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Well this is awkward
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The points hauls prove nothing, they can be manipulated to prove whichever point anyone is trying to make. FWIW, I think Liverpool have been magnificent this season and deserve to be as far ahead as they are. But that doesn't prove or disprove the league strength argument.

I think a decent indicator of league strength is European performance. Last season England provided all 4 finalists in Europe, & this season all 7 clubs have survived beyond Christmas

In terms of Europe over the last 18 months the Premier League hasn’t had it so good since 2009
 
The points hauls prove nothing, they can be manipulated to prove whichever point anyone is trying to make. FWIW, I think Liverpool have been magnificent this season and deserve to be as far ahead as they are. But that doesn't prove or disprove the league strength argument.

I think a decent indicator of league strength is European performance. Last season England provided all 4 finalists in Europe, & this season all 7 clubs have survived beyond Christmas

In terms of Europe over the last 18 months the Premier League hasn’t had it so good since 2009

This is an excellent point. If there has been a drop in quality, it is true across Europe. Real, Barca, Bayern and Juve are shadows of what they were 10-20 years ago. Maybe the money sloshing around the PL has levelled the playing field? It certainly is telling when you consider that whilst Real, PSG and Juve all reportedly showed interest in Soumare, the team that actually ended up bidding - a fortune - was little old Newcastle.
 
I'd be interested to see that stat but much further back. The past 5 seasons have (perhaps uniquely) been characterised by one or more big teams being dreadful. What was the average like in, say, the early 2000's?

That City and Pool have totally raised the bar in terms of points won per season is clear, but how good the rest of the top half is has to be open to discussion.

I think what's pretty clear and tbh in some cases has been for years now, is that the likes of Arsenal, United, Chelsea and now Spurs are miles off of the standard they should be. All of them are among the 15 wealthiest clubs in world football yet are miles away from competing at the very top. That has definitely changed the lay of the land over the past 5 years.

The Premier League has always been a 2 horse race, those 2 have changed over the years (Man Utd v Arsenal, Man Utd v Chelsea, Chelsea v City, City v Liverpool) but I do not recall a time when a genuine title challenge was between more than 2 teams, and the drop off after those 2 even in the top 4 has always been substantial. 5 years ago Liverpool where way off, the quality was no better then.

Look down at the league table, maybe from 6 - 14, do you honestly think the quality of those teams is less than in previous seasons? I don't think so.

Look at Norwich at the foot of the table, are they honestly relegation fodder is seasons gone by, I'm not so sure
 
How does comparing points totals within the division relate to quality? Someone has to get the points.
If every team was 20% worse this season than last, to grab a random number, then the better sides would still get similar totals.
It just demonstrates that the spread of quality within the division is similar to previous years.

I think that it's clear that a number of the better sides from last season and the more successful sides in general haven't done well.
Spurs, Arsenal (twice) and Everton have all sacked their managers, while Chelsea did so before the season started and had a transfer ban.
City have already lost more games than ever under Guardiola and Utd have been ****e, at best.
Leicester, Wolves and Sheffield United have been very good, though.
Repaired <ok>
 
You generalised the whole board. There's no way that most of the posters on here thought that would happen.
We'd already had multiple ****ty tastes of VAR, starting with the FA Cup farce against Rochdale.
Adding in the absolutely dogshit Premier League refs was a recipe for Scouse success.

Compare the Aguero penalty given by VAR to the Ings one that wasn't from the weekend.
Utterly predictable. There's no way that they were going to ignore the former or give the latter.
There was a ****ing rugby tackle on Firmino prior to that which should have been a penalty, mate.
 
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Look at Norwich at the foot of the table, are they honestly relegation fodder is seasons gone by, I'm not so sure
They play good football, but they don't have enough goalscorers.
Pukki, Cantwell and... that's basically it. One of their joint-third top goalscorers is Aurier.
 
European standard down? Possibly because many of their best are now playing in Britain...but not all.
 
I doubt many, if any in here would be talking about the lack of quality of the league and europe had you have won the cl last year and were currently 22pts ahead in the prem right now.

No chance<laugh>
 
We weren't supposed to get to the final. But being the quiet Spurs fans that we are,we wouldn't broadcast it.
 
I doubt many, if any in here would be talking about the lack of quality of the league and europe had you have won the cl last year and were currently 22pts ahead in the prem right now.

No chance<laugh>
I doubt anyone would be talking about it if you hadn't brought it up unprompted.
 
So why are you crying victim about a discussion that you started?
"All of these beastly people are talking about something that I brought up! <wah> " ****'s sake. <doh>
What? You have a strange definition of cry arsing tbh<yikes>
I only posted what you all know to be true that few if any of you would be talking about the lack of quality in the prem and europe if you were riding high in the prem as European champs.

No need to get angry about it bruv:emoticon-0148-yes:
 
A couple of our players went barmy and we had a lot of luck,finally succumbing to a 15 sec(?) penalty(!) and a couldn't care less goal at the end....a final when both teams played bad,we more so!
I'm still figuring out how we beat City on Sunday.Ok,2-0,but City did everything but score and win the Epsom Derby!
 
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I don't know about other "long term fans,but I like to watch the results of clubs that were,once,playing in the Football League. I'm following lil 'ol Barrow. Wont that be something if they get back after all these years?
Being a Spurs fan we have been lucky to have remained in the league as others have gone out. Makes you wonder about being a longtime fan of Barrow and the Gatesheads of the football world.I guess they keep turning up and hoping....(for a billionaire owner?)
 
I doubt many, if any in here would be talking about the lack of quality of the league and europe had you have won the cl last year and were currently 22pts ahead in the prem right now.

No chance<laugh>

Of course we wouldn’t.

But deep down we would know that teams like Barcelona, Munich, Real Madrid and evening Man Utd aren’t anyway close to being as good as they used to be.
 
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