Man, the rubbish decision might distract them, but I can't see Arsenal finishing in the top 4, and there is big trouble around the corner when Sanchez and Ozil are gone.
They're already the weakest of the top six by some distance. They have an awfully large number of narrow escapes, and the firepower that offset their defensive frailties in years past has been diminished. They really need to turn the squad over a bit in the summer; likely will be forced into it anyway, but their squad seems to be atrophying a bit. Lacazette's a good addition, but it has to be a massive concern that they finally got the type of striker they coveted, and are scoring fewer goals than ever.
Yeah. There's been a few "competitive football is dead" articles in the last week or two which I get, Man City are amazing and the other 5 are mostly really good. But Arsenal have deferred a load of problems, and Chelsea/Man Utd both don't seem comfortable which makes me not so worried about the future. If only we could be good again.
There's also no functional reason why competitive football would be dead. Yeah, the top teams spend a lot; they have always spent a lot. The rest of the league can also spend quite a bit these days, too. Methinks it comes down to solving the current paradox: why, in a league where even the also-rans have expensive attacking talent, has scoring dropped so precipitously for all but the elite teams? Better defending? Overly cautious management? Teams having the talent to play possession football rather than the frenetic counterattacking style lesser teams used to rely on? I dunno, but no team outside the current top team even has a player with more than six goals with more than half the season played...Charlie Austin, in and out of the lineup all year and barely heading for double digits, is the leading scorer in the bottom half of the table. The result? Lots and lots of low-scoring draws, particularly between bottom half teams (West Brom is currently on pace to set a PL record for percentage of matches drawn, at a ludicrous 47.7%), leading to depressed overall points totals, and little separation at the bottom of the table. Winning fewer than ten matches usually marks one as favourites for relegation; this year, there are nine teams on a pace to miss that mark. So, if we want to be competitive again, the equation is fairly simple: get back to playing proper, aggressive attacking football, with players who are actually capable of burying chances. Feast on the lower-half matchups and pick up the odd result against the top six. Be the team we were two years ago, basically. Well, I mean, the equation is simple; getting there's a bit trickier, but still.
So, if we want to be competitive again, the equation is fairly simple: get back to playing proper, aggressive attacking football _____________________________________ AMEN. Bravery now, can save more than us, it can save the manager.
I read an article, probably some time ago now, suggesting that more than three sides should be relegated. At it's extreme, anything up to ten. I think the heart of the article was more to do with closing the gap between PL and Championship, and cutting out the managerial sacking merry-go-round of the PL, but these days it could equally apply to trying to cut out deadwood and to encourage attacking football (because draws wouldn't keep you up).
Yeah, I dunno. Structure merit payments around points earned rather than position in the table, maybe? Not sure how you'd do it without increasing the share due the top clubs, though. Make any team below 40 points at the end of the year play a relegation playoff against a Championship side? Fine teams £500,000 in any matches where they don't score, with the money going directly to my bank account?
Looked at games playing today....probably impossible for us not to drop down league today, but, thinking more long term with regard to teams below us and those who we might catch up with (struggled to write that last bit without laughing), the best results IMO would be draws for Brighton v Bournemouth, Leicester v Huddersfield, and Stoke v Newcastle, an away win for Everton V United, and hardly matters for Burnley v Liverpool.
Ah interesting, I remember a similar argument that because the Bundesliga only has 2 relegation spots from 18 (15th has a play off which they always win), it means German clubs have enough stability to make long term plans and don't have to sack their managers every year. Something like 14 of the 18 managers in the Bundesliga were promoted from managing either their own or someone elses U23 team, and I guess you can add Klopp and Wagner to that. Probably the money gap is less too which I don't have an answer for. I'm not usually in favour of rules to stop other teams doing stupid things either.
