Is the Premier League getting stronger or weaker?

That term annoy's me,they were not invincible,they were unbeaten in the league but beaten in the cup's,invincible means unbeatable,they were not

 

What annoys me is when people say they were better than our 04/05 team who lost less, conceded less, won more and won more points.

 

Last season wigan won 7 out of 9 games so going by your logic this years league is of the same standard as last year.

 

http://www.myfootballfacts.com/PREMIER-LEAGUE-LADDERS-1992-2010.html

With thanks to THFC6061

Are the top sides weaker? Statistically, no.

The stats show the top sides are more dominant in terms of results. 2 points per game used to be the benchmark for champions. Now you'd be lucky to get 3rd. The gap from 1st to 5th is usually nearer 30 points, than the 20 it used to be.

 

That's my point. The mid table teams are weaker than I can ever remember. The top sides getting more points despite weaker personnel is a damning indictment of the weakness of the league.

 

The relegated sides were weak and have struggled even in the Championship Bolton, Blackburn and Wolves are all in the bottom half of the Championship so had they stayed up the y would hardly have improve dthe league. West Ham and Southampton have had many years in the Premiership and are generally reasonable but not "good" sides - Reading are one of those bounce clubs at the moment - wont stay up but willl come again.

Of the rest I would say the re is little difference - some clubs improved whilst others a bit weaker.

So overall I see not much change but certainly not weaker

 

In terms of points, the stats show that the midtable teams are performing the same as ever.

The bottom sides are getting less points. 38 points would comfortably keep you up whereas 40 got you relegated in 97,98 & 03.

But it's not actually the stats that prove or disprove your point- there are always the same number of points available every season whoever wins them. Whether the PL is stronger or weaker is subjective. We can see that teams like Stoke are better organised than their predecessors. We can see that Swansea and Wigan play with greater skill than theirs. The results might not suggest a closer league, but the performances do.

So I stick by the points I made in post #24. Generally standards are improving in my view.

 

The thing is, was the Premier League ever that strong? After all, as much as people hate Stoke it was proven kick & rush football was effective in the Premier League by Bolton long before Stoke were promoted.

 

So how do you define a "strong" league? as some talk about the quality of teams in European competitions, while others look at the overall domestic quality.

Take out Barca/Madrid, Dortmund/Bayern and are the Spanish/German leagues considered strong?

Take out Man Utd/Man City, and would you still view our league as being a strong league?

 

And just to add, i noticed the people that voted its weaker, tend not to be fans of Arry, so essentially you're praising Redknapp and his previous record by suggesting the league is weaker this year

 

But would a hoofball team like Bolton or Stoke last longer than one season in any of those leagues?

Him managing QPR has made the Premier League weaker?

 

For me the only team in the top 6 to have improved are Everton - the likes of Utd, City and Chelsea have much bigger defensive issues than in previous seasons.
I read an interesting article on modern day football the other day and that the PL has become almost a non defending league, 4-3 is a regular occurance and of course we've seen 8-0, 7-5 and all kinds of mad scores this season, suggests the priority for clubs is to strengthen up front ignoring defensive frailties (Fergie and Utd ?).

I can't wait to see a salary cap not least because it creates more of a level playing field but also because I'd love to see the strategies employed by some clubs who want to pay their strikers £10m a year, it'll leave a very small sum for the rest of the squad.
Of course it'll never happen, but it would be fun to see....

 

Well if stoke have proved they can hold their own agaisnt better teams, then it suggests their management would know how to adapt, anyhow its hard to really discuss, as if stoke had a sunny climate and cheap dodgy spanish beer then i'm sure they would play a better passing game

But as for stoke, lets not forget their manager has set up their team to be defensive so all their training and prep goes into their defensive game so they are seeing the rewards.

 

Well, to be very honest, I'd have to say it's weaker than five to ten years ago. Clubs from the EPL struck fear in the Dutch hearts in the CL and Uefa Cup. Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal were still the top of Europe with Real Madrid and AC Milan right behind them. Much has changed since then, Liverpool and Arsenal declined from 2005 and on. Chelsea got themselves a Russian owner and Manchester United one and only succes since was Moscow. And Chelsea didn't exactly play Europas best football I think we can all agree to that. There has been a decline at the top and maybe even at the bottom. The Bundesliga and the Liga A have taken over that top position. You can see it in the ranking.
http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/crank2013.html
But there's nothing to worry about it, even Barcelona and Real Madrid will have to come down at one point. Nothing lasts forever right?

 

I'm not sure why there is such a fuss over rankings in a euro competition, as if we're discussing how strong a league is, you discuss the overall quality, not focus on how well a few individual teams do in European competition.

There is no way the German league is of a higher standing then the English league BUT Dortmund & Bayern are two outstanding teams and carry the flag well, yet their quality doesn't represent the overall standard so these rankings aren't there to prove how strong a domestic league is, in terms of what is achieved over 38 games.

 

I don't buy this getting weaker nonsense at all english clubs continually do well in the Champs league, even when one fails another picks up there game.

How many English teams have made the final over the last 10 years, a hell of a lot for a "weak league"

Spurs and City are much better than they used to be though this can be countered by Liverpools and to an extent Arsenals decline.

 

I don't think you can judge the standard of the PL by how teams fare in Europe. If you did, then over the past 10 years, English clubs have still performed the best, against the odds.

No other clubs in Europe have to endure the physical demands of our league. Every game is played at a high tempo and is physically demanding from start to finish. Our players get more injuries and need longer rests. It's inevitable that there will be some knock-on effect when European games come around. Barcelona canter through the La Liga season. They have two key matches, another 6-8 quite demanding ones and the rest are a stroll in the park. If Utd could do the same in the PL, have a fully fit squad to choose from for vital CL games with Rooney, RvP, Vidic and the rest in prime condition in April and May, then we would have more CL trophies under SAF. Conversely, I'd be interested to see how good Barcelona's squad really is if every game was a contest and they had to do without key players on a regular basis. Imagine 4 games in 8 days in winter- Stoke (a), City (h), Everton (a), Chelsea (h), then an F.A Cup match at Cardiff, followed by Newcastle (a) and Arsenal (h) before another Cup game... and so on. They wouldn't fancy it one bit.

 

Or it shows other managers have failed to adapt to it.

Let's be honest, would managers as tactically inept as Kevin Keegan or Avram Grant get a job in Spain, Italy, Germany, France or Holland?

 

Sorry, but I disagree. It is not nonsense to say that the standard of football played by Europe's top clubs now exceeds that of the top PL sides. The results speak for themselves. Chelsea may have won the CL last year, thanks to enormous fortune. However, they were completely outplayed by both Barca & Bayern.
For further evidence, you need only look at the fate of both Chelsea, the CL holders, and City, the PL champions in this seasons competition.

 

With the ranking just grabbing something to support my thesis, along with other arguments. But go ahead and stare blindly at one point in my argumentation. And the fact that you don't know any other than Dortmund and Bayern is your problem. Stuttgart, Wolfsburg, Bremen, Monchengladbach and Leverkusen are all top notch teams and I'd rate them the same as Spurs, Everton, Liverpool and West Ham for that matter. Maybe Wolfsburg and Bremen are in a bit of a downer this season, but Liverpool was ranked 14th last season when they fired Dalgleish.

And another thing, that the league is weaker doesn't automatically mean it's for the worse., the competition is just more levelled on a European scale. Russia, Ukraine and Portugal have become sort of powerhouses in the last 4 to 5 years. Italy's competition has been on the decline ever since Juventus was fined and demoted to the Serie B. France has seen better days, when Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux were still feared.

A good indication for that comes with the Dutch Eredivisie market. In the 90ies and from 2000 till about 2004 the EPL, Liga A and the Serie A were the main destinations transferwise. But since 2005 most of the Dutch transfers are to Turkey, Russia and Portugal. The EPL still stands out, but it's not the walhalla it used to be.