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

Yeah, "City saved football" was a big thing after the 2018-19 season when they pipped Liverpool by a point (98 vs 97 I think). It was basically a way for fans to keep laughing at Liverpool for going another season without winning the title, so City had saved the "bants" or whatever.

Now come on, you can't actually be a Liverpool fan and question why an Everton fan wouldn't want pool to win the league..

United & Everton are never going to pick Liverpool over another club. In the same way Liverpool fans wouldn't pick United in a title race against Arsenal and City

I can't see how you would have expected anything else tbh, and I am very strongly anti-City (plus any other state-owned club). But as a Utd fan Liverpool is the last club I would wish well.

These are the points tallies for the EPL. Leicester aren't on this list, but they won with 81 points.

Spurs away can be a banana skin but I would expect City will win the title from here as well.

But on the football changing, it has but not in the way I think you are trying to say.

The points are a little higher and we've seen 3 teams reach that level of points or set the pace for those totals.

I think it's easier now to not drop points. There are less tricky away days and so on. Every team tries to play football more. Fewer teams are willing to park the bus, dig in, and make a big team's trip to their stadium an absolute dogfight.

Refs are far less willing to let players get the rough treatment so over the course of 90 min they are far more likely to show the quality difference.

It's for the better of the game long term but the game is definitely more geared towards supporting the higher-skilled players now. A positive but also it has shown in higher point totals.

Add in things like VAR and goal line tech and you are less likely to get "screwed". Although PL ref will still make a fine attempt at messing this up.

So the game has changed - but I don't think it's just because Man City are the greatest team ever assembled. I think the sport as a whole has changed so the better players are able to show their quality more frequently.

If that many fans of non-traditional rival clubs didn't want you to win against a club that is renowned for cheating then does that not say more about the perception other people have of that fan base?

You have to be pretty bad for that many people to hate you.

And you can't even claim the whole "jealous of your success" narrative anymore as for anyone under 40 they likely don't remember the days when Liverpool was dominant. So what drives it?

The tragedy chanting is awful and done by the lowest of the low at football clubs. But it is done for one reason and one reason only IMO - they know it works.
They want to get under the skin of other fans and they will say anything to get there. It doesn't matter how low they have to go.

It's not something unique to Liverpool. I really don't think it is any deeper than that tbh.

Does that tally with the top four being as competitive as ever?

It just sounds like the kind of pre-empting Utd fans do when they fear their own period of domination compares unfavourably to City's

Arsenal have Gabriel 26, Saliba 23, White 26, Kiwior 24, Rice 25, Martinelli 22, Saka 22, Odegaard 25 and Havertz 24.

This team is going to continue to improve. I'd expect them to be ready to win the league next year. They might do it this year yet but I think next season it'll be theirs.

the period after Guardiola leaves is so intriguing - both from who the club get to replace him, all the way to how the supporters react. it will be very hard for them to adjust their expectations if they don't stay quite as dominant.

It's hard to know but say they do appoint a manager who is only "very good" and not at the absolute top tier.
That very good manager is still likely to be running with the best squad of players from 1-16 in the league.

City unfortunately are probably too well run to make any catastrophic errors in appointing a new man. They won't go for a full stylistic overhaul or anything like that so I can't see them dropping too far off.

Only Pep leaving and them getting hit (actually to the level they should) by the 115 charges could see them drop off.
It would have to be relegation level stuff though.

If they got a massive fine and were docked somewhere between 10-20 points I'd bet they'd still make CL football that season and would be back to challenging again the following year.

Its such a strange discussion, I've never once heard it either yet people are talking about it seriously.

I may as well claim that United were getting blamed for City's dominance because they should have been able to stop them, and then take offence at people saying the thing I just invented.

De Zerbi was just the latest in a long line of "next big thing" managers, there is a new one along every season. Does relatively well for a period and gets hyped up by the media, then over time reality sets in and they regress back into the pack. There'll be another one along shortly.

Its why I hoped Alonso would go to Liverpool. They have no idea how he would do at a big club but he is the golden boy so they wanted him, it would have been amusing to see it play out.

How much of a pickle are Villa actually in? As in, are they currently around a £80m loss over the last 3 seasons and close to the threshold leading up to the year end? Or is it actually currently over the threshold and need to bring themselves under again? Either way there are big losses being made a couple of years in a row as the club pushes to make it into the CL.

My understanding of it was that if Aston Villa wanted to spend similar money this summer as they have the last few summers (roughly €120m gross every year for the last 5 years), that they would have to make a decent sized sale again. Selling the HG player does give a big boost here, like Archer, Grealish & Chukwemeka did in previous years.

No mention of Newcastle. Surely they voted against it?

Leicester back up for next season.

That’s the talk alright

As has been mentioned it was from opposition fans celebrating City winning the league over Liverpool they got 97 points was it? And came second. It was tongue in cheek from me and would be delighted to see Arsenal win the league against city this year or going forward as they look the only team that will be able to put it up to them for the foreseeable.

Nothing against teams being good and winning titles in a row, but city are just relentlessly tiresome at this stage for the league.

I like the sound of the CAP. Hopefully, it is done correctly.
Even if it maybe isn't the best outcome for Utd I think overall it will be better for football in the long run.

Surely this is a good thing for City and their fans?
Wasn't this "unfair advantage" the bigger clubs had the main issue their fans (and fans of other oil state clubs) had and their main reasoning for welcoming in the oil states to take over their club?

That the big bad cartel at the top of the league couldn't be competed against without a billionaire throwing unlimited funds at it?

Now if there is a cap in place then there is surely a route for any club to work their way up and do so in a sustainable way… The dream?

The only thing that needs to be covered is the potential for the likes of City or Newcastle to "offload" some of the wages by offering players paid work in UAE or Saudi for other jobs to supplement their income like Mancini had at City.

Other than that I am all for it.

If they're going to insist on a cap, make it a set financial one, not one based on relative terms based on the bottom teams earnings.

Say for example, wages can't go over 250m a season in the premier league. It would allow clubs to pay serious wages to prominent players, but would limit how many prominent players a club could have. A cap of 250m would give you the option of having 13 players on 350k a week, but you'd have no-one else on the panel if that was the case. So a club would be forced to budget accordingly and not hoard quality players the way City does.

Players would still earn a fortune, and if needed, the cap could be raised every three years if agreed by all clubs depending on league income.

And I'd leave it as simply just base wages. Whatever player make outside the base wages is their own business. Although I'd tighten up loopholes, such as clubs and players that engage in their party payments, and have very serious consequences with two-season bans, increased salary fines (50% salary fine), reduced spending caps, relegation etc.

I think the way things are going in the sport, the super league will become an eventuality and leagues will have to do a spending cap anyway just to keep things in check.

Seemingly Etihad are releasing their financial info into the public domain soon which means City are clear of all charges (according to City fans online).

City need to be expelled from the Premier league for as many years as they were cheating or benefiting from cheating.