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

Im fairness Ambarat is off at the ANC, so from a Utd point of view i wouldn't be complaining about that or using it as an excuse ( probably wouldn't start anyway).

United ( and the fans) knew this was a high possibility when they got him on loan.

Exactly

So Martinez came on, maguire is a joke to his own fans so I doubt he starts, Casemiro was on the bench, mount doesn’t get a game ahead of rashford- so united weren’t missing that many yet we were missing 50% of our outfield starters.

As I said a draw is a decent result but I suppose unlucky when you factor in Romero hitting the bar and the fact we dominated.

Martinez and Casemiro are only just coming back from injury, not fit to start yet. And Maguire started the 14 straight games before his groin injury, and was one of their better players in that time, would've been nailed on to start had he been fit.

It's just that time of the season, nearly everyone's missing a load of players.

Sure, but Martinez also wasn't fit to start. I was just replying to the thing saying Maguire was "a joke" so wouldn't have been starting tonight if he was fit, when he definitely would given the other absenses.

5 outta 10 is 😂😉

Most would agree the players Spurs were missing are significant. Players Man U we’re missing have been very poor for most part anyway so negligible impact. Even the Man U legend Gary Neville said as much on TV

Fair enough.

Bentacar is your best player and if you can keep him fit then you'll be pushing up the table.

Ornstein reporting it's forest and Everton who are in ffp trouble tomorrow

But Everton and Forest’s audited accounts will show they have breached the rules (presumably). I would guess their mitigation arguments are weak, like Everton’s was for the last deduction.

City is completely and utterly different. Their audited accounts show they have NOT breached FFP. The argument is they have inflated their income. Which they undoubtedly have by selling sponsorship deals to their owners (or entities related to their owners) at hugely inflated amounts. But that is far more difficult to prove than Everton or Forest, where their own accounts incriminate them.

Two different reporting periods, but it shouldn't really make a difference when you break the rules, in multiple years.

But yeah, it might just be that the PL are really starting to clamp down on it now and 'only got around' to period X in 2023 and now are starting X+1 in 2024 and will be on top of it now with one period per year moving forwards. Possibly pre-occupied with Man City's 114 extra charges on top of these clubs 1.

Would Everton prefer to start next season with -10 instead, be it the PL or the Championship?

Very good example of stats not being able to convey the full story there.

Ronaldo played a good chunk of those games as a wide-right midfielder with a 2 man midfield beside him. Not the position that Salah plays, where he has a 3-man midfield and a center forward who drops deep so he is pushed inside from a wide position to be often the player who gets on the end of chance.

Ronaldo was a more traditional wideman / winger in his early days. It was later on that he became the main man/goalscorer as he developed. He joined the league at 18. Salah joined pool at 25. Ronaldo a boy developed into the best player in the world. Salah already a man who thrived at the correct environment, but never became the world's best. The stats were never going to tell the story.

After the World Cup in 2006 and until he left for Real Madrid in 2009 Ronaldo was near untouchable.

There have been 2 times in my life watching PL football where I felt the player I was watching on the pitch wasn't even from the same planet as everyone else in the league. Not just that he was clearly the best player, it's more than that. At times it didn't even look like the players around them were top-level footballers. It's not just scoring goals but in general play - what they were doing with the ball. The fear they struck into opponents. The sense of anticipation when they got on the ball - unmatched.

Those 2 are Henry and Ronaldo.

I've never seen another on that level. Suarez would be a little bit off but was close, maybe another season would have seen him get to that level as well.

Salah will have better seasons when you look through the Wiki stats no doubt but on the pitch, he's never quite got to that level. That's not a bad thing or a slight on Salah.

It's something that doesn't quite come across in the stats, instead it's something you see on the pitch with your own eyes.

Salah is a great goalscorer, he'll go down as a PL great. His records will show for the rest of (our) time. But... he's just not on Ronaldo's level. But that's true of everyone apart from Henry in the PL era.

Reports now Evertons original appeal might not be heard until May 24th 5 days after the league finishes. We could possibly finish the league and not know who's relegated.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I think that the main arguments that they are using is that the new stadium costs (which are actually excluded from FFP calculations) escalated, sponsorship money fell through because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that Sigurdsson cost them money too because he was a player on their books that could not play.

Clubs are 'allowed' a £105m loss over a 3 year period. Clubs shouldn't be losing money, let alone losing £105m. Everton lost £300m in that one reporting period through wild spending and wages etc Some of that was written off because of the COVID pandemic and the new total of £125m loss was given.

My understang for that the past few years they had to get approval from PL before any purchase, certainly that is what was said by club sources..

Ange doing a hell of a job, I haven't watched much of Spurs this season but they play excellent technical football. You can see the players know exactly what to do, big difference to the previous managers they have had since Poch.

The Ronaldo/Suarez one is a fairly easy comparison, very similar profiles in their best PL years. Think we can probably all agree that Ronaldo had 3 particularly high level seasons - the ones where he got into double-digits in premier league goals. In those combined 3 elite seasons, he has just 1 more goal than Suarez in his 3 seasons before he left (66 to 65). And Suarez has 12 more assists than Ronaldo in that time.

And on your earlier point of the "eye test", with Ronaldo looking so otherworldly compared to other players you watched - I think this is something based on fandom to a reasonable extent, not so much in terms of bias but, as fans, the only players for whom we watch 95-100% of their minutes are our own. As you say yourself, the 'eye test' is not just about the highlights, it's everything in every game, which of course fans actually watching every minute are a better judge of. Both players were just head and shoulders above everyone around them, and were doing astonishing things all over the pitch, far and above just scoring goals. Suarez was obviously in a less dominant team at the time too.

For me, Ronaldo and Suarez are neck-and-neck for inclusion, but imo both miss out because of their top tier impacts on the league just being a shorter time span than other players.

Henry is on a whole other level in league contribution to these two (and basically everyone) - Ronaldo has only 1 season with over 20 league goals, while Suarez has 2. Henry has 5 (plus 2 more with 17).

Absolutely fair and I will freely admit I watched more of Ronaldo than I did Suarez for full games. I have seen enough of Suarez especially as Pool got into the title races (and they were often on TV at different times to Utd ) but obviously, I watch Utd every week for full games.

I suppose the thing I would add to the Ronaldo / Henry side of things is at the time when both of those players were at their peak (PL peak for Ronaldo) They were the best players on the planet and it was clear (I know Nedved won the ballon d'or but Henry was above everyone else at that time).

Often we have players in the PL who are amazing players but you look at Spain or used to be Italy and you'd know there was a better player playing. For them that wasn't the case.

I would actually enjoy watching CL games on ITV for Arsenal when Henry was at his peak - I wouldn't be wishing them success but I knew what I was watching was a level above what I had seen from other players before.

Totally agree on Henry - he's on a completely different level to the other two, and should be an absolute guarantee on anyone's PL list. 5 straight seasons breaking 20 league goals, 7 straight of 17+ league goals, and looking otherworldly while doing it. A total class apart and a face that defines the premier league. Him and Shearer (7 seasons of 20+ goals!) are absolutely nailed on imo.

That's the bar I'd be looking for in a list to represent the league... lads who did it year in year out in the PL at the top level for a sustained period. Suarez breaking 20 goals twice, and Ronaldo breaking it once just isn't enough for me, outstanding as each of them looked for one season in particular.

I would put both high up on any list of "all time best PL seasons" though.