Brand new modern fitba 2018-19 thread!! SEE YOU!!

Bielsa is staying on for another season which is part of the reason why I've gone for them to go up. He had them playing some really good stuff last season. It's all about consistency. Their time is coming.

 

Right... Hut is talking crazy shite here... you'd think we were arguing a side from the 70s vs 2019 ... we're talking 15 years ago not 40

 

Mate I don't pretend to understand the Stars, I just want Liveeerpule to beat Spurs on Satdee so I can live out my vicarious dreams.

 

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I remember that. I said "Brentford might do this lot"...........AND THEY DID!

 

That said... on the narrow point, Hut is right that the EPL thanks to television revenue and worldwide exposure is well on the verge of leaving every other league in the dust ... this is very bad for football unless you happen to own an EPL club

The eventual "super league" fans dread may very well wind up being the EPL itself

 

Hut's a Believer, he want's it to be, like I do.

I really wish every club in England had £50 and was forced to just scrap it out with that, fuck Europe, just fight for the league every season.

 

Indeed bruv. Hut done lost his damn mind, brah.

 

I just sit back and wank over videos of the '76 QPR team. That's how it should be done. Hey guys.

 

Well the thing is I suppose that what can't carry on won't carry on and there two things that could happen, the EPL could buckle under it's own weight or it could simply fragment and fly apart. The denser it get's the sooner it's going to be number 1. Couple of really good scandals wouldn't hurt either...doping, point's shaving, something to really dog the shit out of it, Qatar could be a breaking point in 2022 or whenever........the EPL was formed off the back of multiple crises {Hooliganism, Hillsborough to name a few} there's no reason why a few crises couldn't help it fall apart either.

 

I can't even get hard anymore unless I watch Eder score against USSR in '82

 

I see it eventually turning into a fixed league like sports in America

 

I hope guys like John Henry can push some much needed common sense into it.

 

He owns the fucking Red Sox... no common sense from anyone associated with such a thing

 

It's an American Franchise.

Why I thought he broke the Curse anyways?

Or do you just hate Boston?

Is it more than a feeling? Cool your engines, typist.

 

I hope the Red Sox all get AIDS

 

The UEFA cup is a funny competition anyhow, ever since they expanded the Champions League and introduced a group stage to the UEFA competition. It has had some good finals and winners, and some fairly dodgy ones (e.g the year Donetsk won). I wouldn't rate Arsenal on the basis of making it to this final; they played well against Napoli but fairly squeezed by Rennes, they were shocking during that first leg. They should return to straight knockout from the beginning, it would save us from tedious protracted mini leagues involving minnows like RB salzburg, Malmo and Celtic.

 

Love the reception The Bronx faithful give that dope Spaceman Lee at around 1:53 of this ... also the ludicrous Red Sox commentators who completely ignore Carlton Fisk starting the whole fucking thing by sucker punching Lou Piniella

 

agSALACO'd

 

Yes, just what I need... fewer Celtic matches that mean anything

 

none of it means anything mate we're all going to die.

 

I hope Salaco dies just for hurting my feelings by referring to the beloved Celtic as mere minnows

 

I think we should just close down European competition all together and simply invite Barca, real and PSG into the premiership. Thatd reduce alot of tedium.

 

And take in the rest of it.. An outfit like salzburg- easily among the 5 or 6 best outwith the big 5 leagues these last fewvyears are so shite that playing them is intolerable tedium....meanwhile beating the second best side in Italy home and away is basically unworthy of note, tonking the side that finished 5th in la liga 7-2 completely so. Earlier Irish dismissed the side that finished 4th in Germany as a total irrelevance! And he's basically right! Yet I'm a mush brained mongo for taking note of this much changed context and applying it in the evaluation of teams?

Again: by the inferrence of all this, the 5th best premiership side can reasonably be expected to be about as good as the best one 15 year ago, on average. Possibly better, if we take the whole rest of European football as our measuring stick. And just listing the names of players we hold in rosier remiscence isnt any argument against that. Basically you're all wrong and I'm right, ta.

 

I'm not saying fitbaw generally has improved loads. I'm saying the premiership has improved loads relative to fitbaw generally. Stated differently, I'm saying money talks.

 

LOL exactly

 

I don't think you're totally wrong but Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp, to name just two were both better at football than anybody currently wearing an Arsenal kit ... can't see any argument against that

 

Yeah but firstly teams aren't made of 1, 2 or even 5 players they're a whole unit and secondly im not as certain that they are so much better than say ozil, aubameyang - they just stood out more at the time because such top end players were rarer. Juve sold Henry because he more or less flopped there. Dortmund sold aubameyang because he was too shit-hot for them to stop a top premiership side buying him. That isnt to comment on whether aubemanyang is better than henry specifically but it illustrates the changing position of the prem on the transfer market. Now extrapolate that changed dynamic across every position in a core squad and for not one but six premiership sides you get where we are.

 

Henry was played out of position at Juventus though, he didn't do great there because they played him as a winger. Once Wenger converted him into a striker he became the highest goalscorer of the 2000's (by some distance). I rate Aubemayang highly but he's clearly levels below a guy like Henry.

 

That's all fair, I'll concede all of it. But i don't think it really disputes my broader point

 

I don't think such top end players were at all rarer ... I think that's a misreading

I think there were fewer clubs where every guy is at least very good concentrated in one league

Instead of 7 very good footballers being spread across 6 European clubs, there's now all 7 on the same team in England... they aren't better players, they are just all on the same team so the team is better

Every superstar you can name from 2004 is a superstar if they were the same player playing right now... the only difference is they'd be spread across 5 or 6 clubs instead of 25 or 30