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Christ ! If you’ve not much interest in European or international football, then what are you watching? English Premier league? Championship ?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman
Hopefully not just Cardiff City, or you’ll be in a lunatic asylum by the end of next season 😂
As regards TV, I watch a bit of Premier League football, a few games here and there in the cup competitions, way too much Championship football and a bit of the Bundesliga.Quote:
Originally Posted by William Treseder
By and large, I found the Championship very hard going last season. I saw a handful of good games, but the quality was desperately poor more often than not. At least the football in the Premier League and the Bundesliga is generally decent, but the Championship was just terrible considering the money the players are paid and the debts the clubs run up. I don't know precisely why it was so poor last season, but I genuinely believe it was the worst campaign I can remember in terms of the overall quality of the football.
I suppose one way to gauge the seemingly growing gulf in quality between the Premier league and Championship, is each season try and work out how many Championship players could play in a premier league 11.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman
I’d wager it would be fewer and fewer as the seasons go by. That’s slightly concerning.
I’v often wondered in the last few seasons, if there is a genuine shortage of quality players, both young and early 20’s.
What are your thoughts?
There does seem to be a shortage. In years past, most decent Championship sides, and even some who were not so good, would have a few players you could look at and think they were Premier League possibles, but there seems to have been very few in recent seasons and hardly any last season.Quote:
Originally Posted by William Treseder
I also think the ludicrous turnover of managers and coaching staff doesn't help. As far as I can make out (and this is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate), the teams who ended the season with the same manager as they started it with were as follows:
1st - Leeds
2nd - Burnley
3rd - Sheffield Utd
4th - Sunderland
6th - Bristol City
10th - Middlesbrough
12th - Sheffield Wednesday
15th - QPR
16th - Portsmouth
So, just 9 of the 24. Very few clubs had any sort of continuity and among those who did were the most successful.
Could the shortage of better players in the Championship be due to 9 subs now being allowed to be named in Premier League games?
That’s 40 players being involved in one game alone. Hell of a lot of quality players not getting game time at the top level but clubs are keeping them ‘just in case’ I s’pose.
Probably. Hard to imagine, but there are players who will spend their football careers accumulating £millions in wages yet hardly getting a kick in anger. They may even have a bit of 'silverware' to go with it. What great football memories they'll have to look back on during their 50 years of retirement.Quote:
Originally Posted by splott parker
I wonder how much dosh Mason Mount has received when equated to minutes played since he arrived at Man U ?Quote:
Originally Posted by A Quiet Monkfish
Possibly, but there is such a huge percentage of imported foreign talent in the Premier League that it shouldn't make too much difference to the Championship. In fact, you'd think it could actually strengthen it in some ways.Quote:
Originally Posted by splott parker
I'm convinced the short-termism that now pervades the Championship is a major factor. Teams often have several different managers in a season (with us being a fine example), so team selections, tactical approaches, coaching and playing styles get chopped and changed very frequently. I don't think that helps anyone and doesn't aid player development.
Prem clubs are also hoovering up young talent in Britain, so it is incredibly hard to get someone to break through. They're also 100m better off every season. Wolves and West Ham are probably the two worst teams that have stayed up, and they've got teams of 30/40m players. West Ham have players like Kudus, Paqueta and Bowen!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman
I also believe the championship's short-termism is the main reason for its decline, but with a slightly different slant.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman
The overly resourced Premier League clubs have invested heavily in recruitment and have a very extensive network of scouts and analysts. You live and die by your recruitment in any industry, but the sums of money and defined contracts, and human capital assets in football magnify it massively. The well run smaller prem clubs are giving the big guns a run for their money, as you can only field 16 players a game, so the big guns' deeper pockets are on players stuck in the stands.
The championship spends almost all its income in salaries for poorly recruited players who are on expensive contracts and sold the dream from a manager five sackings ago. They are safe, UK contract law ensures that, and if you are on £500K a year on a four year deal you are made for life. So many players see out their contract nowadays, especially at the poorly run clubs. Except for early academy graduates, not many championship players go for big bucks to the Premier League since covid, the market has changed.
Far more of the income should be on recruitment. I hate it when we subcontract scouting for data analysis, every club from L2 upwards has access to the same data companies, its a tool in your toolbox not the only the tool.
Then my favourite, Pepball. He is a unique genius, blessed with not just world-class talent throughout his managerial career but generational talent. His intricate philosophy is not for the likes of Daland, Ralls, NG, Ronomhota....well the entire championship!!! I don't think we were the second-best team when Warnock won promotion, much better squads that threw it away, giving up silly goals.
Ipswich and Soton played a modern progressive game in the championship and were slaughtered in the Premier League, where they played teams who were good at it or teams who were accustomed to countering it against better progressives.
The top of the championship has slowly reverted to a Mourinho negative defensive don't give up easy plays mentality and at the expense of the "playing the right way brigade.".
L1 offers us a chance to reset, we won't. We'll take too long recruiting a general manager on a medium term contract with get-out clauses instead of having a long term approach. We need a thinker at the club, to run the club. Managers are from the 1980's