Absolutely this - can't see any way that the "others" (outside of the Madrids and Barcelona) would be anything other than struggling in the premier league or mid table in the championship! I've watched a lot of the league games over there and, other than those mentioned, they are rubbish!!
PL is the most competitive league bar none. Barring Liverpool and City at the top and Fulham and Huddersfield at the bottom the other 16 sides can literally beat one another on any given day. That can't be said about Spain, France, Germany. They all have 1 or 2 top teams and the rest fairly poor. Italy would probably be closer to the PL in terms of competitiveness but barring Juve they are way way below the quality of the PL - just look at how poor the Milan sides are now. Fabio Borini getting a gig for AC Milan shows how far they've dropped. Foreigners in the PL is a good thing IMO, as our English players learn more and more every day and a different way of playing.
Part of the point is Fulham, they have several players who could play anywhere in Europe, yet are way adrift. That doesn’t happen anywhere else. Only Huddersfield don’t have at least a couple players who are exceptional.
Agreed, players like Schurrle, a guy with 57 Germany caps in a good German era has still only played 20 times for Fulham this season. Just shows how far away SAFC are from the PL nowadays too.
My problem is majority of these overseas players don't cut it. No problem with an influx of talent but for every Mane there's about 4 or 5 Ndongs. That's not good for football in this country. Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk
Comes back to agents don’t it? Say a solid PL Brit, maybe Hendrick. 40k week, or 20k for similar player from Europe.
Yeah we were miles away really and just stayed up on luck. Closest we'd have come was the team with M'Vila in it. That had quality right down the spine.
David Moyes "There's better value out there"..... **** OFF YOU USELESS **** Wonder how we'd have fared if that team (and Big Sam) had stayed together. Reckon we'd have been a comfortable PL side now as that was a good side to watch (contrary to what any Mags will tell you - they now have a manager playing worse style of football but theylove him!!)
There was alot more optimism with Sam there but I still couldn't help feeling we'd still have been on a knifes edge, disaster still potentially around the corner. Then again, around the corner could have been stability. We will never know
In all my time supporting Sunderland only 3 managers I feel really an truly "got" Sunderland, its fans, the city etc etc. Stokoe, Reid and Big Sam. I have no doubt whatsoever if Big Sam had stayed we would more than comfortable in the PL. Him leaving for England (which I totally understood) was the death Knell of our great club. We are climbing back, but its a long slow road.
I think, even though we were debt ridden, the was Sam left promoted Ellis to throw in the towel. That said, he still backed Moyes who spent a huge some of money on some of the worst to ever wear the shirt. Sam gets a lot more right than wrong and wouldn’t have made such errors. For one, he’d have kept the team together that was top 10 form Christmas to seasons end. It’s a shame that story never had its middle and end as it was a great start.
We are Sunderland. There’s ALWAYS disaster around the corner!! As much as I’m enjoying this season, I’m still on the knifes edge!!
