LOL by his logic also add in Real Sociedad and Villarreal have competed for La Liga in the same Era.
NOT CALLING ANYBODY OUT HERE. Why did you overseas fans choose Arsenal as your team of choice and did you hold the opinion that English league was poor then.
Its obviously different to those of us born on the doorstep of the club.
Again I stress in just interested having read todays posts.
Leciester have won the Premier League. Set yourself up for that one mate.
The English league isnāt poor I was just saying IMO La Liga is stronger, back when I started following Serie A was the strongest League. As for the reason I started following Arsenal basically my best mate went on a holiday to visit Family in the the UK when he was 12 and most are form Newcastle, he came back to Australia fully invested in the EPL. This was on the brink of the of the 98 cup final and to be different to him I selected the team that Newcastle was playing against in that Cup Final.
Iām dutch. Bergkamp and van Persie were two of my favourite players with Adriano back in those days. But when van Persie signed for Arsenal and they both started playing for Arsenal it was only logical to follow Arsenal. That following only grew.
But that is the whole point. Those two clubs spend an INSANE amount to accumulate that talent. Atletico spend similar amount to Everton FFS. Maybe they are better now because of good scouting, good training/development, or good management, but money affects those things as well eventually.
Right now the managers in England include AW, Mou, Pep, Conte, Klopp, etcā¦ it is attracting the best talent in management now too - sorry, but money will make EPL the dominant force other than the top 4-5 clubs in Europe very soon, unless similar influx of money happens in France, Germany, or Italy.
Holy shit this thread is stupid.
Thank god I learned something though which is that two teams battling it out above anyone else domestically and in world football does actually make the rest of the league weak, because yea logic.
Not sure anyone is saying it is causative PPB. I think the issue relative to evaluating the other league is simply that the money left to the bottom 18 in Spain (for example) is increasingly less competitive with England. The reason Barca and Real are above EVERYONE (including England) has to do with brand AND the fact they have monopoly on their TV money, unlike in England.
And yet a lot of other teams are quite good but just not Real Madrid or Barcelona level. Theyāre just doing a great job at making the best out of the talent pool they have, which England lacks considerably at this point and so have to make up for it with spending more.
I mean what a lot of people want to believe is that more money will suddenly make Ryan Shawcross, Joe Allen or current state Wayne Rooney less average players which simply isnāt the case. If now England had the same talent pool and the money we definitely would be seeing huge things coming from the PL in the future but as it is now itās not quite yet the case.
Definitely agree with the point that they are doing better with less relative to England, but I fear there is an inevitably growing gulf, which will make this harder.
Pep killing it with those tactics. Not sure heād ever seen Leicester play tbh lol
Thatās what i meant when i said they have our same problem: they donāt care about their opponents. They just use the same style in every game.
The best thing about it though is that literally right before the match Huth spoke about how teams adapt differently to Leicester now. Nope, not Pep, heās gonna play right into Leicesterās hands.
Hope he plays into our hands too.
Regardless of Cityās form I always felt that weād beat them or at least give them a good game and that seems even more likely now.
One thing I will say though is that Pep is right to stick by his philosophy but wrong to do so with the players he has at his disposal.
If wenger got beaten by Leicester like that it would have been carnage. Talks of how he is tactically inflexible etc.
Guardiola does it and he was right to stick by his philosophy? @SRCJJ Iām not convinced man. If sticking to your philosophy grants another team a 3-0 victory, then how on earth could sticking by it be the right thing to do?
Edit: made it a little easier to read
Edit2: 4-2, not 3-0
I think the issue heās having is that his philosophy is successful and has obviously won him an immense amount of trophies in his career. The issue is that some of the things he expects of his players, you can get from Lahm, Boateng, Alaba and co but you canāt get that from Kolarov, Sagna and Clichy.
This is the first time in his career that heās going to actually need more than a season to build a team capable of winning the title. I think once he gets the right people, weāll start to see a proper Pep team instead of the sometimes Pep team we get now.
Ah I see. I didnāt consider you meant in the longer term; and you are absolutely right in that instance tbh.
Always said Guardiola needs special bunch of players to get his system working, and one or more of his players to be a real Maverick so his football becomes perfect.
What āphilosophyā exactly? Heās managed to win the league every year, each time with fewest goals conceded, so I think if he has a āphilosophyā, it seems to work quite well.
Right now heās lost three games, which can happen, but his team has also certainly shipped too many goals for his liking. His best defender and captain, however, has played all but 116 minutes this season. I doubt our defensive record would be much better, if Kos was out that long. The talented young centre back they bought in the summer, who surely is supposed to play alongside Kompany and learn his trait some more, is now relied upon all the time and is highly error-prone. New system, new club, new manager. His performances are to be expected.
Given the circumstances, an on par start to the season for Guardiola and City, nothing more, nothing less.