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dizlexik wrote:

nixxxon wrote:Congrats to Leicester. Not sure if its because of their own merits, or because the usual top teams have been all terrible.
I have the feeling that the EPL level has decreased a lot. Just look at how City (last english team remaining in the CL) fell to Madrid in the CL. Madrid played a pretty bad match yet they looked comfortable

Not necessary, aren't EPL clubs playing more matches than other major leagues clubs? Also competition might be tougher in EPL tha in La Liga, so for example Madrid might use reserve squad in in league, than use their main players in Europe.

Not in the League itself, but they have the FA Cup and the League Cup to compete in, and no winter break. Not sure about the German Cup, but for sure in the Copa del Rey, anyone still in with a chance of winning a major title plays their kids and reserves.

I do think the overall standard of the PL is while lower at the absolute top, closer from top to bottom. In the Bundesliga you have Bayern, Dortmund and one other, between Gladbach, Schalke and Leverkusen depending on the season. You also have Bayern going in 0-1 down to Wolfsburg who at the time were title contenders, to score 5 goals in 9 minutes to win 5-1.
La Liga has Real and Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, and if we're lucky Valencia or Villarreal. End of August, Real Madrid won 5-0 at home, and then 6-0 away (and then 4-0 in the CL), and they've won 5-0 and 6-0 apart from those in the league (and 7-1 and 10-2).
You don't see those kinds of scores in the PL regularly, they're the kind of thing the club makes a dvd of and Sky Sports hype for 20 years.

medgar wrote:there's a reason why the likes of Messi and Ronaldo can put up ludicrous goal totals year after year.

I'd say that reason is... they are probably the two best players in the world in two of the best teams. And then you have Suarez. If I'm not wrong he scored similar number of goals in both leagues.

huggybear wrote:
Not in the League itself, but they have the FA Cup and the League Cup to compete in, and no winter break. Not sure about the German Cup, but for sure in the Copa del Rey, anyone still in with a chance of winning a major title plays their kids and reserves.

I do think the overall standard of the PL is while lower at the absolute top, closer from top to bottom. In the Bundesliga you have Bayern, Dortmund and one other, between Gladbach, Schalke and Leverkusen depending on the season. You also have Bayern going in 0-1 down to Wolfsburg who at the time were title contenders, to score 5 goals in 9 minutes to win 5-1.
La Liga has Real and Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, and if we're lucky Valencia or Villarreal. End of August, Real Madrid won 5-0 at home, and then 6-0 away (and then 4-0 in the CL), and they've won 5-0 and 6-0 apart from those in the league (and 7-1 and 10-2).
You don't see those kinds of scores in the PL regularly, they're the kind of thing the club makes a dvd of and Sky Sports hype for 20 years.

The League Cup and FA Cup are becoming more of an afterthought. Much more of an afterthought than the Copa del Rey to the likes of Barca and Atletico, anyway. Through in the World Club Championship, and so on, and the amount of games can't become an excuse. Messi & Ronaldo went through a spell of playing every minute of every game...

Spanish teams have consistently outperformed the English clubs for a while now. There was a crazy stat before the Liverpool game last night that Spanish clubs had played in something like 33 knockout ties this season against non-Spanish clubs, and all of them had progressed. Before Liverpool, the only teams to knock Spanish clubs out were other Spanish clubs.

I do think things will change soon, the EPL TV Money is just absolutely mental so they should have more strength in depth. Also suspect the coaching changes throughout England will begin to reap rewards and a generation to rival Spain/German national teams will come through (as a Scot, I dread this thought ). Throw in the Pep effect, a likely Mourinho return and Pochi likely managing a top club and they should be able to get themselves back up there though.

The 3 superclubs are Madrid, Barca & Bayern though and it'll stay that way for a while. Man Utd should really be spoke about on the same level, but for some reason they never really managed to find a period of European dominance and blew their position towards the end of Ferguson's reign (and got much, much worse thereafter).

nixxxon wrote:

medgar wrote:there's a reason why the likes of Messi and Ronaldo can put up ludicrous goal totals year after year.

I'd say that reason is... they are probably the two best players in the world in two of the best teams. And then you have Suarez. If I'm not wrong he scored similar number of goals in both leagues.

Yep - the other very obvious argument against this is they've also put up ludicrous goal totals in the Champions League. They don't get that via a weak La Liga.

In the League: Suarez at Liverpool scored 31 goals in 33 games, and I believe took no penalties. Suarez at Barcelona has 35 goals in 33 games. I don't know exactly how many penalties he's scored, but he's had a couple and is playing for a much stronger side than Liverpool.

30 league goals has been managed 4 times in the last 15 years in the PL, by Henry (30), van persie (30), Ronaldo (31) and Suarez (31). World class players barely managed 30 goals, and none did it more than once. Suarez' season for Liverpool is historically an outlier season, hence it bought him a massive move abroad. In each of those years there were rarely additional teammates scoring for fun unlike Barca this year where where all 3 attacking players are scoring 25+. For the last 7 years in La Liga 30 goals has been reached 12 times and the top scorers totals in each year: 32, 34, 40, 50, 46, 31, 48.

Barca and Madrid both routinely rack up 100+ goal seasons now and 90+ point seasons are the norm. The league is massively top heavy, the finances are too skewed for the lower sides to be that competitive. The Champions League isn't all that different now either, at least prior to the quarter finals. Away games are usually tricky but in the group stages both sides put away 15-20 goals a season regularly.

Even with all the money the top premier league clubs will struggle to attract the absolute top, top players. Why would a player want to play in the premier league and have to slog it out week after week when they can play for Bayern, PSG, Real or Barcelona and just cruise through most of the games picking up bigger plaudits.

I think we have seen when players with big reputations move to the premier league they often struggle whilst the top premier league players that move abroad usually kick on - Suarez, Bale, Ronaldo, Modric etc.

I think the difficulty of the premier league is often underrated. It's far easier to look world class in any of the other major leagues hence premier league players not getting a look into FIFA's team's of the year etc.

I didn't see the referee show John Terry a second yellow card, I only saw the red one and, frankly, I think the tackle deserved a straight red. I'm reading everywhere that it was a second yellow so what really happened?

Also, what are the rules about suspension for red cards? Is it one for a red, three for a straight red, one for each red of the season?

If it was a second yellow (I Think the graphic showed that?) it will be a 2 game ban because it was JT's second red of the season. If that is the case it could have been his last game ever in CFC. Really sad.

flyboy10 wrote:I didn't see the referee show John Terry a second yellow card, I only saw the red one and, frankly, I think the tackle deserved a straight red. I'm reading everywhere that it was a second yellow so what really happened?

Also, what are the rules about suspension for red cards? Is it one for a red, three for a straight red, one for each red of the season?

As I understand it it's usually one match per red card for the season, or an automatic three for violent conduct. The FA can lengthen the ban if they feel the offence was worthy of further punishment though.

medgar wrote:30 league goals has been managed 4 times in the last 15 years in the PL, by Henry (30), van persie (30), Ronaldo (31) and Suarez (31). World class players barely managed 30 goals, and none did it more than once. Suarez' season for Liverpool is historically an outlier season, hence it bought him a massive move abroad. In each of those years there were rarely additional teammates scoring for fun unlike Barca this year where where all 3 attacking players are scoring 25+. For the last 7 years in La Liga 30 goals has been reached 12 times and the top scorers totals in each year: 32, 34, 40, 50, 46, 31, 48.

Barca and Madrid both routinely rack up 100+ goal seasons now and 90+ point seasons are the norm. The league is massively top heavy, the finances are too skewed for the lower sides to be that competitive. The Champions League isn't all that different now either, at least prior to the quarter finals. Away games are usually tricky but in the group stages both sides put away 15-20 goals a season regularly.

Henry's scoring record at Arsenal was more impressive than at Barcelona. RVP was never an absolute top tier player (consistently challenging for Balon D'Ors). Ronaldo got even better after leaving Man Utd. Suarez has just continued what he finished off at Liverpool.

There's no doubt that more recently the EPL has become more competitively balanced than La Liga, but the 'big' EPL clubs consistently underachieving plays its part in this too. There's a reason Spanish clubs are consistently competing in European Finals recently - they're better.

The only comparison we can draw is in European Competition. Not got time to figure out Qualifying/Groups/Knockout or even Champions League versus UEFA/Europa - but here's some top line stats - my assumption for all of these player is the vast majority of European record comes from the CL:
Thierry Henry: Arsenal - 0.69 Goals per game in league; 0.5 Goals per game in Europe
Thierry Henry: Barcelona - 0.44 Goals per game in league; 0.3 Goals per game in Europe
Van Persie: pickle+Utd - 0.51 Goals per game in league; 0.42 Goals per game in Europe
Ronaldo: Man Utd - 0.43 Goals per game in league; 0.29 Goals per game in Europe
Ronaldo: Madrid - 1.10 Goals per game in league; 1.05 Goals per game in Europe
Messi: Barcelona - 0.90 Goals per game in league; 0.78 Goals per game in Europe

If there is a gulf in European competition, why didn't Henry & Van Persie take advantage of it and have tremendous European scoring records? If the gulf is in La Liga, how are they managing to carry than goalscoring record over to Europe? It can't work both ways.

I think it's a combination - mainly, as you say, Messi/Ronaldo are simply better players playing for better teams. I also think English clubs suffer from lack of a winter break and the more physical nature of the league, there's less incentive to dominate in the early stages of the CL (where the gulf is biggest) and not overly taxing players throughout the season is more of a concern. (Fergie was very good at this, the likes of Rooney/Ronaldo never played a full PL season while he was there). The physicality is possibly also why it has historically been harder for teams or players to sustain the ridiculously good years that they occasionally have. I totally agree the the current state of the PL is a mixture of top clubs being weaker, which is made to look even more so by the rest of the league strengthening.

tbh, my first post was more a throwaway line in response to this:

nixxxon wrote:No they arent playing more matches.
All the results and stats suggest that la liga is the toughest league, it has 3 out of the 5 top teams in the world and only bayern is at their level or similar. No one can afford to use the full reserve squad because it would be a guaranteed loss

The idea that Madrid or Barca couldn't afford to rest players (particularly in home games) when both put up +60-90 GD each year is bizarre to say the least.

Well done West Ham fans. You go the final result you wanted at your old ground.

Of course, vandalising the Man United bus as it arrived and then throwing Bananas at Martial during the match was a class finish!

I'm disgusted this goes on still. Humans are pathetic.

Typical Man Utd. Just when I need them to do us a favour (and they have next season's Champions League hanging on this result) them put out and absolutely garbage performance like that. Without Martial and De Gea, they would be bottom half.

Also, the media coverage of this is truly nauseating.

If BBC is to be believed, The Special One has got his long-standing wish to play Ferguson 2.0.

Pretty baffling decision to be honest; one would think if there was one person anathema to everything 'The United Way' stood for, it's Mourinho. Wonder why they didn't try to get Ancelotti while he was still available.

United may win trophies in the next few years, but unless Mourinho has completely changed in the last few months, this doesn't bode well long-term. Mata and the academy youngsters would probably be looking at the door already.

As an AFC Wimbledon fan, today is a great, great day

Euro 2016 got off to an interesting start last night. France are in real trouble if they have aspirations of winning it, because their fullbacks are absolutely shocking. Evra and Sagna were good players once upon a time, but now they are too old and it really, really shows.

I'm no football fan but that I switched channel to watch Germany vs Ukraine is really telling how much this strategy racing is boring me. The European tournament is pretty good so far.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=49z05fP0UHU

What did I just watch? it's not even close to discrete!

How come the referee gave Portugal nearly two extra minutes to take two free kicks at the end of the game against Iceland? If time is up, that's tough. He's only supposed to allow time for a penalty kick, not for other free kicks.

Once again a referee allows an extra 20 seconds for a free kick at the end of the game (Germany Poland). It's time for football matches to be timed by an official match clock and for the viewers/spectators to have better access to the periods of stoppage donkey decided by the timer of by the referee with a wireless device on his wrist.

flyboy10 wrote:Once again a referee allows an extra 20 seconds for a free kick at the end of the game (Germany Poland). It's time for football matches to be timed by an official match clock and for the viewers/spectators to have better access to the periods of stoppage donkey decided by the timer of by the referee with a wireless device on his wrist.

I'm not an avid follower of football by any means, but isn't the additional stoppage time that is shown just the minimum extra time, while the referee can add on more for any additional stoppages.

If it was just timed out by the clock it would be easy for a player to go down and fake an injury to stop play while the clock counts down.

The stoppage time shown on the illuminated boards is certainly a minimum and this can appear to stretch if there are further stoppages during the added time while there is still time left to play. It's not obvious why the amount of added time is always shown as an integer figure as it is virtually impossible for the amount of stoppages to add up to exactly a whole number of minutes. As far as I know, it's not that they fully intend to add 3mins 20 secs (for example) but they simply don't tell us about the 20 seconds. If this is the case, they need to make I more clear.

However, there are only certain things for which the referee should stop his watch and a direct free kick is not one of them, any more than a throw-in or a corner kick is one - with the exception of a penalty kick. If the clock didn't naturally run down while waiting for free kicks to be taken, there would be no need for the ruling which states that time must be allowed for a penalty kick as there would still be time for a penalty kick since the clock would be stopped. This is not the case. A penalty kick may be taken after time has run out would be allowed as an extra last kick of the game beyond normal time.

Faking an injury would not allow the clock to run down since this is one of the things for which the referee is allowed to stop the clock and is the reason why we get "added" time at the end of each half.

It was interesting that there was no added time at the end of the first half of the Germany Poland game this evening but three minutes at the end plus another 30 odd seconds which appeared to have come from nowhere. I didn't see any incident in the added three minutes which would have warranted going over the three minutes.

Black_Flag_11 wrote:

flyboy10 wrote:Once again a referee allows an extra 20 seconds for a free kick at the end of the game (Germany Poland). It's time for football matches to be timed by an official match clock and for the viewers/spectators to have better access to the periods of stoppage donkey decided by the timer of by the referee with a wireless device on his wrist.

I'm not an avid follower of football by any means, but isn't the additional stoppage time that is shown just the minimum extra time, while the referee can add on more for any additional stoppages.

If it was just timed out by the clock it would be easy for a player to go down and fake an injury to stop play while the clock counts down.

That's very true. I was kind of watching the Germany Poland game whilst reading so didn't watch the time added on carefully. However, the extra time shown by the forth official is always the minimum amount that will be played. The ref can add time on for injuries, if the ball boys take an excessive amount of time returning a ball in to play, 30 seconds for any substitutions and whatever they feel for general time wasting.

Also, if there is a free kick just before the time the ref is allowing is about to finish, the ref is allowed to add extra for that free kick. Same for a corner. If this was not the case, a player could foul someone intentionally with seconds remaining and the team could then spend time complaining, failing to get 10 yards away from the ball and other time wasting techniques to run the clock down. The ref can add what they like on to allow the kick to take place.

It's frustrating when it's your team defending a scoreline, but perfectly allowed.

I feel that there should be a clock permanently on display to the players and crowd during a game and that the remaining time may be adjusted and the clock may be stopped (rather than adding time or reaching the 90 mins and playing more at the end). It just seems that there is far too much room for referees to get it wrong (deliberately or otherwise) and for the actual amount of time remaining to be hidden from the players and spectators thereby causing suspicion over whether the referee is allowing too much time.

Another thing that I think is wrong about the way referees bring a game to full time is that they always seem to allow an attack rather than breaking it because time is up. Why should an attacking team get an extra three seconds to put the ball in the net or to take a shot if they didn't advance far enough up the field in the time that was left or they delayed putting in a cross or playing a through ball?

flyboy10 wrote:I feel that there should be a clock permanently on display to the players and crowd during a game and that the remaining time may be adjusted and the clock may be stopped (rather than adding time or reaching the 90 mins and playing more at the end). It just seems that there is far too much room for referees to get it wrong (deliberately or otherwise) and for the actual amount of time remaining to be hidden from the players and spectators thereby causing suspicion over whether the referee is allowing too much time.

Another thing that I think is wrong about the way referees bring a game to full time is that they always seem to allow an attack rather than breaking it because time is up. Why should an attacking team get an extra three seconds to put the ball in the net or to take a shot if they didn't advance far enough up the field in the time that was left or they delayed putting in a cross or playing a through ball?

Clive Thomas (in)famously didn't:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0JFuWqwFg4

Well, I happen to think Thomas was right. I watched that game live when it was first broadcast and it was refreshing to see a referee keeping time quite strictly. To be the team on the receiving end if he'd allowed that to stand would have been very harsh indeed and it's that kind of thing that we can never be sure about if the way that timekeeping is managed doesn't become more open and obvious.

And, as I write, Mark Clattenburg blows his whistle just as one team is about to take a corner kick. Things are looking up

Apart from for hand-ball, why do you have to fall over for it to be a penalty?

What will Brexit do to the Premier League? Obviously the only change in the short term has to do with the sterling/euro exchange rates, but in two years..... thoughts?

Its not often that sequels are better than the originals but I thought Brexit 2 was brilliantly tragic.

Edit: Just realised it doesn't work because Wales are still in it, dammit!

Really impressed by small Iceland! seeing their previous games I really thought it was possible they could upset England. Now I hope they finish off France. Also possible imo.

The borderline arrogance from English football pundits before the game was pretty annoying. In the build-up, a lot of them were pegging Iceland as low-quality (and celebrating having avoided Portugal) and almost presumed a victory before a ball was kicked. The match-day commentary was no less, the English commentators went ballistic saying how the early goal is a sign of a walk-in-the-park. Oh how I'd have loved to watch their red faces 15 mins later.

Even post-match comments were qualified with rejoinders of Iceland's lack of quality. Chris Waddle dissed England's prima-donnas and said "I wouldn't pay to watch Iceland" in the same sentence.

The same guys (Rio Ferdinand et al.) who were acting all enthusiastic before the Euros, are now lining up to condemn with retrospective "we knew it was a disaster to begin with" prophecies.

No wonder the English football team is a victim of its own hype, everyone in/around English football seems to be so why not the players?

Build 'em up, knock 'em down. Pretty standard for the English media and pundits when it comes to our national football team.

Also how awesome is that Iceland chant? It's like a damn battle cry, brutal and piercing.

Black_Flag_11 wrote:Also how awesome is that Iceland chant? It's like a damn battle cry, brutal and piercing.

Football's All Blacks. Awesome.

SnakeSVT2003 wrote:What will Brexit do to the Premier League? Obviously the only change in the short term has to do with the sterling/euro exchange rates, but in two years..... thoughts?

Almost nothing. Foreign nationals will still be able to be employed in the UK on the basis that the job they are employed to do can't be done by a UK national. I.e. could any UK national do the same job that Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo is employed to do?

Pick any other foreign player currently in the UK, any team could argue they are simply the best available person for the job and nobody from the UK has the skills. They'd be right, too!

So Zlatan to Manchester United.. Zlatan and Mourinho against Pep and Man C should be really interesting. Hope no one gets killed.

Well, is the world coming to an end? Thomas Mueller scores 20 goals in the Bundesliga and can't score one in the 2016 Euros. To top it all he becomes the first German to miss a penalty in a shoot out since they were introduced into international competition 1982 - closely followed by Mesut Oezil and Bastian Schweinsteiger. The only Germans ever to miss in a shoot out and they all came along together like a bad bus service.

flyboy10 wrote:

SnakeSVT2003 wrote:What will Brexit do to the Premier League? Obviously the only change in the short term has to do with the sterling/euro exchange rates, but in two years..... thoughts?

Almost nothing. Foreign nationals will still be able to be employed in the UK on the basis that the job they are employed to do can't be done by a UK national. I.e. could any UK national do the same job that Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo is employed to do?

Pick any other foreign player currently in the UK, any team could argue they are simply the best available person for the job and nobody from the UK has the skills. They'd be right, too!

Agree on this, but I do wonder how the exchange rate will impact. Compared to a year ago, a £500k per week offer to Ronaldo would now be worth 15% less to him.

Swings and roundabouts as it feels like the GBP to EURO is back where it had been previously to that, but its likely to impact somewhat. Also curious how payments are made to clubs - most player transfer deals are done in Euros, but how do the TV companies pay the EPL?

Ennis wrote:

flyboy10 wrote:

SnakeSVT2003 wrote:What will Brexit do to the Premier League? Obviously the only change in the short term has to do with the sterling/euro exchange rates, but in two years..... thoughts?

Almost nothing. Foreign nationals will still be able to be employed in the UK on the basis that the job they are employed to do can't be done by a UK national. I.e. could any UK national do the same job that Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo is employed to do?

Pick any other foreign player currently in the UK, any team could argue they are simply the best available person for the job and nobody from the UK has the skills. They'd be right, too!

Agree on this, but I do wonder how the exchange rate will impact. Compared to a year ago, a £500k per week offer to Ronaldo would now be worth 15% less to him.

Swings and roundabouts as it feels like the GBP to EURO is back where it had been previously to that, but its likely to impact somewhat. Also curious how payments are made to clubs - most player transfer deals are done in Euros, but how do the TV companies pay the EPL?

Transfer fees will make no real difference due to the obscene amount of money the PL gets from SKY/BT.
Where it gets interesting is that UK teams won't be able to sign EU players under the age of 18. Given that Pogba, Pique, Bellerin, Fabregas, Matic, Robert Huth, Adnan Januzaj, Szczesny, Bendtner, Larsson, amongst others all started in English academies, they've had a big impact on football, and those kinds of players will be going to clubs like Ajax and Barcelona instead.