Maybe it’s just me, but the quality of the play seems to be better amongst them vs. pre-2020 imho.
City and Arsenal excluded, as they’ve gone for pure functional efficiency to get results.
If we’re using small sample sizes. Last season was pretty bad in terms of quality despite all the money spent and big brain coaches we got.
But going to ‘pre-2020’ for a moment.
There’s always been upstart teams (We all saw Leicester win the title…sigh), bogey teams and the likes. Most notably when supporting Arsenal it was Bolton and West Ham (also a bogey team for Ferguson) in the mid-2000’s. Even thinking of today’s match. Fulham who are decent was in a Europa League final back then beating the likes of Juventus to get there.
The mid-late 2000’s in the Champions League was known for Premier League domination. It was frequent to see 2-3 Premier League teams in in the Semi finals.
The ‘top 10 could beat anyone on their day’ has always been the case. Actually terms such as ‘game-raising’ exist because of that fact.
The current era has some of the worst performing relegated outfits. Derby County was notorious for how much of an outlier they were. But now teams don’t even clear 30 points on the regular. Sheffield United conceded over 100 fucking goals. How you interpret that is certainly up for debate. I think it’s easily because they suck.
The technical quality of players playing in mid table clubs far outshine pre-2020 ones.
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IMO the mid to lower table clubs are much better than 20 years ago and it really two factors: They’re a lot wealthier and also now hire a lot of top up and coming continental managers who want to make their name in the league. 20 years ago every club outside the big 5-6 had some British dinosaur manager like Mark Hughes or Steve Bruce.
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Hmmm we have some shitters for coaches right now. Two of them got sacked this season already… and the less said about Amorim the better lol.
Steve Bruce absolutely got way too many chances though. He was a waste of time.
None of them come close to managers like Mick McCarthy, Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis, Mark Hughes, Owen Coyle, Alex McLeish, Chris Hughton, Phil Brown
Atleast with managers like Amorim you have a manager who wish to try a system, try some tactics. Managers of 2000s were all about being physical.
I’d have most of that lot over Ivan Duric or Slaven Bilic.
Mark Hughes Blackburn with Roque Santa Cruz was pretty decent. They were a ‘Top 10’ team.
That Bolton bogey team I mentioned was under Allardyce with the likes of Jay Jay-Okocha. They were frequent a ‘Top 10’ team. He fell off and that’s how the cookie crumbles. Not that anyone rated him highly so…
Owen Coyle was getting hype just like how Graham Potter was early on. In the modern era he probably falls upwards before getting exposed.
Phil Brown was a lower league coach who happend to a be a Premier League coach the same way Billy Davies at Derby. Shock promotion. He was never hired by another Premier League outfit.
Mick McCarthy although Sunderland hired him when they were dead a buried was only a Premier League coach because he got teams promoted. No one took a chance on him.
Alex McLeish played some absolutely dire stuff.
Chris Hughton again, was only a Premier League coach because he got teams promoted. I think Norwich hired him one time and he did okay then got sacked? Did better than Daniel Farke at least lol.
Stoke was a stable Premier League team under Pulus but I don’t like Pulis and his thuggish football so that’s as far as I’m saying positive about him.
I have no idea what you mean about trying tactics with Amorim. His football is shocking.
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Hopefully Don Emery and co kill Spurs today
Emery won’t make it to Christmas
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Really need a Good Ebening from Emery today.
We play them away on the 6th December 
Nice strike 1-1
Great build up from Simon Hooper there. Glad they’re not hiding how rotten the whole system is.
What happened?
Spurs were doing a rehearsed FK routine, Porro was supposed to pass it wide, his pass was awful but it hit Hooper so it went exactly at the player Porro wanted, instead of stopping the game, the idiot let that sequence continue and Spurs nearly scored from it.
Sounds about right. If it’s us, you know play is getting stopped
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Wirtz on the bench
Ekitike too. Quite an expensive bench.
Sesko too, not unexpected.
Buendia!
the ball. the touch. the strike 