English Premier League 2021/2022

[Black Knight]

PL is the new farmers league

PL fans be like:

 

[brehme1989]

Martinez is trying to make me dislike him

 

[brehme1989]

What kind of Mickey Mouse organization is this?

If this was in Italy we'd be all talking about how incompetent FIGC is.

 

[.h.]

I personally would rather see the postponements than these games where people are forced to play with a shit line up and lose 6-2

 

[brehme1989]

I personally would rather see the postponements than these games where people are forced to play with a shit line up and lose 6-2

Come on, stop defending them every time.

What matchday is it even?

Top two teams, who also play in the Champions League, have 22 games. No other team has 22 games. You realize that Tottenham has 18 games and if they win all 4 they'll have 3 more points than 2nd placed Chelsea? Arsenal winning their games would also put them within reach of Chelsea.

Liverpool has 2 games to give and City doesn't even care about them, yet had they lost, the difference could have been 5 points, which goes to 2 points in case Liverpool beats City in the game between them. It doesn't feel like it now, despite City winning, the problem is that Liverpool has a mental obstacle of 14 points regardless of 8 being the actual figure provided they win their games...

Relegation battling teams don't really know if they'll be in a relegation battle by the time they have as many games as City!

Leicester is 10th, 12 points behind 4th place West Ham and they are pretty much a CL spot contender, whilst 9th place Brighton is obviously not!

It completely fucks the competition up to have these kind of awkward situations. You think the league table has no effect on team and players mindset? Even US sports try to have teams have a similar number of games played at the same time, you don't see NBA teams having 5 games less than their opponents and it's an 82 game season!

 

[Conan the Barbarian]

PL is the new farmers league

The FA should give up their stupid stubbornness and reduce the number of teams in the league to 18. Also, just like Welsh teams, Scottish teams should be added to the league. Of course I'm talking about Celtic and Rangers. Other Scottish clubs have always been against this idea but who cares! No one gives a fuck about them and no one will do.

 

[.h.]

Come on, stop defending them every time.

What matchday is it even?

Top two teams, who also play in the Champions League, have 22 games. No other team has 22 games. You realize that Tottenham has 18 games and if they win all 4 they'll have 3 more points than 2nd placed Chelsea? Arsenal winning their games would also put them within reach of Chelsea.

Liverpool has 2 games to give and City doesn't even care about them, yet had they lost, the difference could have been 5 points, which goes to 2 points in case Liverpool beats City in the game between them. It doesn't feel like it now, despite City winning, the problem is that Liverpool has a mental obstacle of 14 points regardless of 8 being the actual figure provided they win their games...

Relegation battling teams don't really know if they'll be in a relegation battle by the time they have as many games as City!

Leicester is 10th, 12 points behind 4th place West Ham and they are pretty much a CL spot contender, whilst 9th place Brighton is obviously not!

It completely fucks the competition up to have these kind of awkward situations. You think the league table has no effect on team and players mindset? Even US sports try to have teams have a similar number of games played at the same time, you don't see NBA teams having 5 games less than their opponents and it's an 82 game season!

Like I said, I still prefer this to having teams depleted by COVID being forced to play games, which I think is unethical, and disgracefully arrogant and football-centric. It's embarrassingly narrow minded considdering the contxt of the wider world right now.

 

[brehme1989]

Like I said, I still prefer this to having teams depleted by COVID being forced to play games, which I think is unethical, and disgracefully arrogant and football-centric. It's embarrassingly narrow minded considdering the contxt of the wider world right now.

The only genuinely ethical approach would be to postpone entire matchdays if you're so concerned about public health. The football-centric approach is to have games played on when almost half the teams cannot participate, which is what the PL is basically doing.

And it's hardly a covid thing, there are many instances due to domestic cups where teams lag behind, it's typical for English football. But not to this extent.

 

[.h.]

So if its already typical, whats the big deal? Sure, its more extreme than normal, but hey, COVID.

Postponing entire match days when some teams are mutually fit is just ridiculous, its reasonable to try to make things go ahead, but not when some of the teams in question clearly have major COVID outbreaks.

 

[Sawyer]

Like take Arsenal for example, they have 1 COVID case so 2moro's game v Spurs is postponed. Sensible stuff

 

[brehme1989]

So if its already typical, whats the big deal? Sure, its more extreme than normal, but hey, COVID.

Postponing entire match days when some teams are mutually fit is just ridiculous, its reasonable to try to make things go ahead, but not when some of the teams in question clearly have major COVID outbreaks.

Arsenal's request to postpone the derby doesn't have much to do with covid. It has to do with offloading Niles-Maitland and another player iirc and not replacing them, four players off to Africa, something like four or five injuries, a suspension (Xhaka) and just 2 covid cases. I think it's actually 1+1, the new covid case wouldn't have played anyway, but maybe that was just bad rumours.

It's a ridiculous rule that says that teams can ask for postponement even if it's not really covid related as long as there's at least one covid case. If Bologna did this to us half the forum would be calling FIGC a joke for saying yes. At least Serie A demands teams to include their Primavera squads. Arsenal has 60 registered players, yet since the PL squad is thin, they get to postpone. Yeah, right

 

[.h.]

I dont know the ins and outs of the Arsenal situation, but on reddit, it seems like they only have 10 outfield players following the FA definition of available first team players, which makes it a legitimte postponement.

 

[brehme1989]

I dont know the ins and outs of the Arsenal situation, but on reddit, it seems like they only have 10 outfield players following the FA definition of available first team players, which makes it a legitimte postponement.

Club statement | Tottenham Hotspur

We regret to announce that Sunday’s north London derby against Arsenal has been postponed.

www.tottenhamhotspur.com

We regret to announce that Sunday’s north London derby against Arsenal has been postponed.

This follows an application from Arsenal to the Premier League on the basis of a combination of COVID, existing and recent injuries and players on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations.

We are extremely surprised that this application has been approved.

We ourselves were disqualified from the European Conference League after a significant number of COVID cases meant we needed to reschedule a fixture and our application to move our Leicester fixture was not approved - only for it to be subsequently postponed when Leicester applied.

The original intention of the guidance - [https://www.premierleague.com/news/2426753]- was to deal with player availability directly affected by COVID cases, resulting in depleted squads that, when taken together with injuries, would result in the club being unable to field a team.

We do not believe it was the intent to deal with player availability unrelated to COVID.

We may now be seeing the unintended consequences of this rule.

It is important to have clarity and consistency on the application of the rule.

Yet again, fans have seen their plans disrupted at unacceptably short notice.

We shall once again send food deliveries to the local food banks to avoid unacceptable waste.

We are sincerely sorry for our fans - some of whom will have travelled great distances.

Note to our supporters

Tickets will remain valid for the rearranged fixture. All affected supporters will be contacted via email with further details.

I added the link in the quote as it didn't carry from the copying, but maybe it'll get buried, so here goes:

A guide to Premier League match postponements due to COVID-19

More details on the process by which recent fixtures have had to be called off

www.premierleague.com

When making an application, clubs must provide the Board with the following details, together with clear reasons why they believe the match should be postponed:

- Players and staff who have returned a positive COVID-19 test, their vaccination status and, if known, the source of their infections.
- Players and staff who are self-isolating.
- Players who are unavailable to play through injury or illness.
- Players listed on the club’s squad list who are still available to play in the match, including appropriately experienced Under-21 players (which includes Under-21 players who have played for the club, another Premier League or EFL club, or an overseas club in the current season. However, any Under-21 player who participates in a club’s FA Cup Round Three match and has not played in any other first-team competitions for the club this season will not be considered by the Board as appropriately experienced).
- Supporting medical information to verify the status of each unavailable player, which will be reviewed by the League’s medical advisers.

 

[kurt0411]

Sure you can say it’s a farmers league cos the same team is winning over and over but how dafuq are you gonna say it’s not the best league in the world?

Look at the results in Europe over the last 5 years, the furthest an Italian team has gone to is Juve reaching one final. They've had multiple CL and Europa League finals with 2 English teams contesting it. Shouldn't be surprising considering the amount of money they spend but it’s the same thing Italian teams used to experience in the 90’s and early 2000’s

 

[brehme1989]

Ah, yes. The 'Europe' narrative. The one that was repeated in the late 2000s.

In the early and mid 2010s of course, Europe was secondary because "the PL is the toughest league and teams cannot focus on both competitions".

Now Europe matters again

 

[kurt0411]

Ah, yes. The 'Europe' narrative. The one that was repeated in the late 2000s.

In the early and mid 2010s of course, Europe was secondary because "the PL is the toughest league and teams cannot focus on both competitions".

Now Europe matters again

I mean it doesn’t fucking matter what argument you want to use. Put the best team from Serie A in the premier league, which is us I guess, and we’re finishing 4th at best. Grab the top 3 from their league and they win our league. It’s not that complicated.

Also if you want to compare the mid table-lower end teams they would smoke our teams. Heck the bottom team in their league has spent more money than we have over the last couple of years

 

[brehme1989]

I mean it doesn’t fucking matter what argument you want to use. Put the best team from Serie A in the premier league, which is us I guess, and we’re finishing 4th at best. Grab the top 3 from their league and they win our league. It’s not that complicated

What makes you think that we cannot torch the bottom 15 PL sides on a regular basis?
What makes you think that we cannot compete with the top 5 PL sides?

Put Liverpool in Serie A and they probably don't win it. Do I need to remind you that their best player was not really lighting the world up in Italy yet he's considered a Ballon d'Or contender over there? Roma were jubilant to receive a bid for him when they did.
Put Chelsea in Serie A and they probably don't win it, either.

It's a different type of game, the teams aren't structured to win in someone else's league. But still, there's no quality gap between us and these guys, apart from Manchester City. Which is why they keep winning over there as well and why they'd also be favorites in Italy. They would struggle in Germany and probably win the French league, but that's that. There's no PL side strong enough to beat them, yet everyone acts as if the league is wide open.

 

[kurt0411]

What makes you think that we cannot torch the bottom 15 PL sides on a regular basis?
What makes you think that we cannot compete with the top 5 PL sides?

Put Liverpool in Serie A and they probably don't win it. Do I need to remind you that their best player was not really lighting the world up in Italy yet he's considered a Ballon d'Or contender over there? Roma were jubilant to receive a bid for him when they did.
Put Chelsea in Serie A and they probably don't win it, either.

It's a different type of game, the teams aren't structured to win in someone else's league. But still, there's no quality gap between us and these guys, apart from Manchester City. Which is why they keep winning over there as well and why they'd also be favorites in Italy. They would struggle in Germany and probably win the French league, but that's that. There's no PL side strong enough to beat them, yet everyone acts as if the league is wide open.

I mean you don’t watch the premier league so it’s understandable why you may think that but Chelsea win our league on their squad alone. They literally have 2 teams. Liverpool‘s starting XI obliterates ours on paper but I guess we could find out about that one soonish. I’m not saying we won‘t be able to do well against their mid table to lower teams but like you cannot be that daft to think that there isn’t a major difference? Aston Villa who are sitting in 13th just got Digne and Coutinho . That would be the equivalent of Verona getting those players

 

[Strale]

Italy won the Euros only Verratti was not from Serie A iirc

But EPL is a hegemon, it's not even close atm imo

 

[brehme1989]

Italy won the Euros only Verratti was not from Serie A iirc

But EPL is a hegemon, it's not even close atm imo

And Jorginho.

Emerson featured a bit but he doesn't really play anywhere else