General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

Great news to hear in the run up to the new season. It honestly feels like he's commentating on a funeral the last 5-10 years in about 95% of the games I've watched.

It'd be great to get Durey now. I think himself, Neville and Carragher could work well together.

As a Liverpool fan I detest City for cheating their way to success, but the players at the club deserve to enjoy the results of their hard work on the pitch. And on that point, I just wanted to say what a breath of fresh air Jack Grealish has been over the past week. Great to see a player genuinely enjoying and celebrating their wins. I’d say he’s a fantastic personality in the dressing room, he seems to be everyone’s friend and and you can see in his celebrations that he has a close relationship with back room staff, kit people, etc. I’d love to see more personalities like Grealish in the game. It needs these types of characters.

As much as I hate Chelsea for all their dodgy/shady financial dealings over the last 20 years, the latest battle with the PL is ridiculously stupid and they are not entirely at fault.

Chelsea wanted to bring in Paramount as a new shirt sponsor but the PL blocked it as they are a steaming service and 'would upset broadcast partners'. So now instead Chelsea are going to bring in Stake.com as a sponsor (gambling company) even though gambling companies are banned from 2024 onwards. But of course they can circumvent that rule.

The same PL that allows PIF owned Sela to sponsor PIF owned Newcastle (above market value) even though that is against their rules also.

Sometimes I really do despair.

It’s been well established at this stage that’s not actually happened though… like, I’m very very anti state ownership or influence, but there has to be evidence of wrongdoing.

Chelsea lost Kante for free, Koulibaly for 17m - half what they spent on him last year, and Edouard Mendy for a steal at 16m - a 6m loss on him. I don’t see how that can be classified as being bailed out. Those look like quite fair, if not undervalued, fees that we wouldn’t bat an eyelid at if they weren’t to clubs in Saudi. (And those sales won’t impact this years balance sheet anyway since they can’t be put through officially till July)

And we do have to take into account that the fund - which is a massive US/European (including Ireland) based investment entity of which Chelsea is a small fraction, and which has to declare their financial position to governing bodies around the world - have officially stated no investor has more than a 5 percent stake, which means PIF can have no more than a 3% passive stake in Chelsea given Clearlake own 60% of Chelsea.

The headline looked fierce dodgy day one alright, but the actual information so far doesn’t show anything actually nefarious.

Its just hilariously misinformed at this point.

Only odd thing is a frequent apologist for Man City suddenly demanding such a (mis)informed review of Chelsea spending.

But this discussion played out before where you just refused to accept any actual facts.

I think for the Chelsea discussion to go anywhere from here, a question has to be posed (that hasn't already been answered) that people can dig into and find inconsistencies around etc. I haven't seen one of those, but rather just general suspicions without questions.

For City for example the question was "how did they raise their market value to be industry leaders for sponsorship deals, seemingly without their global reach having grown to support that".

So here we need a; "How did chelsea do x y or z". We had that initially with the massive insane ludicrous stupid spending last winter, and then we got the answer - they used an amortization loophole that allowed them to leverage future spending by spreading the contracts over 8 years. Dumb, and risky, but we know the ins and outs of it now. Then there was the initial reported fees for Saudi clubs buying some of their players which raised questions about if PIF were somehow playing both sides - until we learned that actually the two players leaving for fees are leaving for heavy losses, and that PIF only own a max of 3% of Chelsea anyway (which makes sense - as if you were going to bail yourself out, you'd at least surely have kept the values intact instead of actively low-balling).

Personally, I really don't like Chelsea, and hate state ownership, but so far it just looks like they're being run idiotically by a western investment fund, rather than nefariously by a state. Let's see if there are any further questions we can poke into on them though.

Did Man City ever really want Rice? Or did they just make Arsenal pay £30m more than they wanted to?

Good for the league that Arsenal get Rice , my team will be battling relegation so would like to see Arsenl give it a proper go

City have much stronger and deeper squad , ther second 11 would probably get top 4

100% he's been backed - be interesting to see how they go - hopefully they can push City , and hopefully pip them to the title.

Thought the original offer was about £70m?

Yeah I would think that they will have enough to get CL football again, but I'm not entirely convinced that they will challenge for the title again, yet.

they bought Jesus.

they've Martinelli and Saka who bang in goals.

Havertz has been brought in, I assume, as someone who is a false 9 (a la Firmino), who might allow those players to be even more prolific, rather than himself be a prolific striker.

i'm sorry, i don't buy the need for a proper number 9. he's been backed beyond measure over the last few seasons. Arteta should now be judged accordingly.

i don't expect them to win it. nor should anyone. it's City's to lose, and will be City's to lose until the cheating/Pep combo is broken up in a couple of years.

but there is no way on God's green earth Arsenal should be anything other than top 3, unless Liverpool and United pull incredible summers out of their arses - but their respective owners aren't at it yet. it's a failure if Arsenal aren't the ones who push City, and they should actually push City this time, not whittle away at the first sign of pressure.

Arteta has been held up as this great manager, student of Pep, etc etc and he has actually achieved very little of note, and has been a chequebook manager up to this point. he has had basically unrivalled control over his playing squad - something only Pep can rival. he has received all he has wanted over the last 2 years. he won an FA Cup with a squad that wasn't his, then has a 2nd place in the League. he has improved Arsenal, no question, and that's why he deserves the time he's getting. but there comes a point where he actually has to get something done, or at the very least, push City properly. the backing he's had dictates that they should be City's closest challengers.

the pressure must actually be on. i don't want to hear how refreshing Arsenal are next season - that period is over.