Premier League Thread

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I can't decide if it's a penalty or not, but not in a million years is it a yellow card.

Certain penalty in my mind though a few mins earlier. Oscar gets wiped out. The fact that he has taken his shot should only mean that Ospina avoids a red card (clearly no denying of a goal scoring opportunity). It shouldn't annul the foul completely.
 
Fabregas booked for diving again. This time justified.
Unjustified. Cazorla caught him. Penalty. Unless you can show me the page in the book that tells you how hard you need to be kicked?
I agree with FLT. Where Cesc went wrong was flying through the air with an apparently shattered knee, instead of simply falling down. I think Oliver booked him for bad acting rather than diving.
 
Fabregas made a complete meal of minimal contact. He dived.

He was kicked across the knees. How do you know that didn't put him off balance and more importantly, how did Oliver? He was kicked clearly across both knees. That's a penalty whether he went down too easily or not. Decisions like that are why players dive when they are not fouled as they feel that they need to go down to get a decision.

An attacking player showed some skill to beat an opponent. The opponent kicked him in the penalty area. It's a penalty.
 
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Agreed, I don't think there's too much difference at all - except for maybe slightly further journey's in the EL (more games in eastern Europe), and one extra round of KO games.

It is, ultimately, down to having adequate provisions for the task, as you say. But inevitably, if you're a CL club then you will have more money available to you to help make the adequate provisions. Not to mention the fact that for you to have got into the CL in the first place, you probably already have quite a large squad. I think it's generally accepted by many of us that the small size of our squad is a large reason why we're not going to finish top four. We can't really get by without our first XI all available and on form.

To date, the Everton's, Swansea's, Newcastle's haven't had squad sizes capable of dealing with playing in the EL. Spurs however have.

I think you sum it up exactly right there.
 
I think Michael Oliver has got 4 penalty decisions wrong in this game to be honest. 2 were borderline, but 2 blatant.

Not the Cahill one, for me. That wasn't deliberate in my book. No penalty. Oliver correct on that one.
 
As to the question of tiredness, CL playing squads play Tues/Wed - Sat/Sun and EL squads play Thurs/Sun or Monday. What's the difference..? Only making inadequate provision for the task. However, if they don't, I'm with you. One season good, one season not so good.

The key things for me are:

1. There are more Europa games than CL, especially if you have to qualify
2. More Eastern European teams in the Europa, meaning further travelling distances
3. Don't underestimate how much even a day makes in terms of recovery from football/travelling, so playing Wed/Tues and Sun is a lot different to Thurs/Sun
4. Because you are always playing on Sundays you are constantly playing catch up in the league, and I think this adds more pressure always having games in hand rather than points on the board.

Thats just my view on it, I still want us to qualify for it, but am very much of the opinion that our league form will suffer. If we ever are going to qualify for the CL then Europa is almost certainly our best chance of doing it.
 
The Europa League is what it is, but it could be a good experience for the players. It won't affect us for long unless we do very well and it won't be the difference between top 6 and relegation anyway. I definitely want to qualify and see how we do.
 
The key things for me are:

1. There are more Europa games than CL, especially if you have to qualify
2. More Eastern European teams in the Europa, meaning further travelling distances
3. Don't underestimate how much even a day makes in terms of recovery from football/travelling, so playing Wed/Tues and Sun is a lot different to Thurs/Sun
4. Because you are always playing on Sundays you are constantly playing catch up in the league, and I think this adds more pressure always having games in hand rather than points on the board.

That's just my view on it, I still want us to qualify for it, but am very much of the opinion that our league form will suffer. If we ever are going to qualify for the CL then Europa is almost certainly our best chance of doing it.

Take your point, but it is still about making adequate provision. On the playing front [No.3], what I mean is, if CL teams play Wednesday - Saturday then this is the same as Thursday - Sunday for EL teams. No extra or lack of a day's rest.
 
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