No, in the 25 man squad.
Oh right, but they all fiddle Spanish/Portuguese passports anyway so its grand. 
Thatâs really not all that common as youâre making out. Anyways, point is, itâs quite a restrictive factor, as much so or probably more than the homegrown rule, which, if Simeone was in England, Iâm sure he wouldâve worked around fine.
Difficult to compare wage bills across different leagues. The Premier League clubs get the biggest TV money in the World and is the place to be. In La Liga the proportion of TV money Barca and Madrid get compared to the rest of the league is ridiculous. Naturally these clubs will be able to finance bigger wages. Atletico are doing a good job in that respect.
Even if you want to restrict to just La Liga, they are making up 180 million in delta in terms of wages (or worse) against Barca and Real vs. 10-30 million for us vs. our rich competitors, yet they are doing at least as well as us in their own league and have actually won it in the last 5 years.
People can find ways to parse this around as they like, but it is near impossible to argue on objective terms that Simeone isnât working miracles at Atletico to do what he has done. Their wages are over 100 million less than Liverpool FFS and they are in fact comparable to Everton, regardless of the other factors. At the end of the day, you actually have to finance your team (ie., pay your players) - so it isnât like Simeone has been spending much to accomplish a lot.
He hasnât. He has a net spend of less than 20 million in the last 7 years COMBINED (transfers)⊠and he has a wage bill of just over 100 million, very close to Everton and miles away from the big teams in England and light years away from the big 2 in Spain.
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Bottom line is Atletico were spending more in the 90s and 00s than Everton. They won the title in the 90s. Valencia are a similar size with similar success in the early 00s. Sevilla and Everton arenât. Evertonâs wage bill going so high is also likely to be more recent given the new TV money.
As for homegrown PL players versus Spanish, we all know whoâd win in a XI. Compare any PL teams homegrown players to Atleticoâs Spanish players over the last 15 years. Theyâve had Torres, Koke, Juanfran, Gabi, Valeron, David Villa, De Gea, Reyes. Now they have Saul coming through who looks like heâll be another elite talent. Which PL team has been able to field as many quality homegrown players? Maybe Man United but not recently. PL teams have to play dross to keep up their homegrown quota.
As for the 3 non EU player limit. Atletico has 7 players born in non EU countries. One way or another they get around it with EU passports. Whether thatâs legitamitely through working/playing in a country for a few years or more ilegitamite ways.
They also have easier rules on work permits for foreign players, where as in the past PL teams couldnât get a young Argie talent if he didnât have sufficient national caps.
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Thomas is homegrownâŠheâs from AtlĂ©tiâs youths. The others, like GaitĂĄn, Augusto, GodĂn, Filipe Luis etc. have been in Europe a long time so to get eligibility (I confess I donât know quite how it works, but I do know AtlĂ©ti has not been able to sign or bring in South American players many times because of the rule, same with Madrid)âŠAgain, I donât think a very convincing solution to your argument is to point out how intelligently AtlĂ©ti has worked around the rules. Thatâs the whole point, if a similar level of manager to Simeone was working around them at Everton, they could certainly have had a rise like AtlĂ©ti did. Itâs not like theyâve had anything even close to the level of Madrid or Barça in front of them in the league in the last 6-7 years.
The players you mention, Torres and Villa? Really? Reyes and ValerĂłn of course did not participate in Simeoneâs success (I think Reyes coincided for a short period when Simeone arrived?) Like I said, your point is invalidated by the fact that an PL team can easily amass the same amount or more of foreign talent as AtlĂ©ti has. The homegrown players of course donât have to be from Spain either. Itâs simply not as limiting a factor as youâre making out.
The last line is again ignoring the 3 non-EU players rule, it doesnât really matter if they can get work permits easier, they donât have spots for those players unless they work the system quite well/are patient for players to achieve EU status.
Football is about being entertained too and would Simeone provide that? Only to the fans that like watching defensive football. Iâd worry heâd take away the excitement watching Mesut or Alexis.
How many atletico games do you watch? He doesnât sit back and play defensive football against Levante. He adapts to the opposition.
And besides, he didnât take the excitement away from watching Costa, Griezmann, Falcao, Koke and so on so I doubt heâd take it from Mesut or Alexis.
But in all honesty heâs going to Inter (or maybe even Lazio) next. So this shouldnât even worry you lol.
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I would rather have genital warts than diego simeone as manager !
The defensive stuff was something I had against the man and was one of the reasons I didnât want him to succeed Wenger. (Mainly because, as you say, I donât watch Atletico) However, Iâve seen this point about him not playing defensive against smaller teams before and it just seems like common sense doesnât it? To adapt your team when playing against teams more capable than yourself. Plus, Isnât that something we cried out for for Wenger to do when playing against bigger teams in years gone by?
Moot point though because youâre right, itâs not something weâll ever have to seriously consider. Heâs not coming here.
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Yeah itâs pretty much exactly that. We wanted a manager who could adapt to the opposition for years and in Simeone you have just that. The biggest criticism of him will always be that his organised, aggressive and passionate style of play would represent a massive change to the free flowing football we were accustomed to at one point here.
Even if he were available I donât think it would work simply because it represents a massive shift in playing philosophy and Iâd rather we just got a modern version of Wenger who can be successful.
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The main reason I canât see Simeone ever coming here is because his managing style doesnât coincide with our philosophy. Wenger has layed the foundations for us to play a certain way for many years to come. Obviously the next manager may adapt it as no manager is the same, but canât see the clubs philosophy ever being changed completely.
Itâs ironic that the club whoâs philosophy changed the most when they appointed a new manager was us.
George Graham might have been successful but he was the opposite of Wenger in terms of style of play.
Personally I would have no problem with Simeone, I donât think Atletico are anywhere near as boring as some people think but they are effective against the bigger clubs and are very good going forward against weaker opposition.
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This philosophy thing is so overrated.
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The philosphers have only interpeted the world in various ways, the point however to change it.
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Not really. It runs deep through to grass roots here.
Please. I donât respect Andries Jonker or any of his work. The current state of the Dutch national team is arguably the work of van Gaal and him. I donât rate our youth set up and I donât think Wengerâs influence on that is as great.
Problem is Wengers model has serious flaws in it . Whoever takes over will have to scrap the crap we have and make a new model from the youth up !
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When the philosophy is only restricted to manager, then yes because with different era, one managerâs vision is not adaptive enough.
But when we talk about philosophy across the club hierarchy, then it is not overrated.
Look at Barcelona. Granted filled with cunts, their ethos & way they want to play their football is engrained right from staff to players to fans.