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

Yea, I'm not 100% sure of the details of it tbh, and not defending them. The crux of what this journalist was saying was that they could sell him on the cheap and meet the FFP, or hold out until later in the window to get a fairer/realistic price. They were still being forced to sell, and were selling, but were being punished for an arbitrary date. As I say, the detail light be off, I was half listening while driving so I'm open to correction.

Seems less egregious than some of the dealings that's going on, buy they probably haven't tyne deep pockets of other clubs to stand up for themselves.

It's not unfair at all, claiming it is just shows they were never in great control of their finances to begin with.

Hazard went an entire calendar year without scoring a goal while at Chelsea and for that reason he is automatically excluded in my book!

May 2015 - April 2016, he played 37 games in PL & Europe and scored 0 goals.

Not enough goals to get in ahead of a lot of other players in a similar position, IMO. Brilliant dribbler though.

The point was, if you leave the tribal nonsense aside for a moment, is that Suarez didn't do it for long enough on the PL, accepted.

To then say Ronaldo did, ahead of Salah of all people, was mental gymnastics but probably had something to do with ib loyalties as you say.

Why did Onana play for Man U yesterday and was not with Cameroon for their game today?

Longevity has to also include success though in these IMO, and the longevity isn't worth more than 3/4 seasons of winning each season.

Being a 20-25 goal a season man for 5/6 seasons is great but it needs to lead to winning trophies really. That is really what the sport is ultimately about.

Kane for example never comes up in these conversations really and it is because he doesn't have the trophy record to back it up. Had Kane transferred to one of the bigger (more successful) clubs 5/6 seasons ago and won a couple of titles then you would see a lot more people throwing his name in to the conversation.

Salah for all he has achieved has just the 1 league title in that run for his longevity, never retained a trophy. Although he has won each once to be fair to him.

Ronaldo being the main man in a 3x title winning PL side, FA cup winners, league cup winners and CL winners (can add in club world cup if you like), winning a Ballon D'or and FIFA world player of the year at the same time overrules the longevity of Salah scoring for 6 seasons when he has won much less in that longer timeframe.

Like I said I have no issues with sides that include Salah. But I fail to see how any team designed to represent the best players of the PL era ignores Ronaldo. You can count on 1 hand with fingers to spare how many times the PL has had the current best player in the world playing in it. You have to include them when talking about the best players.

Anyone using the Michael Owen winning the Ballon D'or argument needs to look up the history of the award and the FIFA world player of the year. Owen won the Ballon D'or in 2001 (somehow) but the FIFA world player of the year went to Figo with Owen nowhere close in that voting. Owen was a strange choice that year for sure and wasn't anywhere near the best player in the world.

Ronaldo picked up both in 2008 and was clearly the world's best player at that point. The awards were joined up in 2010 to create the award we know today.

So again, I can only really think of 2 times in my PL watching days where the current best player in the world was playing in the PL. Henry and Ronaldo.

Rooney was an animal and is underrated at the time Ron was hitting his high at United.

Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez

Was bloody frightening to face for anyone.

Henry...Rooney....Salah

Would be wow!

You cant disregard Salah for only having won only one PL, then use the FA cup, League cup, CL and Club world cup to strenghten a case for Ronaldo!!

In one of those seasons that Liverpool (the team) finished runner up, after Salah (the individual) thought he had scored the goal to win the league as it put Liverpool top at the time, Salah (the individual) won PFA POTY, Writers POTY, goal of the season, top goalscorer and had the most assists in the league. Salah did everything he could to win that league again that season. The same season, Salah contributed to winning 2 other trophies and (his team) reached the CL final before burnout hit the squad because they played every single game possible that season. And you're using that season to knock Salah (the individual) as Liverpool (his team) finished 2nd behind a team that is currently under 115 charges for cheating.

You can't sit there and dismiss Salah because of how a team game went that season. Saying that he never retained a title. This isn't tennis where it's 1 person against another.

I don't see it, Newcastle have ffp to keep an eye on, probably nearly in a sell to buy situation, paying off howe and a far bigger salary for Mourinho won't help that, Mourinho would be looking to buy players also.

Finishing top 4 last season it seems could ba a poison chalice for Howe. If they had finished say 7th or 8th it would've been seen as a step in the right direction and less pressure this year.

And who would manage this premier league greatest ever team?

Sir Alex or Pep or maybe Arsene? Not really any candidates outside those 3.

Ferguson is the clear best manager in the PL, probably Wenger then.

Guardiola, while he’s a brilliant tactician, I think the fact that he only seems to take jobs that have a clear financial or resource advantage over the rest of the league works against him. I think you could put peak Ferguson, Wenger, Klopp at any of the top clubs and they would have had a good chance at being successful, not sure if Guardiola could work under the same conditions.

Anyway, while city have years of charges against them I would be hesitant to put any of their staff in a best of list.

You'd need a deeper delve into what 'loss-making' means. In general making a profit is not necessarily a good thing as it just means money completely leaves the business via corporation tax, therefore if you heading towards profit it's not a bad idea to instead invest in something which makes your books go negative. So being slightly loss-making is always fine - being massively in depth by multiples of your turnover is disastrous, but a big difference between the two.

It's in my post. I said Salah won them.

Not sure we can add Pep until we find out what comes from the PL investigation.

Should they be found guilty then he can't be in the conversation.

Anyways Pep or not the answer is SAF

that's four

I reckon a separate thread for that discussion would be good 😊

Not sure if deliberate, but that's the favourite word of DB's soul brother Brentan

Oh yeah, for sure, over their full careers Ronaldo walks it. He just left the PL right when he was hitting high level consistency. He’d be a shoo-in for a La Liga 11 though, which is much harder since it’s been around a lot longer than the PL.