2021-22 English Premier League Discussion Thread

[SgtPepper]

Arsenal doing so poorly can't be attributed to City considering they've never even been within breathing distance of a major title win over that time. Leicester, Tottenham, and Dortmund have accomplished more with less resources. I think Tottenham used their money best among the EPL sides last summer, and over the last 4 years only Liverpool has clearly done better from a financial efficiency pov.

Conversations here tend to miss the holistic financial storyline and how that skews and drives the stupider things you see on the pitch especially for clubs like Arsenal and Utd who built up their brand so much a decade ago and still manage to reap the benefits of it through recurrent revenue today despite being noncontinental football teams for 7 and 14 years respectively. Generally European football incentives are borked by how much more money big clubs can make running themselves as brand businesses, by raising cash from investors attracted to leagues with good growth prospectus and light regulations like the EPL, or raising debt by banks who are often willing to lend way more money to clubs than any FFP terms would even theoretically allow (PSG and Barca) rather than by building winning football franchises.

[wco81]

I don’t even think Pool paid that much for Salah and Alisson did they?

They were good players on a good but not even Serie A winning club. Then they come to the EPL and have a huge impact?

That wasn’t Klopp who predicted that those plaYers would bE great in the EPL right? There must have been scouts who monitored Roma and poached those players because Roma was and are willing sellers?

[danfantastk32]

Wow...reading the last 4-5 posts, and it's some good stuff. Good takes everyone.

On the CL stuff. I do think it's funny being called the "Champion's league" but the top 4 are allowed. (Revenue says hi!) But if Spurs can't go...then why should Liverpool? Liverpool are 1 title in, over about 30-some years. Another argument would be that Scotland has seen Celtic, or the Rangers win like 95 titles of the last century. I bet Tott hand both of them their ass on the same day. And Arsenal would as well. So whatever......it is what it is. The CL is clearly a revenue stream, and little more. So give it weight, or don't. It's there to be enjoyed / paid for. Anyone who reads my posts on the L'pool page know I put ENORMOUS stock in the Prem, compared to anything else...and stuff like this is why.

To SgtPepper's point....I am not a financial guy. I know Liverpool paid a good ransom for VVD....but had sold Coutinho for more than VVD and Allison combined. I don't know of any other major signing other than VVD. Yeah, we spend $30 mil here...$40 mil there. And while thats alot compared to a huge portion of FIFA......I don't know where it sits compared to Tott, and it's certainly peanuts compared to PSG of late, and Man-City, and Madrid...etc. Tott certainly has been a better club with their money. You don't hear any big splashes, but there they are in the top 3-4 almost every year. And made it to a CL final recently. You can't make it to the final without beating at least a couple legit teams.....so you gotta give them some props. They may not be winning a ton of trophies...but they are certainly staying more than relevant in these times.

To wco81's question....we did pay alot for Allison: about $63 mil euros. Not monstrous...but that's big. I'll throw a link to this cool article showing what Brendan Rodgers spent with Suarez leaving vs what Klopp spent on Coutinho leaving. I certainly think Klopp is a better spender on that one.

www.thesportsman.com/articles/who-did-liverpool-buy-with-the-217m-they-got-from-selling-luis-suarez-and-coutinho-to-barcelona

Did a quick googling on some of our signings. I'm rounding off.....but you get the idea:

Minamino- $7.5
Salah - $42
Mane - $35
Jota - $45
Diaz - $38
Thiago - $27
Konate - $31
Robertson - $8
A-Arnold - $15 ....I think
Firmino - $30
Matip - $4
Fabinho - $45
Keita - $60 <------ certainly don't hate the guy....but man that seems high compared to the rest of this list.
Gomez - $3.5
Hendo - $20
Milner - On a free!! <---- I dig Milner
Coutinho - $8.5 <------- Sold for $160. That's a good investment right there.
Suarez - $23 <-------- Sold for $65. Was so sad to see him leave

There are some guys left out, but I'd say we're about $7- 800mil in the last decade-ish. But remember...your looking at $220 for just Coutinho and Suarez right there. So at the end of the day, we're really only spending about $40-50 per year after we move our own guys. That's not so huge.

[HIF]

Mate, you've both been more or less pish this season along with Man u.

The whole "Champion's League" setup is stupid anyway. How many times have Spurs been in the Champion's league and how many times have they been Champions of the League? Change the name to European league if you just want to have a lot of games where the rich clubs play against each other. Spurs haven't even won a national Trophy in I don't know how long and yet they're in the Champion's league. Arsenal haven't done a lot more but at least they can show a few Cups. European Cup and Cup winner's cup were so much more genuine, but then FIFA wanted to milk the football money.

The qualification format for the CL has been like this for 20-25 years. The criteria to make the Champions League, right now, in England, in the year 2022 AD, is to finish in the top four of the Premier League. As to how Spurs and Arsenal are in the frame to qualify, one of them will have accumulated more points than 16 other teams. It has nothing to do with winning domestic cups. Take it up with UEFA, or better yet the laws of causality and relativity that dictate the continuous passage of time, if you don't like the current format and want the old cups back.

Don't see where any of that contradicts that you, Arsenal and Chelsea have been pretty poor this season.

[HIF]

UCL is obviously popular.

So they're not going to make drastic changes.


BTW are the Spurs reaping benefits from that new stadium which had the unfortunate timing of opening during the pandemic?

Presumably increased revenues would make the club better able to acquire better players to better contend for the EPL and UCL?

Of course UCL is popular we live in a money grabbing society, where most "fans" are success based and not loyal for life. Managers and players complain about the number of matches they have to play each year and then accept playing week in week out in European football when a simple Knockout format would still reveal the champion but without the need for so many matches.

[HIF]

UCL is obviously popular.

So they're not going to make drastic changes.


BTW are the Spurs reaping benefits from that new stadium which had the unfortunate timing of opening during the pandemic?

Presumably increased revenues would make the club better able to acquire better players to better contend for the EPL and UCL?

It will help, assuming the club is run well and our scouting and development is up to par. It doesn't matter how much money you spend if you spend it poorly.

Also, consider Arsenal, who have only really declined since they moved from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium in 2006 despite similar promises of upward momentum, though it's worth noting that their decline in league fortunes coincides with the takeover and rise of Man City.

And it's likely that the Newcastle takeover will add more pressure to Spurs and Arsenal to spend to stay relevant in the Big money world. This summer's buys could be crucial to one or both of the North London teams.

[HIF]

Arsenal doing so poorly can't be attributed to City considering they've never even been within breathing distance of a major title win over that time. Leicester, Tottenham, and Dortmund have accomplished more with less resources. I think Tottenham used their money best among the EPL sides last summer, and over the last 4 years only Liverpool has clearly done better from a financial efficiency pov.

Conversations here tend to miss the holistic financial storyline and how that skews and drives the stupider things you see on the pitch especially for clubs like Arsenal and Utd who built up their brand so much a decade ago and still manage to reap the benefits of it through recurrent revenue today despite being noncontinental football teams for 7 and 14 years respectively. Generally European football incentives are borked by how much more money big clubs can make running themselves as brand businesses, by raising cash from investors attracted to leagues with good growth prospectus and light regulations like the EPL, or raising debt by banks who are often willing to lend way more money to clubs than any FFP terms would even theoretically allow (PSG and Barca) rather than by building winning football franchises.

What have Tottenham won? They haven't been near a league title for a lifetime, They last won the FA Cup in 90/91 and since then have only won the league cup and the last time for that was about 15 years ago. They've only stayed relevant because of the massive money they've recuperated from being in the Champion's league despite not being champion's. Leicester have performed beyond their wildest dreams but that's unlikely to continue as they are realistically only the 8th-10th best team in England taking funding into account.

[Baphomet]

Don't see where any of that contradicts that you, Arsenal and Chelsea have been pretty poor this season.

Because it's your opinion and you're entitled to it, though you hadn't mentioned Chelsea. I was just outlining the fact that European competition has changed since the 80s and we, as football fans, have to play with whatever cards we're dealt with on that front. I can't speak to the former European Cup and Cup Winners Cup because I was 3 years old in 1992 when UEFA made wholesale changes and rebranded the former to the Champions League. Whether it should be limited to clubs who have only won their domestic leagues or cups or not, I think the footballing standard of the Champions League has been excellent, especially in recent years.

I think there's a strong case to be made that Chelsea have performed below expectations, given most fans and media would have had them finishing much closer to City and Liverpool, especially on the back of a Champions League victory. The situation with Abramovich and the club in general might have been an unwanted distraction. Whether their on-pitch product has been poor or not isn't something I can comment on as I haven't watched them that much outside of their matches in the CL.

[Baphomet]

Arsenal doing so poorly can't be attributed to City considering they've never even been within breathing distance of a major title win over that time. Leicester, Tottenham, and Dortmund have accomplished more with less resources. I think Tottenham used their money best among the EPL sides last summer, and over the last 4 years only Liverpool has clearly done better from a financial efficiency pov.

Conversations here tend to miss the holistic financial storyline and how that skews and drives the stupider things you see on the pitch especially for clubs like Arsenal and Utd who built up their brand so much a decade ago and still manage to reap the benefits of it through recurrent revenue today despite being noncontinental football teams for 7 and 14 years respectively. Generally European football incentives are borked by how much more money big clubs can make running themselves as brand businesses, by raising cash from investors attracted to leagues with good growth prospectus and light regulations like the EPL, or raising debt by banks who are often willing to lend way more money to clubs than any FFP terms would even theoretically allow (PSG and Barca) rather than by building winning football franchises.

To be clear, I didn't mean to say that City were solely responsible for Arsenal's decline over the last decade and a half. It's just that their league status as Man United's main competitor had been usurped by the rapid rise of both City and Chelsea, and subsequently their attractiveness to potential signings and talents had begun to diminish as well. Stadium debts had left them unable to compete with the new oil rich clubs for a period, in terms of wages and transfer fees. There are also a multitude of other factors at play, but I do think the growing change in perception around the late 00s hurt Arsenal's clout massively.

There's a lot I overlook or don't understand when it comes to football finances, I freely admit that, so I'm always interested in the opinions of people who pay more attention to that aspect of the game.

[wco81]

As it turns out, UEFA is planning to change the knockout stage of the UCL starting in 2024-25. After the group stage, clubs will be seeded and there will no longer be country restrictions.

So Real and Barca could face each other in the first round of the knockouts for instance and same for the EPL clubs.

[SgtPepper]

I don’t even think Pool paid that much for Salah and Alisson did they?

They were good players on a good but not even Serie A winning club. Then they come to the EPL and have a huge impact?

That wasn’t Klopp who predicted that those plaYers would bE great in the EPL right? There must have been scouts who monitored Roma and poached those players because Roma was and are willing sellers?

True, on the transfer pricing game Liverpool weren't major overperformers. However Klopp has this repeated effect since at least his Dortmund days of converting players to peak value and retaining them longer. In other words the transfers into his club are less likely to bust and get churned than with other managers. Players like Gotze, Kagawa, Sahin never hit the same form as when they worked in his system.

[Baphomet]

Major title drama. City currently clinging on, on goal difference, after Matty Cash takes the lead for Villa. Should have just gone 2-0 down. Wow.

[Baphomet]

HOLY **** COUTINHO

[Baphomet]

Villa imploded, wow

[Baphomet]

City champions.
Spurs make the Champions League.
Burnley down, Leeds survive.
Sonny and Salah get a Golden Boot each.

[Cactus Jack]

LOL...I think I'm officially done with the sport. I'm out.

[Baphomet]

LOL...I think I'm officially done with the sport. I'm out.

Liverpool had no business running it as close as they did, and still be competitive in every cup and the CL. Incredible season for them to still be in with a shot of a quadruple so late. It's obviously disappointing not to win the league, but they'll be back again so long as Klopp is there.

[Cactus Jack]

LOL...I think I'm officially done with the sport. I'm out.

Liverpool had no business running it as close as they did, and still be competitive in every cup and the CL. Incredible season for them to still be in with a shot of a quadruple so late. It's obviously disappointing not to win the league, but they'll be back again so long as Klopp is there.

Idk...This might be the breaking point for me lol. I could honestly care less about the Final next week. Cheers.

[danfantastk32]

LOL...I think I'm officially done with the sport. I'm out.

Liverpool had no business running it as close as they did, and still be competitive in every cup and the CL. Incredible season for them to still be in with a shot of a quadruple so late. It's obviously disappointing not to win the league, but they'll be back again so long as Klopp is there.

Idk...This might be the breaking point for me lol. I could honestly care less about the Final next week. Cheers.

Yeah, the CL is just really not a deal for me either. It'll be nice to win, and I hope they do. Winning it will still give legitimacy to what a remarkable season we had.....but yeah, it's pretty empty without the Prem. At least in my opinion.

Before sound like sour-grapes, let me be the first to say MC are champions. They deserve it, they earned it. Truly a great team. But we're now what? 19 Manchester titles in 30 years? 4 of 5 for MC.......AND they just signed one of the top new strikers, and are about to sign some great midfielder. The league is in danger of being some foregone conclusion every year. I know Liverpool are right there in the thick of things almost every year, and we were withing a whisker of the treble....possibly a quad. So I include them in this discussion here. The league needs to figure out a little more parity. I'll leave it a that.

I HATE salary caps.....and I am generally totally against leagues meddling, and layering rule over rule. But I do think something prob needs to be done here soon. And yes.....had Liverpool won, I could argue it's only their second title....but in reality it woulod just be one of the other "Large clubs" that seem to win everything. So I''m not picking on just MC. But 4 in 5...with top notch reinforcements already slotted to add to the disparity brings the point home. It's prob time for some other teams to be in the mix.

So Cactus...I get where your at. This is getting kinda boring.

[danfantastk32]

But what do you do? Can't do a cap without all the leagues doing it, or you'll just make the EPL rubbish. So I don't know. Awfully frustrating coming in second yet again. Perhaps I'll get over it here in a few days.

This wasn't "getting kinda boring" 5 hours ago....so I prob just need a few days to digest. How a Newcastle fan, or Westham fan, or one of the many other teams' fans make it through the season year after year, is beyond me. It seems like it would be so uninteresting.