these matches. Because defenders get caught in two minds, sit deep and nullify Vardy or play higher so that the ball isn’t consistently knocked at a lethal striker in the air. 

 

We missed a trick not going in for rondon when we let LU and IS leave.  

 

*this isn’t a ‘we should have kept Leo post, I’m just using him as an example

Edited 25 April 2019 by Lambert09

[Babylon]

59 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I agree but shouldn't it be easier to play against limited opposition who have little interest in attacking? Park the bus seems to have worked much better this year, which hopefully will lead teams to finding new ways to unlock them. We need that bit of magic for those occasions.

It's always worked, see Burnley, Stoke, West Brom etc. The problem is more and more teams are doing it, now you have the likes of Newcastle shit housing teams. The premier league is a massive bore fest in reality with half the teams only concerned with scraping a point no matter who they play. 

[whoareyaaa]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

I agree but shouldn't it be easier to play against limited opposition who have little interest in attacking? Park the bus seems to have worked much better this year, which hopefully will lead teams to finding new ways to unlock them. We need that bit of magic for those occasions.

We never play with two strikers that's one of the problems I think, instead we pack out the midfield and try playing through them never going work really.

[Muzzy_Larsson]

1 hour ago, whoareyaaa said:

We never play with two strikers that's one of the problems I think, instead we pack out the midfield and try playing through them never going work really.

Don't see that changing under Rodgers tbh.  He was quite vocal during his time with Celtic about how he liked numbers in midfield as that's where you can control the game.  Even at Liverpool when he had Suarez and Sturridge he would elect to play one of them a bit wider as opposed to two central strikers.

[Gamble92]

17 hours ago, shailen said:

Absolutely - Its very much these clubs wanting to become a monopoly to try and protect their power. In fact if anything like this is seriously proposed I would genuinely want the competition commission or the sporting equivalent to investigate as this is actually going to take the opportunity for clubs like us to ever compete with the so called big clubs.

 

Another thing for me which has to be looked at more seriously is FFP - how Man City or PSG especially are not complying with the rules or finding loopholes yet clubs like Birmingham doing a similar thing are given points deduction. The hypocrisy is scary and it could be deemed a case of one rule for the big clubs and another for everyone else.

FFP has done nothing more than ensure the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. 

 

How can you bring in a ruling with the idea of every team living within their means to ensure a leaving playing field and then have city and PSG spend over a billion on transfers? 

 

Liverpool and Man United you could make a case for and say their overall income at least warrants their spending to a degree. 

 

But its an absolute joke that the only teams we have seen punished for this are sides spending a matter of a few million more than their turnover. If Birmingham had just renamed their ground with their owners name for a deal in excess of £30m theyd be fine. It's exactly how Man City have easily got round it on a much bigger scale. 

[Gamble92]

18 hours ago, Nicolo Barella said:

Conversely, one could argue that because the likes of Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea etc increased the level in the league again, it enabled clubs like Everton, us, and Wolves to actually improve our own quality as we chased that level. Because the teams at the top of the table are now so much fuller with talent, they are less likely to poach our better players which gives us a bigger window of time to improve our squads. And thankfully, Arsenal and Spurs are too poor to directly poach players off of us consistently now, which means that realistically, only Chelsea and United pose a consistent threat to mid-table clubs in terms of buying players as Liverpool and City are already massively stacked. Also, aside the big La Liga clubs, no foreign clubs are likely to pay up for our players. This means that we can build up our quality again and hopefully, eventually, start challenging the Top 6 again.

I understand your point about the mid table sides becoming a bit stronger but i disagree that we have any more leverage in keeping them.

 

We are entering a period now for the first time wheres theres now a very much established top 6. The top 6 sides are now labelled as such by the media and the gap there has been between them and "the rest" has been huge all season. Suiting everyone involved with brand Premier League just fine. 

 

The formula is still very much the same though. We take a punt on Championship/risky foreign players, they perform well and a top 6 club displays enough interest and they eventually go. You can put up a fight (I.e mahrez) but they'll go. 

 

I'll be very suprised if we are allowed to build this current side for the next 3 years with every player we want to keep staying put.