They aren't widening, though. Everton, whose revenues were actually lower than ours last season, has spent more on transfers than Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal and Spurs. Swansea has spent about as much as Inter Milan. The gap in raw dollars is larger, yes, but as a percentage it's smaller, and as of a couple years ago it wasn't just Leicester who had stolen a march on the top teams. It's actually something of an intriguing question as to why that has happened.
Which is why I said that I'd take the cup if we were guaranteed to return within a couple years. I don't trust Les et al to dismantle and then rebuild our roster in a summer.
I'm still claiming some credit for this I hope you realise I think we've lost some voters too as Stay up was narrowly ahead before the other one shut.
Everton are almost an elite club, they are the 7th biggest club traditionally, their owner invested a lot of personal wealth into them. We will NEVER spend on the scale of Everton on transfers and wages. Swansea are in a different league to Inter, the PL is a lot richer than Serie A atm. The top six + Everton have all got the capacity to spend £50m + on players and offer massive wages, the rest of the league can't compete, especially as their better players/managers are hoovered up by the elite clubs. The disparity will just grow as I can't see the economics of Football changing any time soon.
I like City for giving Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal a big bloody nose. It is great to see someone lording it over the big three for the moment. Not sure if Chelsea can be put in the same league as the three that I have just highlighted as their success is much more recent, but again like City their success was welcome as again it gave the divine Trinity a nosebleed.
The rest of the league is competing more now than they were ten years ago. That's the point here: from a financial standpoint, there is no reason to suggest that it is worse now than it was a few years ago. Indeed, all indications are that it is better. Stating that our revenues were one-third of Man Utd (the richest in the world) in 2016-17 might sound paltry, but in 2000-01 the ratio was about 9:1.
Financially they are apparently. Some fans seem to care about that as much as on the pitch stuff these days. Mental.
I absolutely have. And I have looked at the league table for 2015-16 as well, which saw Liverpool in 8th, Chelsea in 10th, Leicester as champions, and ourselves and West Ham within sniffing distance of Champions League. What changed in the interim was not the financial state of the game, but rather poor decision-making by the teams that were threatening to (or succeeding in) knocking down the door. Yeah, Leicester lost players; their bigger problem is that they have spent 70m in two years on strikers who have produced all of ten league goals in that span. Nothing about the financial state of the game made them throw massive money at backup strikers.
People will always use that crazy season as an example, but in truth it was an anomaly and the following seasons have seen the elite get their act together and use their wealth to their full advantage.
On a percentage basis wages are much closer than they've ever been. Squad value is an inexact science, obviously, but check the spread in 2005: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/startseite/wettbewerb/GB1/plus/?saison_id=2005 versus today: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/startseite/wettbewerb/GB1/plus/?saison_id=2017 The ratio certainly hasn't grown, and 2004-05 was the year that Bolton made the UEFA Cup and threatened for CL.
It wasn't an anomaly. It was the continuation of a three-year trend which had seen the gap between the second tier and first tier shrink substantially. That trend suddenly reversed itself, but I would be hesitant to declare that we're in a new normal. They had even more of a wealth advantage then, because the TV revenues (which are shared on a fairly equal basis) shot up thereafter.
Immediately went for the cup option and I’m probably one of the few on here who saw 1st hand our 76 win, which was absolutely amazing but have been so so disappointed since, witnessing what seems so many SF & F defeats. Don’t get me wrong, JPT was fantastic but not a premier cup. Surviving in the “PL” (including old Div 1) brought pride & sometimes even excitement but I’d give a lot for a Cup win. Makes me feel sick to think of a final defeat tho. However, I’m getting rather disappointed with PL football in general as well & so a final win for me by a mile.
The ratios are much bigger now Man City 350% more than us in 7th, Man Utd over 300%, Spurs 300%, Chelsea nearly 300%, Liverpool 250%, Arsenal 200%. Interesting that Everton are way less than those clubs Our squad value is a bit of a red herring as it had been financed largely through income from sold players.
