Diaby is still around? Wow.
Wilshire, Shaw and Sturridge have to be careful to not end up like him.
Wilshire, Shaw and Sturridge have to be careful to not end up like him.
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2015/16 Football/Soccer thread
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As if any other Premier League Teams have / had better midfields then Scholes / Giggs.Thanks Brock Obama said:
Yes Arsenal won two titles ages ago, just like Valencia did. Both in the same years and both struggle to be a title contender in the last years and usually finished top 4. Yes Manchester City somewhat took the place of United after Fergie's departure, but any team not named Chelsea or Man City winning the PL in the next years will be an upset.
But of course it's true that the Premier League is much closer, due to the lack of world class teams. This doesn't change the fact that considering the quality of plays the spanish La Liga is obviously the best. The teams on top of the league are better and also the "medicore" teams like Athletic Club or Sevilla show in the Europa League that they miles ahead of the english equivalents. You might argue that the teams at the bottom of the league are better in England, but since they are not competing against each other no one can proof anything here.
I'm not saying the PL is boring, I'm just saying that it is nowhere near the best league of the world.
This is one year, if Leicester manages to win it in the end you can compare that to Stuttgart winning the Bundesliga in 06/07. An underdog winning due to heavily underperforming top teams. I doubt that they will be able to perform like this again and expect Chelsea and City to be dominant in the future. Ligue une title race was very close last year (much closer than the one in England btw), but is the excat opposite this year. One year is not enough close to be enough of a sample to show anything.
So which teams have been talked to win the PL this season? The FC "we always finish 4h" Arsenal? Tottenham "nowhere close to win the title since ages" Hotspurs? Louis van Gaal's super consistent Manchester United? The FC Liverpool, which showed already in 14/15 how they could compensate Suarez leaving without losing any quality? Leicester City?
No one really expected one of those teams to win the league. The only serious contenders were Manchester City and Chelsea. And they most likely will be the favourites next year. Probably City above everyone else because of Guardiola and maybe some Manchester United depending on which coach they can get.
HBK
Subtlety is my middle name
Why do you even bother ffs, everyone knows that the BPL is the most entertaining, not the best (and not being the best is actually a major contributor to that) and those that don't are better left ignored.
The tactical innovations have always come from mainland Europe so PL teams have always been behind. But the average PL team is much stronger than the average team from other leagues right now. We can speculate why PL teams do badly in European competition. One reason could be the lack of a winter break. Another reason could be the fact that the PL don't reschedule league matches in order to give their teams an extra day of rest and preparation for the upcoming European match. In my opinion the biggest reason is simply that money talks and the PL is by far the most cash-rich league which means teams that compete in it will prioritise it over all other competitions. We see this in the approach of PL teams when it comes to the Europa league, it's just a joke the kind of second string teams clubs put out. In the CL the effect is less obvious but I think we have seen down the years that PL managers even prioritise the PL over the CL like Wenger playing Sanogo against Bayern or Rodgers playing a second string against Real Madrid. Pellegrini has never rested Aguero for a PL match that is scheduled close to a CL match, he always rests him in the CL match, it's unbelievable. When the rewards from the PL are so much higher than every other competition, it becomes a problem of priorities. On the other hand, a team like PSG or Bayern can focus all of their effort on the CL. They buy their domestic rivals' best players and the culmination of their season is testing themselves in European competition.
IMO the PL is a victim of its own success. Its fair and even distribution of prize money means Bournemouth is richer than Ajax and when you look at the squads of midtable and even relegation teams in the PL, they look very strong. Stoke signing Shaqiri is probably the biggest sign yet that the PL has become something like a super league where even small teams can afford to attract star names. Newcastle outspending the Bundesliga shows how warped the football landscape has become. The success of the PL has kind of devalued European competition, so much so that top European clubs are talking about forming their own super league in order to create balance (and obviously make more money for themselves). This gap will only get bigger in future and PL teams will become more and more like a super league unless they can successfully redesign the CL. Because of the popularity of the PL, whether its teams do well in European competition matters less and less to the clubs with each passing year.
IMO the PL is a victim of its own success. Its fair and even distribution of prize money means Bournemouth is richer than Ajax and when you look at the squads of midtable and even relegation teams in the PL, they look very strong. Stoke signing Shaqiri is probably the biggest sign yet that the PL has become something like a super league where even small teams can afford to attract star names. Newcastle outspending the Bundesliga shows how warped the football landscape has become. The success of the PL has kind of devalued European competition, so much so that top European clubs are talking about forming their own super league in order to create balance (and obviously make more money for themselves). This gap will only get bigger in future and PL teams will become more and more like a super league unless they can successfully redesign the CL. Because of the popularity of the PL, whether its teams do well in European competition matters less and less to the clubs with each passing year.
La Liga doesn't have a winter break and iirc it's only the french league. Also Rodgers doesn't start his best eleven against Real because he doesn't care, but because he knows he has no chance to win anyways. And giving players a break is something every top team does.
You just can't deny that the level of plays in the PL is lower than in Spain and Germany. After watching Bayern-Dortmund "top matches" like City vs United are giving you eye cancer and look more like Hamburg vs Bremen.
You just can't deny that the level of plays in the PL is lower than in Spain and Germany. After watching Bayern-Dortmund "top matches" like City vs United are giving you eye cancer and look more like Hamburg vs Bremen.
I can by looking at the whole picture and not at the top 10 clubs in world football, but the whole league. Koln vs Mainz or Liverpool vs Southampton? If I want to watch good football, I'll watch the latter, and that's the 9th vs 7th in each respective league.
Yeah the top 4/3 clubs in Germany and Spain are better than the best English clubs. But that quality rapidly declines throughout the rest of the league.
Yeah the top 4/3 clubs in Germany and Spain are better than the best English clubs. But that quality rapidly declines throughout the rest of the league.
The epl snatches up players from these supposed weaker teams in other leagues all the time. The quality of these lower teams in the foreign leagues is a lot higher than people want to admit
Wolfsburg finally win a match after failing to do so in their last seven, and their first in 2016. Meanwhile Bayern Munich almost have no center backs, rip Badstuber
also not all that long ago Stuttgart were in a relegation spot, now they're 10th after five straight victories.
Well there you go, Danny Welbeck coming back from the depths of who knows where to score a last gasp winner, makes the title race more interesting
Will never understand why LvG got rid of Welbeck and Hernandez.
Anyway, I am still enjoying tonight. What a difference Sturridge and Coutinho made although Villa were absolutely dire; even Kolo Toure scored against them. I can't even compare the awfulness of this side against Derby (when they first came up) and Sunderland (the season they finished with 11 points)
Anyway, I am still enjoying tonight. What a difference Sturridge and Coutinho made although Villa were absolutely dire; even Kolo Toure scored against them. I can't even compare the awfulness of this side against Derby (when they first came up) and Sunderland (the season they finished with 11 points)
still got 6 points to catch up on, and that loss doesnt help
Well Hernandez scores goals and we all know how much Van Gaal hates that
Oh champions league, how I've missed you
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