FFP

[AV82EC]

The call to let them just fuck and off and see how they like it, forgets that it was their own fans who killed the idea when it was announced before. Your average Liverpool or Chelsea travelling fan despises the idea.

I, on the other hand, would welcome it. I’m sick of them and would happily go back to how football was 40 years ago. Minus the hooliganism and shit stadia.

So Liverpool winning the League every year then.

[Mister E]

The current Champions' League is the Super League ... I was going to make a joke about Spurs at this point but even they are in it this season.

The SL concept has money at its heart, and the money comes from the media. If there were a breakaway SL, within 5 years it would fold because the 'product' would quickly become boring and TV viewers would fairly quickly check out. What the Scab6 and the big TV / online media seem to overlook is exactly the viewer-interest in the jeopardy that the 'big clubs' experience when faced with a 'non-big' club; Villa putting the wind up PSG in last year's Bigger Cup being an example.

[Meanwood Villa]

The current Champions' League is the Super League ... I was going to make a joke about Spurs at this point but even they are in it this season.

The SL concept has money at its heart, and the money comes from the media. If there were a breakaway SL, within 5 years it would fold because the 'product' would quickly become boring and TV viewers would fairly quickly check out. What the Scab6 and the big TV / online media seem to overlook is exactly the viewer-interest in the jeopardy that the 'big clubs' experience when faced with a 'non-big' club; Villa putting the wind up PSG in last year's Bigger Cup being an example.

I agree. The concept of the same 12 teams playing each other over and over again would get tedious (albeit this was the concept behind the original football league lest we forget!)

I think the happy spot for the CL clubs would be the current format but with guaranteed qualification to the league stage. Several of the clubs involved are de facto in that position already, e.g. the Spanish trio. England was always the outlier in this regard, albeit it seems likely we will have five spots most seasons moving forward and I'd wager they will be taken by the scab six less Spurs more often than not. So after all that kerfuffle, five out of the six have pretty much got what they wanted anyway.

[Meanwood Villa]

Actually, thinking about it, they'd be happy to play each other every season but also need the likes of us to act as fodder inbetween those games. This is why they wanted the domestic leagues to run at the same time. Also what the CL league stage does at the moment, by and large.

[curiousorange]

Not for the first time, I look at today and I wish they'd been successful and fucked off to their Scab League. We can talk about losing our best players to injury, but equally as damaging to this season is the psychological acceptance that we were not going to be allowed to replace them. Our performances since are infused by that ennui, that sense of 'what's the point of this anyway?'. When you're bringing back players you felt you'd moved on from, it just signposts you're back at the start of the climb again. Everyone from the coach down looks absolutely fucked.

[andyh]

We can blame FFP and SCR until we are blue in the face.
The fact remains that we have still spunked lots of money on absolute dross.

[pauliewalnuts]

Yep, absolutely that.

[PaulWinch again]

Yep we are consistently wasting the limited resources we do have.

[Toronto Villa]

We can blame FFP and SCR until we are blue in the face.
The fact remains that we have still spunked lots of money on absolute dross.

We have. We’ve recouped a decent amount which is why our net spend is negligible. But most of the players we have bought for the most part have no impact at all to displacing first team regulars. That a large part of our squad are inherited players from 2 or even 3 managers ago is true indictment on our recruitment policy.

[curiousorange]

That is true. As have United, but they can afford to do that.

[itbrvilla]

We can blame FFP and SCR until we are blue in the face.
The fact remains that we have still spunked lots of money on absolute dross.

We have. We’ve recouped a decent amount which is why our net spend is negligible. But most of the players we have bought for the most part have no impact at all to displacing first team regulars. That a large part of our squad are inherited players from 2 or even 3 managers ago is true indictment on our recruitment policy.

They barely even fit the system we play most of the time

[Mellin]

Man United, notorious wise spenders of money. Difference is they can keep spending until they get it right.

[PaulWinch again]

Yeah of course - and that sucks - but we know the conditions we are operating in. You would think we would be a bit more judicious. I get that transfers are tricky, but basic things are controllable. We spend all of our actual transfer budget on a player who is better centrally, and then play him out wide. We sign a player on a loan deal, which is basically set up to be permanent and the manager doesn’t appear to rate him - not only spending wages, we can ill afford, but also locking out a domestic loan slot.

Those aren’t just transfers going awry, that’s fundamental misalignment of transfer strategy and player identification.

[PaulWinch again]

Oh and we appear to have done it again - we’ve spent the biggest chunk of our January budget on a player the manager doesn’t appear to think can start.