It’s been horrible.
It’s football for the sake of football, just to keep the TV payments coming in.
Other than a few of the Leeds games, I can’t think of a decent game all season.
Any game with the top teams have been a ‘let’s get a point and go again’ mentality.

(And yes, Liverpool’s collapse has made it worse)

It’s very hard to care isn’t it? Every match feels like a pointless friendly and the quality of officiating is at an all-time low. The arrogance of not being able to look at how other sports like Rugby do things well and learn from it is staggering.

Pleased for Rangers today though and Steven Gerrard.

By virtue of birth I would have been loosely been in the 10 in a row camp.
One of the boys back home shared some videos of the festivities going on in Belfast tonight, at least some folk are having a good time.

Gerrard has done OK, it’s good to see him get a good run in Europe, I do think Celtic made it very easy for them domestically this year.

WE'VE WON THE PAPA JOHN'S TROPHY!!!!


YESSSSS FINALLY WE'VE WON AT WEMBLEY

And now with the announcement that the long rumoured Super League is to become a thing - I wonder if I'll ever go back to following European football anywhere near as much as I once did. Might just be the local game for good going forward.

Speaking of the local game - my Sunday league team is still rubbish but I scored a really good goal yesterday, my first since turning 30. :lol:

It's an absolute disgrace. Fucking Americanisation. The whole point of football is that fucking Port Vale can play Man United and who knows what's going to happen. So these clubs are going to get 300m extra a year to waltz into the Premier League and piss on everybody but can't ever get relegated from Europe? Jesus Christ. Arsenal are going to lose 5-0 every week. Tottenham? Fucking Tottenham? Even my Dad can't remember Tottenham winning the league.

What the fuck did I ever do btw. My NFL team is a religious cult with Harvey Weinstein at quarterback and my football team is head of the table for plans to destroy the European game.

Apr 19, 2021 8:46:06 GMT Todd said:

It's an absolute disgrace. Fucking Americanisation. The whole point of football is that fucking Port Vale can play Man United and who knows what's going to happen. So these clubs are going to get 300m extra a year to waltz into the Premier League and piss on everybody but can't ever get relegated from Europe? Jesus Christ. Arsenal are going to lose 5-0 every week. Tottenham? Fucking Tottenham? Even my Dad can't remember Tottenham winning the league.

What the fuck did I ever do btw. My NFL team is a religious cult with Harvey Weinstein at quarterback and my football team is head of the table for plans to destroy the European game.

So it's YOUR fault.

I'm stunned that this has gone so far. Not even 48 hrs ago everyone was shrugging it off as the big teams flexing on UEFA, but now...holy shit.

I watch the game from a distance and didn't grow up loving a team that I can look up to, so I have to try and put myself in others shoes a little. And every reaction I've seen is that of betrayal and disgust. So I'm gonna feel that way too.

EDIT: And you mentioned Americanisation and yeah, I hate that too. Part of what I loved was that it was different. Do you know how many people I've talked to that love how the PL awards their title? All of them. "You mean there isn't 3 months of playoffs that make it so the regular season is basically pointless? They just give the trophy to 1st place? Why doesn't everyone do that!?"

As much as it pains me to say this - maybe it'll make the PL ratify the takeover of Newcastle now.

The "Big 6" lobbied against it happening - they're doing one, so now the PL could just be like okay.


AHH I've got too many emotions about this super League, so I'll come back later and write them all.

The teams will be out of the FIFA games starting with 22, and they'll be banned from all international competition.

How many star players are going to put up with this? Do any of them support the decision? They're going to choose to play in a weird league and give up World Cup games? I don't see it.

Apr 19, 2021 17:52:16 GMT RT said:

The teams will be out of the FIFA games starting with 22, and they'll be banned from all international competition.

How many star players are going to put up with this? Do any of them support the decision? They're going to choose to play in a weird league and give up World Cup games? I don't see it.

I know of two that have spoken out against it, Ander Herrera of PSG (I know they're not apart of this ESL) and Bruno Fernandes has.

Goodbye European Super League, we hardly knew you.

Good. Now relegate all of them.

Agreed, and give the title to David Moyes.

Can they just relegate teams because they feel like it? I'm all for it but is that a thing?

Apr 21, 2021 5:41:26 GMT RT said:

Can they just relegate teams because they feel like it? I'm all for it but is that a thing?

They could if they wanted to - Juventus, Lazio & Fiorentina were relegated for their involvement in the Calciopoli scandal 15 years ago. 

If I had to guess though, I'd say the punishments will be limited to fines and transfer bans. 

Punishments will be difficult to hand down because ultimately it was just an idea. But it won't be good enough for British football fans, myself included. The American owners have to go.

I’ve struggled with my thoughts on this over the past few days.
I think the ‘outrage’ has been a bit over the top, versions of this ESL have been on the cards for the past few years, the NY Times reported on this again in Jan and wasn’t picked up by the mainstream.
What do people expect, clubs run as financial ventures are only going to look after themselves and the pandemic has only fast tracked that process.

It smacks of irony that we have Gary Neville (the peoples champion) giving it the big one, while employed by Sky, who brought football behind a paywall & were instrumental in the formation of the PL.

But not wanting to sound as an ESL apologist, it was a pig of an idea, football at any level needs to be a competition and this was never that but that doesn’t mean a reform of sorts doesn’t need to take place.

Apr 21, 2021 10:45:04 GMT thechoke said:

I’ve struggled with my thoughts on this over the past few days.
I think the ‘outrage’ has been a bit over the top, versions of this ESL have been on the cards for the past few years, the NY Times reported on this again in Jan and wasn’t picked up by the mainstream.
What do people expect, clubs run as financial ventures are only going to look after themselves and the pandemic has only fast tracked that process.

It smacks of irony that we have Gary Neville (the peoples champion) giving it the big one, while employed by Sky, who brought football behind a paywall & were instrumental in the formation of the PL.

But not wanting to sound as an ESL apologist, it was a pig of an idea, football at any level needs to be a competition and this was never that but that doesn’t mean a reform of sorts doesn’t need to take place.

The same Gary Neville, who live on air at the time, berated Sky for doing so?


Anyway, fuck the ESL and these weird wackadoodle American ideas, sorry guys. If they want to have a league, that has no consequence of relegation and such, buy a MLS franchise.

thechoke you're not alone in feeling conflicted. I'm on the side of the fans, and feel this was a terrible idea, but on the flipside, UEFA and FIFA are as corrupt as they come. It was hard to root for anyone over the weekend.

I'm a fan of any idea that sticks it to corrupt organizations, but not this one.

I don't really like the idea of equating 92 with the Super League. Clearly, some bad came out of 92. But most fears people had really weren't realised:

- Decreased interest in the game due to lack of free-to-air games (didn't happen)
- Lower attendances due to too many televised games (didn't happen)
- Lower attendances and revenues for lower league clubs (didn't happen)

Some bad came of it. The concentration of wealth at the top, for example. Obviously, the paywall taking money out of fans' pockets. But when you compare to any other country, the situation in England is much better. A lot of things have been put in place since 92 to help with that, for example, parachute payments and equalised wealth distribution. The Premier League has given English football the best of every world - the highest quality of football, the most competitive league, the most competitive pyramid and the most exciting football.

Murmurs of one owner putting the club up for sale.

Why is Juve benching Ronaldo in a must win game?

Is he not great anymore?

Sounds like load management because they've played a lot of games recently. I assume he'll come on as a sub if they're in trouble.

I just read that Aguero's 2 goals today ensured he passed Rooney for most goals scored for a single club. What a career.

May 23, 2021 19:07:46 GMT RT said:

Sounds like load management because they've played a lot of games recently. I assume he'll come on as a sub if they're in trouble.

Oh ok. Heard it was a must win for them so I didn’t understand what I’ve missed. 

Jan 31, 2021 16:40:15 GMT nazzer said:

I loathe sports headlines - "Chelsea's old guard helping Tuchel rebuild in the post Lampard era"

Burnley, they beat fucking Burnely, calm down.

Maybe they were on to something.

Ancelotti leaving Everton and returning to Real Madrid.

Mad times

Jun 1, 2021 22:13:40 GMT Jake said:

Ancelotti leaving Everton and returning to Real Madrid.

Mad times

Obviously loyalty in football died a long time ago but that's got to sting for Everton given how much he talked about the long term project there and taking them forward into the new era in the new stadium. 

The manager carousel is just absurd these days - it sounds like Pochettino is going to return to Spurs.

Euro Fever gripped anyone yet?

It was the young lads birthday today and the grandparents got him a Scotland jersey, that’ll go down well at school for ‘wear a jersey to school day’ next Thursday.

Jun 9, 2021 7:31:18 GMT thechoke said:

Euro Fever gripped anyone yet?

It was the young lads birthday today and the grandparents got him a Scotland jersey, that’ll go down well at school for ‘wear a jersey to school day’ next Thursday.

I didn't think I'd be excited for it but I am. I'm going to try and watch Finland/Denmark on Saturday and am debating getting up early Sunday for the England match.

...

Did anyone see the absolute shit show that was the CONCACAF final? The ref lost complete control of the game and it was a total joke. Par for the course when USA and Mexico play though.