Although we are partly to blame, because we appear to have turned Brentford into some sort of away team powerhouse. They couldn't do anything away from home until they came to us.
I'm not saying that he would have definitely kept them up, but Leicester weren't even in the bottom 3 when they sacked Cooper. It was madness then, and it's still madness now. In the unlikely event that we win tomorrow, we will have picked up more points than Leicester since they sacked him (assuming no miraculous turnaround in the second half). And their March and April fixtures aren't too nice.
They said on tv that Leicester 1. Have the worst goal difference in the league. 2. They paid Spurs £25M for Oliver Skipp. How and how lol
It's flawed not ruined. You take away days like the play off final and we may as well pack up and move to the US.
I don’t think it would happen but the argument for it must be as strong as it’s ever been. The top clubs would never want it so it’s irrelevant really. Whether they try to address the huge gap between the Champ and the PL I doubt, not really sure how they could go about it in a realistic way at least.
That the teams who are coming up from the Championship are pointless as they can’t compete. Last year was regarded as one of the worst/most boring relegation battles. This year looks even worse, 4 teams in it at the moment and you could argue that us and Leicester aren’t really in it. Wolves are miles ahead on paper of all three promoted sides but clearly not performing. If the 3 promoted sides go down this year then that means that whoever comes up will have to be competing with teams that have minimum been in the league for 3 years I think, with all the PL money etc that entails with their squad building. Add in how strong the Championship looked last year at the top end and drives home the gap even more. People were saying that the three promoted sides would give it a better go than Sheff Utd/Burnley etc. Ipswich are on a par and us and Leicester are worse. Burnley and Sheff Utd both look likely to come straight back up, with Leeds as well who obviously came down with us. They are clearer than the top 4 were last year so the top end of the Championsup is even stronger compared to the opposition in the league than last year. Takes a minor miracle for a non parachute team to come up in the first place so you could potentially just end up with the same 6/7/8 teams coming up and going down if something doesn’t change. As I said the top teams won’t go for it as if you remove the possibility of relegation for teams that makes their position weaker. There are probably 10 teams in the PL who when they sit down to plan their transfer window/season ahead have to consider relegation and the financial impact that has. That will clearly factor in to their decision making. You take away that threat and they can spend what they want to a degree knowing that the money will always be there even if they have a terrible season. Making it more likely they could challenge further up the table. It could make the PL far more competitive than it is now, which would be a selling point to a lot of people I’d imagine. As I say I don’t think it will happen or want it to, but I think there is reasonable argument you could make now which wasn’t the case a few years ago. Maybe FFP is what has driven the huge chasm between the leagues now, I don’t know
But why would it be an improvement? I get that it isn't great to have the promoted sides always going down. But surely the solution to knowing who the bottom 3 will likely be is not making it irrelevant who the bottom 3 are? If the issue is that the relegation battle is no longer that competitive, the solution is not to make the league if more uncompetitive.
The potential “improvement” (I can see why people might not see it as that) is that the PL becomes stronger/more competitive as a whole. The smaller teams could really go for trying to build teams that can compete at the top end rather than just being fine with finishing 17th as, obviously, where you finish at the bottom end doesn’t matter. Players might be more inclined to leave the better teams if they aren’t playing as much at bigger teams to join smaller teams if they can pay them and play them knowing that relegation isn’t a factor.
But it won't become more competitive because like in American sports, if you can't get relegated you'll have teams who will go into complete rebuild mode and get hammered every week for 3 or 4 years straight.
