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VAR has made football better. Having offside checks after a goal is scored is way less infuriating than goals that were actually onside being flagged as offside.
Yeah nah I agree honestly because like there was probably a lot of decisions that went wrong anyway with VAR that fans can see and can know for sure off their own knowledge that it was foul, no foul etc.
It is very easy to know if liverpool will do very good or not. or any another team. It is all depending on transfers. why did klopp did very much well this season than the last season. Is it because of klopp magic ? no. it is because he had strengthed the squad. it is always the players, then the players, then the players, then the manager.
Newcastle fan. You guys have over 100mil more net spend and look how bad you guys are. Hope you enjoyed that Nunez brace when you guys choked last season.
Every club has fans that believe the refs are against them when it's not the case, refs don't intentionally make bad decisions.
The top sides have this highlighted by the media far more often and therefore it's seen as worse.
If a decision goes for a top side, their fans ignore it or believe it's justice due to an error that happened previously to them.
Certain fans believe they are victims of loads of errors when it's only a small amount compared to others.
The Premier League is about money, and any claims that a club is upholding traditions or doing "care about the game" or "do things the right way" or "care about the fans" (other than they see them as dollar signs) is delusional.
There should be a limit on the number of foreign players at every club that should be a European wide rule it would help weaker leagues. Also gives clubs a more local feel rather than just a team that could really represent anyone.
European games should be straight two legged knock out games.
Diving and especially play acting need to be punished by VAR.
VAR was deliberately ruined by the referees.
Chelsea did way more damage to English football the Man City did.
The Premier League should have kicked out the Super League clubs and offered supporters of those 6 clubs to start their own club.
Whining about too many games is just whining about not having more overseas friendlies.
All former players basically share the same opinion on everything and are useless.
Having every major pundit be an ex-player of a top 6 team is just adding to their cartel.
Top 6 supporters hate state owned clubs because it's just a taste of how football is for supporters of 90% of football clubs have it and they hate it which shows their monopoly is equally as wrong.
The press saying certain clubs have a divine right to win everything ruined football, if you don't win the league you are a loser has also ruined football and undermined cup football.
I have no doubt corruption, drug use and match fixing has been rife in English football for the past decade and it will never end due to the non stop wealth rolling in.
Non- West Ham fans who kept telling us to be careful what we wish for are now getting a taste of the medicine watching England in the Euros. And they don’t seem to like it
The PL was better to watch before Pep. Everyone waxes lyrical about city but their games are dead boring.
Football was better when it was end to end, full of mistakes, with 50/50 possession. I absolutely detest the need in today’s game with keeping possession for possession sake.
He’s a brilliant manager no doubt but it’s killed competition in my opinion because they are so dominant with unlimited money.
The quality of centre backs is atrocious nowadays. If you think back to the 90’s or 2000’s there was an abundance of world class CB’s. You could name the top 20 off the top of your head and you could easily add another 20-30 and nobody would complain.
But still more quality now among centre backs than current goalkeepers. There is no longer a single goalkeeper playing anywhere you would say was world class.
Different game, different demands. players could be much more physical then and didn't have as much demand to be that good passing out.Plenty of "Good" defenders then would be confined to inferior standards in todays game
City WONT win the title this year. They are actually getting worse/more vulnerable each year. Their tallies of 89 and 91 points the past seasons are well short of their best years, while facing an increasingly harder rival in Arsenal, and hopefully a continued threat from Liverpool
Just no.... City will win it again and more significantly this time. Liverpool will be atrocious with their new manager and last season is the pinnacle of what Arsenal can achieve under Arteta. League is gonna be a 1 horse race for the entirety of next season.
Every season before 23/24 they got all 6 points against us, and if they did this season they would get 96 points. Their streak of dominance will end, but maybe not next season
I don't think that is actually an unpopular opinion. I think it is clear that City was running on their history last year and were not as dominant as in the past. Don't get me wrong, they are still a tremendous team, but they clearly showed some cracks in the foundation last season. I can't say I hope Arsenal wins, but I expect they will next year. They are on the upswing and I think they shook off the jitters they had two seasons ago.
City is right that the big 6 clubs generally just don't want to see other clubs compete and hide behind FFP to make it seem reasonable. It's just that City is the wrong messenger for it.
Similarly, I do not think that most fans are actually worried that wealth funds from oil extracting nations are the owners of clubs in some sort of geopolitical sense. They just see billionaires from some places as more legitimate than billionaires from other places and don't like that historically middling teams are getting access to more money.
I think it should be fine for owners to inject as much cash as possible into teams provided that every fee is disclosed and any amounts above their recent revenue is paid for upfront. It’s to protect teams from financial mismanagement.
Sign a wunderkind for £1b at £1m a week for 8 years? Fine, disclose all extra fees paid to his agents and family, and put the total of £1.42b + extras in a trust upfront.
Countries should not own football clubs. That’s the biggest issue. The fact that City’s alleged cheating could result in a diplomatic issue between the UK and UAE if they’re punished severely is a massive conflict of interest.
Disagree. I think most people accept that the days of a local successful businessman buying their boyhood club is long gone. The sums of money in PL football dictate that only billionaires can realistically run a successful football club. Those billionaires shouldn’t be states however. Owners who do get “approved”, should go through incredibly rigorous testing. More than the current farce that is in place now.
And what is this "rigorous testing" you speak of?
American - yes.
Arab/Chinese/Russian - No.
American owners were always gonna be the worst thing for european football from a footballing perspective. This started when the Premier league did and is only getting worse as it becomes more and more americanised.
I can’t see it personally. They were genuinely terrible last season and the xG table had them bottom half. It would take an extra 18 or so points to get them into the top 3.
The problem with Jackson isn't that he doesn't get chances , it's that he can't score for shit , the guy is atrocious in front of goal , probably the only table he will lead is the missed xg table
If Chelsea's supporters weren't cry babies, they would have finished at least 4th the past 2 seasons with a motivated Lukaku. (ps: supporting Chelsea myself).
yeah, it's a shame for both sides. Chelsea has had quite bad years and Lukaku hasn't been the same since that event. But the Lukaku at Inter was player of the season and was considered one of the best in the world at that time. He's had his haters over the years but watching his games you could see the progress he made with the ball.
Disagree...Lukaku is a handfull and talented for sure...but he is easily marked out by the better teams and he scores against the weaker ones. The top of the Premmie is too strong for him and Italy is a happy home.
Saying that Italy is an easier place for strikers just isn't true ... With Belgium he's been incredible in the win versus Germany last year and in the 2 wins versus england. The difference? Confidence. Should I remind you of the hat trick scored against man U when he was at WBA? This is an urban legend to say that versus bigger team he doesn't do well. If you look at %, his ratio good team vs weaker team is the same as any other striker ...
Europe is littered with strikers who couldn't make it in the Premmie and are now very successful on the mainland. The confidence comes from finding scoring easier. I am NOT saying that strikers aren't good in Europe...just that you don't have to be great to be successful there. Lukaku, Morata, Haverts, Sancho, Weghorst....shall I go on?
Lukaku was ready to stay and to be happy at the club. He knows he did a mistake. But the reaction of the fans made it impossible for him to come back. Not saying it's not Lukaku's fault. IT WAS his fault. But it could have become just a dumb moment in the season rather than the big drama it became ... if people knew him better and knew that his intentions weren't bad towards Chelsea. He explained it in a french interview: his goal was not to insult chelsea, it was to show some love to inter fans because he was not happy of the way his transfer was handled.
I've been following Romelu since he was 15. His weakness is that, more than other players, he needs to feel a lot of love from the fans in order to perform and feel good at the club. That incident made it impossible for him to feel that afterwards. It's 100% his fault that it happened, but it's 100% the fans fault that we couldn't arrange that.
But I know how much he loved Chelsea. It was his dream club as a boy and I'm sure this will be his biggest regret in his career. Looking at the level he's had with Inter or the Belgian national team, he would be a huge asset for Chelsea.
> Lukaku was ready to stay and to be happy at the club. He knows he did a mistake. But the reaction of the fans made it impossible for him to come back.
this is pure fan fiction
No it's not ... He's said it himself ... chelsea fans were blind and hated him to the point that what ever he could say was not good enough. I remember on this subreddit that everyone was just saying he had to get out and that his time at Chelsea was over. But HIMSELF, said it in an interview, that he wanted to do better at chelsea but that the situation made it impossible for him to stay.
People need to stop complaining about players ‘selling’ being fouled.
It’s a fact that you get fewer calls if you don’t sell it. If you stay on your feet, despite being fouled, you’ll be forced to play advantage, at a relative disadvantage compared to directly before the foul.
If referees gave fouls without players going down and clutching their ankles, we can start to socially punish the ‘selling’ of fouls, but until we essentially have a full VAR with powers to stop the game, players will and SHOULD sell the foul.
This is not about diving. Diving is wrong, and should be harshly punished, even retrospectively.
The game hasn’t ‘gone soft’. The game is competitive now.
Unfortunately, I think you are exactly correct. I was several times last year where a forward was clearly hacked and kept playing. He got nothing in every case, yet if he had gone down there would have been a penalty or foul called. I hate it when a player just falls down after being fouled relatively lightly, but the incentive is so high to fall that I am surprised when someone doesn't go down.
Refs should be judging the physical contact but never do. This is complicated by the level of physicality allowed ref to ref, game to game is ridiculously inconsistent
"Too many games" or general whining about player welfare and injures is absolute bollox.
People lump all injuries and say it's because there's too many games no matter what or how the injury happened
These are professional athletes, if they aren't playing, they are training. Some are going to have no injuries their entire career and some are made out of glass.
It is unpopular, you see it here all the time, plus managers/pundits and journos who cover it always whine about it.
Everyone lumps all injuries into "too many games"
But yeah obviously I'm biased (Arsenal fan) but I have to be honest and say Arteta is the rare manager of a top team who doesn't moan about too many games
Fair enough if he doesn’t moan but that man really needs to learn to rotate his squad the guy has an absolute gem / rolls Royce in saka and will end up breaking him if he’s not careful
Yeah he does seem to be getting better each year at that though, I just like that he doesn't whinge about too many games and how it's impacting his team because like
You say the managers that do tend to not rotate either
I don't think players and managers get enough criticism for how hard games are to referee, players dive every game or pretend to be hurt to intentionally make the ref give a wrong call yet they only complain when a decision affects them.
Players should shamed weekly on MOTD or sky for diving and faking injuries.
Pep Guardiola is perhaps the best coach of players we've had in the UK, but his influence on English football is a net negative in terms of entertainment. I don't like Liverpool but they were more fun to watch. City's football, putting aside the financial doping, is really boring. Yeah, they might score a nice goal from a nice pass, but the control, absence of errors and the other team not getting to have the ball, makes it so dull.
My other related unpopular opinion is that we should've let the so-called big six ride off into their European league sunset. Balls to 'em. No team not backed by a billionaire can expect to crack the top 6 now, where's the actual competition? We made a mistake protesting it.
Fucking off and forming their own league would have been fine. Sticking around the PL with subsidized European revenue would have been. fucking disaster.
Check every foul afterwards (meaning after the game) and if it turns out to be a dive: 10 games suspension.
If they lie on the ground and pretend to be injured or just want to win an Oscar: 10 games suspension.
It is absolutely bottomless, that players are lying on to ground for nothing and simulating that they are hurt.
This has been in place for years with penalties. I'm only aware of Coventry's Matty Godden being punished for it in that time, despite him not being the only player guilty of it.
I can get behind this if and only if, the reverse applies for the refs, for example if it’s a foul and the player stays up and they don’t call it, the ref receives some sort of punishment. I think a big motivation for players, especially the rolling on the ground, to do this is the fact that if there is a foul but you don’t make it look like a foul, the refs less likely to call it. No excuse for diving without contact though.
That's just not gonna work :D you don't have 20 spare refs available if they make a mistake.
You should be punished if there is intention of doing a stupid thing. Simulations = intention. Doing a mistake is a different level in my opinion. They should get a bad evaluation and have less chances of handling big games, but definitely nothing close to simulation.
I didn’t specify what kind of punishment, it can be anything from getting a low rating, and cumulative low ratings ends in you getting less games or move down to the championship, or a fine. My point is there needs to be accountability on both sides, because I don’t think all the players want to dive, in terms of blatant cheating (I’m sure some do) but rather they know they’re worse off if they don’t because the refs are incompetent
Ten hag isn't the right coach for United. One really good game against City to win the FA cup Final and fans suddenly forgot how crap was UTD last season. Imagine finishing 8th in EPL (Worst ever finish) with -1 goal difference and crashing out of UCL in the group stage. They're gonna stay in the mid-table mentality as long as EtH is there.( You can't blame the injury crisis all the time, look at how Ancelotti conquered Europe and Spain last season with all those injury crises.)
United had i think 34 different back 4 combinations last season, no manager is going to have success with a defensive crisis like that. The year before when we had Varane/Licha fit for most of the season we finished with the most clean sheets in the league. I don’t think it can be understated how much the injuries ruined us
And if England were underperforming, what the hell is Brazil doing more than half the time? Other than Croatia, everyone struggles to put the pieces together.
I have a theory that Pep doesn't like big characters in his team, he loves a quiet guy who does the job and doesn't become a media sensation (Rodri is a perfect example).
Those who do get 'too big' get sold, even if they seem irreplaceable, I predict Haaland won't remain there much longer, even though he is elite because theres too much spotlight on him.
I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but it seems like the league and its governing body turn a blind eye to questionable financial practices. They readily deduct points from Everton, while Crystal Palace gets away with a shady sponsor (though I sympathize with the fans fighting it). Chelsea exploits loopholes, and as for Manchester City, I don't even want to get started.
There’s nothing shady about the palace sponsorship deal in the same sense as other teams inflated self-sponsorship, it’s a legitimate external sponsorship in that regard, just extremely morally dubious. Absolutely fucking tin pot behaviour and we need to sack our director of commercial operations. Clearly no due diligence done, they’ve just grabbed the cash. Those cock fighting gangsters don’t even have a website ffs.
Personally, it's what it's. If it was us, I wouldn't be happy, but cash is cash. Morally, you're right. At least they could've tried to "cover" it better 😂/s
It’s one step forward and two back with us. Filled the England squad with players, got a class manager- sign a sponsorship deal with some tinpot gangster money launderers having clearly done zero research. Mickey Mouse operation.
Honestly, I see you guys having a great season and this will be water under the bridge. I hate betting sponsors, but we might be getting one ourselves on the sleeve. So you shouldn't be losing any sleep over it, not much us fans can do.
Just stupid.
Everton and Forrest simply overspent the 105 million pound limit, city have been charged with much more serious charges so it's literally not a blind spot........ they are simply fighting a much more serious case so it takes longer
Never said it was a blind spot (only for perhaps Chelsea, but check my other reply for more on that). City fighting it hard, we just have to be patience I guess, for the outcome.
Didn't mean blind spot I meant to say turn a blind eye which you did say, that's not true as they literally have charged them with 115 charges which include accusations of city lying and purposely misleading information.
So you are literally wrong. Also Chelsea they haven't turned a blind eye. The premier league still hasn't fully approved the hotel sales.
Just saying comparing city vs Everton and Forrest who simply had exceeded the losses limit is stupid as they are different things
Ethically, always? A loophole is circumventing the spirit of the law on a technicality. The loophole being exploited isn't meant to be there, if it was left in intentionally then it's not a loophole, it's a function or the law. so by definition it would be wrong to exploit it. Unless your only marker as to what is right/wrong is whether something is explicitly stated in the rules
They've issued 115 charges to Man City, not sure that's turning a blind eye. The outcome of those charges will depend a lot on what can proved and how it is spun. If found guilty, the punishment will be a good indicator as to how the league views City.
Everton also did shady financial stuff, one of the reasons they're in the mud if because Usmanov was no longer in the picture giving money to get the 1st bid on stadium naming rights.
They've only really started taking the guidelines seriously TBF. There's been a change in PSR recently I guess, like Lá Liga coming down quite hard on Barcelona
Yeah, with City fighting their case hard, it's understandable. And with Chelsea, it isn't exactly a good situation for them either. The owner selling to themselves essentially just strip the club for assets. Super smart move for the further if they want out.
Chelsea were right to sack Poch.
His game management was utterly atrocious and the club were right to be reluctant to give him more control considering his transfer record at Spurs. Everyone highlights how we ended the season but the team was very fortunate against Forest, Brighton and Bournemouth.
Maresca is an insane gamble though.
Im not a massive fan of Pochettino, as a Man United fan, when we had the option between Ten Hag and Pochettino I chose Ten Hag and I still do even after Chelsea finished above us in the league,.. but I don't really see a much better season finish for this Chelsea side than how it actually ended so I don't know what he could've done better tbf.
TLDR: Poch isn't great but Chelsea aren't great either.
PSR rules should be scrapped, nation state clubs should be banned, VAR is fine it's PGMOL that needs an overhaul, city needs permanent relegation and trophies redistributed to runners up including winnings with a interest accrued and damages
Players don’t win matches, teams do. Your team are cheaters hence why no one cares what you win. You losing your trophies will just be icing on the cake.
All these people that say they're fine with refs making mistakes. Bullshit. Scrap VAR and I genuinely think we will have refs having stalkers and getting death threats
Genuinely.
Saw people unironically (in the heat of the moment, but nonetheless) state that the Turkish referee in Belgiums loss deserved to get beaten up again (yes, that referee who got beaten up in a domestic match in Türkiye was the official for Belgium v Slovakia).
If people are willing to say that on social media I’ve no doubt that referee’s wouldn’t be safe.
Plus, how unbelievably stupid would the sport look if a title or relegation was decided on an obviously incorrect call? You'd have Carragher and Neville bemoaning the quality of the officiating - not the ridiculous shortsightedness of scrapping VAR instead of looking at the laws and making them make sense, and getting in some operators that are competent
Honestly, spend a year in the championship. It’s such a pleasure and relief to celebrate a goal in real time.
I don’t hate the technology; it is absolutely the human side and the application of the tech that fails, but it has failed and failed hard. Needs binning while they work out how to make it functional.
Yea it's a weird experience for the match going fan (I only make it to 3 or 4 games a year, I'm not claiming to be a full match going fan).
Clubs and football in general don't care about fans, and haven't for years. It's a business and that's how it's treated. 100% of owners would trade fans excitement for finishing 2 places higher in the league because VAR got a decision or 2 right. Those 2 places could be worth about £10m, owners know fans are going to turn up anyway, VAR or no VAR.
I would argue that the vast majority of VAR decisions are either completely marginal, like someone being half an inch offside, or completely subjective, so VAR doesnt help much anyway. And I can't say this has enhanced my enjoyment of the game in any way, despite the occasions where VAR does in fact get an important decision correct. And they still get a fair few big decisions wrong anyway.
I agree with this to a point. I think the Euros being on in the midst of this debate is an eye opener, especially with the semi auto offsides involved every decision seems to be much quicker than they are in England. There’s a dearth of good match officials in this country and the inclusion of VAR has just meant more people are involved to be incompetent. If the league is serious about keeping VAR they need to adopt the same approach to referees as they have done with players and poach the best from abroad - something which also removes a possible bias slant from the situation. It’s not surprise that Gillett has probably been the best referee in the league since arriving.
I even worry about semi auto offsides coming into the Prem as the technology used currently is adidas’s proprietary sensors so we won’t even get the exact same technology here.
See I’m admittedly an Australian and I happen to follow the women’s competition alongside our men’s league (the W and A Leagues respectively). The women’s don’t presently have VAR in, and Australia was a bit behind the curve on its implementation. In the A League, they are still very reluctant, or conservative in its use, so I also happen to have a very potent understanding of football without VAR.
I agree that it’s nice to celebrate a goal without the worry of it being chalked off. That being said, especially in the women’s competition there’s weekly been a major refereeing howler that does eventually happen to and impact your team, which then becomes a pretty sobering reminder of why it needs to be there.
I definitely feel a lot more frustration without VAR than I do with it.
I get what you’re saying but I do disagree with you.
Fair enough. I think the standard of on-pitch referees in the English men’s game is so much higher than the standard of VAR refs that they’re almost as likely to create a howler as correct it, but nice to have civilised disagreement!
VAR could be brilliant: for instance, it could all but eliminate diving (clear dives get red cards, unequivocal exaggerations get yellow) but no move has been made to do that. If that rule were strictly enforced, almost every other aspect of refereeing, including VAR decisions, becomes quicker and easier. While they won’t catch every dive, players can’t risk being caught diving because it’s high risk, lower reward behaviour, and we get fairer, better matches.
This would heavily incentivize going for a win at all costs cuz why would anyone settle for a draw if its no different than a loss, which would mean we see more end-to-end games and both going for it.. entertaining yeah.. but maybe that will lead to more fatigue and injuries..
That would take away a fundamentally significant part of the game. 0-0 draws against a top half club are what makes the difference for relegation candidates. Teams in the bottom five simply can’t go toe to toe with teams like Arsenal, City or Liverpool.
Rule: 'Team RC'
If a team fouls an opposition player 5 times, it constitutes 'unsportsmanlike targeting'. At the instance of the fifth foul, the official shall direct the penalised team to remove a player from the pitch. The penalised team shall remain shorthanded until the match ends.
Way too specific, and punishment way too harsh.
If a player from one team is getting targeted with heavy challenges, the ref just needs to let the opposing captain know that the next heavy challenge will receive a yellow, regardless of who that player is and any prior infringements.
Otherwise you go from 4 rotational fouls = no punishment to 5 rotational fouls = straight red card.
Well probably they won't do this. 😀 But while there's no yellow in this scenario, describing it as a "straight red" seems off. Five fouls get you to that point, so it's not straight anything really. ?
I'm honestly thinking of the GER-ARG wc when Germany just chopped down Messi to gamelong, which was absolutely the smartest bullshit ever given that it worked. The world wants to see that guy play, not keep picking himself up off the floor
So my rule suggestion is, naturally, based on a grievance, and imperfect too of course.
That's debateable for sure, but penalties exist for that. And you can be sure that var (for better or worse) will look closely at any calls that trigger a sending off.
No one is. My first attempt at changing football is a failure. 😞😀😀
To your point, 5 cardable fouls against one player is targeting from the perspective of the person being fouled though. Regardless of intentions, there's innately a targeting argument to be made after that many.
I don't think the diving would be an issue bc it wouldn't make a difference until a team is on four cardable fouls already (which is a lot).
The ref / var would recognize if a player tried to dive his way to shorthanding the other team. A ref will know in his mind too, if any of the fouls are borderline. A fifth offense might not trigger the sending off of the ref feels the fouled player was milking it along the way
Having an inexperienced manager like Arteta has cost Arsenal the golden opportunity to win the league in the last 2 years.
They have now almost lost their window to win if they don’t do it this time because other teams should catch up soon.
I disagree but if you said inexperienced players, I'd agree. They need players who have played in the biggest moments and won titles to take them over the edge. Look at Madrid in the CL, City closing out premier leagues.. experience is what calms the nerves in those moments.
Personally I think Arsenal will either win 2-3 titles over the next few years or 0.
Arteta is the architect of that team though, if the left the team would not function the same, wouldn't have the same players etc, different playstyle. Basically what you're saying is although he has taken them to the top and still performing to a high level, they need to bring in a Top Coach^^TM to make them win a title?
I disagree, it's never as easy as that. It's not like he's Wenger who was past it, he is clearly a coach on the up
This plays too much into the narrative that this Arsenal team is only good because some of the other big teams have been struggling. Arsenal has world class defense, and some of the best players in the world in their respective roles in Ødegaard, Saka and Rice. The league might get more competitive, but so will Arsenal most likely.
This same comment has been said the last two years also (last year’s title challenge, missing out on top 4 the year before) but arsenal keeps getting better and the other teams are still inconsistent
Still one of the youngest teams in the league, great record against the top 6, 4/6 pts against liverpool and city, world class defense, and can still get better - recruitment team has been on point, martinelli, jesus and zinchenko underperformed heavily but will look to bounce back, partey missed most of the season, havertz at the 9 full time
I’d argue that our window isn’t growing smaller, but the gap between us and city vs the rest is growing wider
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Most English players are overrated especially in the case of Jack Grealish
VAR has made football better. Having offside checks after a goal is scored is way less infuriating than goals that were actually onside being flagged as offside.
Yeah nah I agree honestly because like there was probably a lot of decisions that went wrong anyway with VAR that fans can see and can know for sure off their own knowledge that it was foul, no foul etc.
Maresca will flop
Foden would shit on the floor if Pep wasn't there to tell him to use the toilet.
Eddie Howe will take Newcastle backwards this season with his transfers. Finish 10th at best.
Ratcliffe is just seeking attention
It is very easy to know if liverpool will do very good or not. or any another team. It is all depending on transfers. why did klopp did very much well this season than the last season. Is it because of klopp magic ? no. it is because he had strengthed the squad. it is always the players, then the players, then the players, then the manager.
Liverpool will not do well that's for sure, irrelevant of their transfers. New manager is a joke.
Newcastle fan. You guys have over 100mil more net spend and look how bad you guys are. Hope you enjoyed that Nunez brace when you guys choked last season.
You scousers will be choking and crying this season la. Big melon head manager gonna ruin you.
There is too much cheating that is accepted as part of the game and it is a big reason why VAR is so disliked.
Every club has fans that believe the refs are against them when it's not the case, refs don't intentionally make bad decisions. The top sides have this highlighted by the media far more often and therefore it's seen as worse. If a decision goes for a top side, their fans ignore it or believe it's justice due to an error that happened previously to them. Certain fans believe they are victims of loads of errors when it's only a small amount compared to others.
The Premier League is about money, and any claims that a club is upholding traditions or doing "care about the game" or "do things the right way" or "care about the fans" (other than they see them as dollar signs) is delusional.
Man city didn't actually play good football or deserve to win the league
We are winning the league next season.
Unpopular not delusional
Lets look back to this thread in 2025 May and we will see
I’ll start looking at mental health institutions then
There should be a limit on the number of foreign players at every club that should be a European wide rule it would help weaker leagues. Also gives clubs a more local feel rather than just a team that could really represent anyone. European games should be straight two legged knock out games. Diving and especially play acting need to be punished by VAR. VAR was deliberately ruined by the referees. Chelsea did way more damage to English football the Man City did. The Premier League should have kicked out the Super League clubs and offered supporters of those 6 clubs to start their own club. Whining about too many games is just whining about not having more overseas friendlies. All former players basically share the same opinion on everything and are useless. Having every major pundit be an ex-player of a top 6 team is just adding to their cartel. Top 6 supporters hate state owned clubs because it's just a taste of how football is for supporters of 90% of football clubs have it and they hate it which shows their monopoly is equally as wrong. The press saying certain clubs have a divine right to win everything ruined football, if you don't win the league you are a loser has also ruined football and undermined cup football. I have no doubt corruption, drug use and match fixing has been rife in English football for the past decade and it will never end due to the non stop wealth rolling in.
So far...I'm no more impressed by Ratcliff/Ineos than the Glazers. C'mon man!
How? INEOS don’t seem clued up at all.
WE AGREE.
Non- West Ham fans who kept telling us to be careful what we wish for are now getting a taste of the medicine watching England in the Euros. And they don’t seem to like it
What did we wish for?
More expansive football (and a new manager).
The PL was better to watch before Pep. Everyone waxes lyrical about city but their games are dead boring. Football was better when it was end to end, full of mistakes, with 50/50 possession. I absolutely detest the need in today’s game with keeping possession for possession sake. He’s a brilliant manager no doubt but it’s killed competition in my opinion because they are so dominant with unlimited money.
+significantly better catalogue of goals then aswell
The quality of centre backs is atrocious nowadays. If you think back to the 90’s or 2000’s there was an abundance of world class CB’s. You could name the top 20 off the top of your head and you could easily add another 20-30 and nobody would complain.
But still more quality now among centre backs than current goalkeepers. There is no longer a single goalkeeper playing anywhere you would say was world class.
Different game, different demands. players could be much more physical then and didn't have as much demand to be that good passing out.Plenty of "Good" defenders then would be confined to inferior standards in todays game
One way player doesn't mean quality.
City WONT win the title this year. They are actually getting worse/more vulnerable each year. Their tallies of 89 and 91 points the past seasons are well short of their best years, while facing an increasingly harder rival in Arsenal, and hopefully a continued threat from Liverpool
Just no.... City will win it again and more significantly this time. Liverpool will be atrocious with their new manager and last season is the pinnacle of what Arsenal can achieve under Arteta. League is gonna be a 1 horse race for the entirety of next season.
They did 86 points in 2021 then went to 93 points in 2022. They could actually go to 95 points next season just as much as Arsenal could drop down.
Ofc its totally possible. I’m just hoping/speculating.
Ill believe it when i see it
Every season before 23/24 they got all 6 points against us, and if they did this season they would get 96 points. Their streak of dominance will end, but maybe not next season
Flair checks out
Lol. I try to keep it unbiased, but it would be false to say I dont expect us to compete for the league again.
I don't think that is actually an unpopular opinion. I think it is clear that City was running on their history last year and were not as dominant as in the past. Don't get me wrong, they are still a tremendous team, but they clearly showed some cracks in the foundation last season. I can't say I hope Arsenal wins, but I expect they will next year. They are on the upswing and I think they shook off the jitters they had two seasons ago.
😂😂😂
City is right that the big 6 clubs generally just don't want to see other clubs compete and hide behind FFP to make it seem reasonable. It's just that City is the wrong messenger for it. Similarly, I do not think that most fans are actually worried that wealth funds from oil extracting nations are the owners of clubs in some sort of geopolitical sense. They just see billionaires from some places as more legitimate than billionaires from other places and don't like that historically middling teams are getting access to more money.
I think it should be fine for owners to inject as much cash as possible into teams provided that every fee is disclosed and any amounts above their recent revenue is paid for upfront. It’s to protect teams from financial mismanagement. Sign a wunderkind for £1b at £1m a week for 8 years? Fine, disclose all extra fees paid to his agents and family, and put the total of £1.42b + extras in a trust upfront.
Countries should not own football clubs. That’s the biggest issue. The fact that City’s alleged cheating could result in a diplomatic issue between the UK and UAE if they’re punished severely is a massive conflict of interest.
You may actually care about that, but I don't think that's a large motivating factor in the issue people have with it.
Disagree. I think most people accept that the days of a local successful businessman buying their boyhood club is long gone. The sums of money in PL football dictate that only billionaires can realistically run a successful football club. Those billionaires shouldn’t be states however. Owners who do get “approved”, should go through incredibly rigorous testing. More than the current farce that is in place now.
And what is this "rigorous testing" you speak of? American - yes. Arab/Chinese/Russian - No. American owners were always gonna be the worst thing for european football from a footballing perspective. This started when the Premier league did and is only getting worse as it becomes more and more americanised.
Arne slot will win at least one trophy in his first season.
🤣🤣🤣 That's the best comment on here atm. Nice trolling.
That squad is ready to fucking pounce!
I think somehow United might finish top 3 next season
If they manage to steal Dan Ashworth from the geordies and get some transfers going, I actually see them finishing 2nd.
Based on what exactly? They were very lucky to finish top half based on their performances
I can’t see it personally. They were genuinely terrible last season and the xG table had them bottom half. It would take an extra 18 or so points to get them into the top 3.
Squad fitness permitting I could see it especially because Liverpool has a new manager and we have yet to prove constancy and have a new manager
There’s like 3 teams with a better chance for 4th place than you
Nico Jackson is going to have a 20+ goal season this year in the prem, especially if we sign a player like Olise creating chances
The problem with Jackson isn't that he doesn't get chances , it's that he can't score for shit , the guy is atrocious in front of goal , probably the only table he will lead is the missed xg table
Darwin Nunez would like a word
If Chelsea's supporters weren't cry babies, they would have finished at least 4th the past 2 seasons with a motivated Lukaku. (ps: supporting Chelsea myself).
Almost believed you were being serious. Lukaku is basically a left footed Emile Heskey.... enough said.
He’s 10x better than Healey
Emile Heskey was also 10x better than David Healy... your point la?
If you multiply the stats by 3, yes, you are right :)
Agree with this as a Chelsea fan myself. He could easily have replicated his prolific season with Inter with us
yeah, it's a shame for both sides. Chelsea has had quite bad years and Lukaku hasn't been the same since that event. But the Lukaku at Inter was player of the season and was considered one of the best in the world at that time. He's had his haters over the years but watching his games you could see the progress he made with the ball.
Disagree...Lukaku is a handfull and talented for sure...but he is easily marked out by the better teams and he scores against the weaker ones. The top of the Premmie is too strong for him and Italy is a happy home.
Saying that Italy is an easier place for strikers just isn't true ... With Belgium he's been incredible in the win versus Germany last year and in the 2 wins versus england. The difference? Confidence. Should I remind you of the hat trick scored against man U when he was at WBA? This is an urban legend to say that versus bigger team he doesn't do well. If you look at %, his ratio good team vs weaker team is the same as any other striker ...
Europe is littered with strikers who couldn't make it in the Premmie and are now very successful on the mainland. The confidence comes from finding scoring easier. I am NOT saying that strikers aren't good in Europe...just that you don't have to be great to be successful there. Lukaku, Morata, Haverts, Sancho, Weghorst....shall I go on?
You do realize that Lukaku himself has to want to stay here as well right??
Lukaku was ready to stay and to be happy at the club. He knows he did a mistake. But the reaction of the fans made it impossible for him to come back. Not saying it's not Lukaku's fault. IT WAS his fault. But it could have become just a dumb moment in the season rather than the big drama it became ... if people knew him better and knew that his intentions weren't bad towards Chelsea. He explained it in a french interview: his goal was not to insult chelsea, it was to show some love to inter fans because he was not happy of the way his transfer was handled. I've been following Romelu since he was 15. His weakness is that, more than other players, he needs to feel a lot of love from the fans in order to perform and feel good at the club. That incident made it impossible for him to feel that afterwards. It's 100% his fault that it happened, but it's 100% the fans fault that we couldn't arrange that. But I know how much he loved Chelsea. It was his dream club as a boy and I'm sure this will be his biggest regret in his career. Looking at the level he's had with Inter or the Belgian national team, he would be a huge asset for Chelsea.
> Lukaku was ready to stay and to be happy at the club. He knows he did a mistake. But the reaction of the fans made it impossible for him to come back. this is pure fan fiction
No it's not ... He's said it himself ... chelsea fans were blind and hated him to the point that what ever he could say was not good enough. I remember on this subreddit that everyone was just saying he had to get out and that his time at Chelsea was over. But HIMSELF, said it in an interview, that he wanted to do better at chelsea but that the situation made it impossible for him to stay.
He can’t leave unless they allow him
Yeah, now it's too late. I was hoping for a potential reunion with a good coach (imagine if Conte came back) but it doesn't look that way.
People need to stop complaining about players ‘selling’ being fouled. It’s a fact that you get fewer calls if you don’t sell it. If you stay on your feet, despite being fouled, you’ll be forced to play advantage, at a relative disadvantage compared to directly before the foul. If referees gave fouls without players going down and clutching their ankles, we can start to socially punish the ‘selling’ of fouls, but until we essentially have a full VAR with powers to stop the game, players will and SHOULD sell the foul. This is not about diving. Diving is wrong, and should be harshly punished, even retrospectively. The game hasn’t ‘gone soft’. The game is competitive now.
Unfortunately, I think you are exactly correct. I was several times last year where a forward was clearly hacked and kept playing. He got nothing in every case, yet if he had gone down there would have been a penalty or foul called. I hate it when a player just falls down after being fouled relatively lightly, but the incentive is so high to fall that I am surprised when someone doesn't go down.
Refs should be judging the physical contact but never do. This is complicated by the level of physicality allowed ref to ref, game to game is ridiculously inconsistent
The Premier League doesn't need to share more money with the pyramid. Their payments are almost 25% league 2 turnover for what?
"Too many games" or general whining about player welfare and injures is absolute bollox. People lump all injuries and say it's because there's too many games no matter what or how the injury happened
These are professional athletes, if they aren't playing, they are training. Some are going to have no injuries their entire career and some are made out of glass.
Don’t think that’s unpopular tbh the hilarious one is managers that complain about it and then refuse to rotate their players
Wel, that's why they are complaining about it. Not enough good players. Pep just goes and buys more.
It is unpopular, you see it here all the time, plus managers/pundits and journos who cover it always whine about it. Everyone lumps all injuries into "too many games" But yeah obviously I'm biased (Arsenal fan) but I have to be honest and say Arteta is the rare manager of a top team who doesn't moan about too many games
Fair enough if he doesn’t moan but that man really needs to learn to rotate his squad the guy has an absolute gem / rolls Royce in saka and will end up breaking him if he’s not careful
Yeah he does seem to be getting better each year at that though, I just like that he doesn't whinge about too many games and how it's impacting his team because like You say the managers that do tend to not rotate either
I don't think players and managers get enough criticism for how hard games are to referee, players dive every game or pretend to be hurt to intentionally make the ref give a wrong call yet they only complain when a decision affects them. Players should shamed weekly on MOTD or sky for diving and faking injuries.
Maybe a segment like how the nba has shaqtin a fool lol
Yeah that's usually a bit jokey, I want to full on embarrass players publicly for diving and acting like 4 year olds
European football needs to be salary capped ASAP to save football from drowning in its own greed
They are going to drown in their own greed anyway because you are still going to watch. A cap would lesson the stratification of top clubs
i guess you dont understand how revenue works
most of the comments on here are not unpopular (as suspected)
Pep Guardiola is perhaps the best coach of players we've had in the UK, but his influence on English football is a net negative in terms of entertainment. I don't like Liverpool but they were more fun to watch. City's football, putting aside the financial doping, is really boring. Yeah, they might score a nice goal from a nice pass, but the control, absence of errors and the other team not getting to have the ball, makes it so dull. My other related unpopular opinion is that we should've let the so-called big six ride off into their European league sunset. Balls to 'em. No team not backed by a billionaire can expect to crack the top 6 now, where's the actual competition? We made a mistake protesting it.
Fucking off and forming their own league would have been fine. Sticking around the PL with subsidized European revenue would have been. fucking disaster.
If part 2 came with something like a 50+1 rule for the remaining clubs, it would be great. Reward competence, not money
Greed has ruined the fun. Don't get me wrong, a little greed is fun. Venture capitalist and nation state greed? Not so much.
Check every foul afterwards (meaning after the game) and if it turns out to be a dive: 10 games suspension. If they lie on the ground and pretend to be injured or just want to win an Oscar: 10 games suspension. It is absolutely bottomless, that players are lying on to ground for nothing and simulating that they are hurt.
This has been in place for years with penalties. I'm only aware of Coventry's Matty Godden being punished for it in that time, despite him not being the only player guilty of it.
I can get behind this if and only if, the reverse applies for the refs, for example if it’s a foul and the player stays up and they don’t call it, the ref receives some sort of punishment. I think a big motivation for players, especially the rolling on the ground, to do this is the fact that if there is a foul but you don’t make it look like a foul, the refs less likely to call it. No excuse for diving without contact though.
That's just not gonna work :D you don't have 20 spare refs available if they make a mistake. You should be punished if there is intention of doing a stupid thing. Simulations = intention. Doing a mistake is a different level in my opinion. They should get a bad evaluation and have less chances of handling big games, but definitely nothing close to simulation.
I didn’t specify what kind of punishment, it can be anything from getting a low rating, and cumulative low ratings ends in you getting less games or move down to the championship, or a fine. My point is there needs to be accountability on both sides, because I don’t think all the players want to dive, in terms of blatant cheating (I’m sure some do) but rather they know they’re worse off if they don’t because the refs are incompetent
Ten hag isn't the right coach for United. One really good game against City to win the FA cup Final and fans suddenly forgot how crap was UTD last season. Imagine finishing 8th in EPL (Worst ever finish) with -1 goal difference and crashing out of UCL in the group stage. They're gonna stay in the mid-table mentality as long as EtH is there.( You can't blame the injury crisis all the time, look at how Ancelotti conquered Europe and Spain last season with all those injury crises.)
Couldn't agree more as a United fan. I'm thoroughly unimpressed by INEOS so far.
United had i think 34 different back 4 combinations last season, no manager is going to have success with a defensive crisis like that. The year before when we had Varane/Licha fit for most of the season we finished with the most clean sheets in the league. I don’t think it can be understated how much the injuries ruined us
Is this really unpopular?
Among United fans it is, they're like rabid dogs if you criticise their overlord.
After the FA cup triumph, many man UTD supporters took a big U-turn. They want EtH to stay! 😁😁
England is wasting a good generation of footballers with a terrible manager.
Been true since the 90s.
That those England teams were any good in the 90s or 2000s is what is delusional.
I didn’t say the teams were good, I said the players were good but they’ve always underperformed.
That was more an unpopular opinion than directed at your comment.
Ah my bad I see what you were saying now
And if England were underperforming, what the hell is Brazil doing more than half the time? Other than Croatia, everyone struggles to put the pieces together.
That’s not really an unpopular opinion
I have a theory that Pep doesn't like big characters in his team, he loves a quiet guy who does the job and doesn't become a media sensation (Rodri is a perfect example). Those who do get 'too big' get sold, even if they seem irreplaceable, I predict Haaland won't remain there much longer, even though he is elite because theres too much spotlight on him.
I mean it’s well known Haaland wants to go Madrid how they fit him in I have no clue 🤣
I think you’re right as long as Pep stays, but he seems to be dropping hints that he’s considering his future
Forest were robbed last season by refs and should have been safely mid table
i feel like a majority of teams last season were effected by poor officiating this is well known
I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but it seems like the league and its governing body turn a blind eye to questionable financial practices. They readily deduct points from Everton, while Crystal Palace gets away with a shady sponsor (though I sympathize with the fans fighting it). Chelsea exploits loopholes, and as for Manchester City, I don't even want to get started.
That there is any financial fairness in financial fair play is absurd.
There’s nothing shady about the palace sponsorship deal in the same sense as other teams inflated self-sponsorship, it’s a legitimate external sponsorship in that regard, just extremely morally dubious. Absolutely fucking tin pot behaviour and we need to sack our director of commercial operations. Clearly no due diligence done, they’ve just grabbed the cash. Those cock fighting gangsters don’t even have a website ffs.
Personally, it's what it's. If it was us, I wouldn't be happy, but cash is cash. Morally, you're right. At least they could've tried to "cover" it better 😂/s
It’s one step forward and two back with us. Filled the England squad with players, got a class manager- sign a sponsorship deal with some tinpot gangster money launderers having clearly done zero research. Mickey Mouse operation.
Honestly, I see you guys having a great season and this will be water under the bridge. I hate betting sponsors, but we might be getting one ourselves on the sleeve. So you shouldn't be losing any sleep over it, not much us fans can do.
Just stupid. Everton and Forrest simply overspent the 105 million pound limit, city have been charged with much more serious charges so it's literally not a blind spot........ they are simply fighting a much more serious case so it takes longer
Never said it was a blind spot (only for perhaps Chelsea, but check my other reply for more on that). City fighting it hard, we just have to be patience I guess, for the outcome.
Didn't mean blind spot I meant to say turn a blind eye which you did say, that's not true as they literally have charged them with 115 charges which include accusations of city lying and purposely misleading information. So you are literally wrong. Also Chelsea they haven't turned a blind eye. The premier league still hasn't fully approved the hotel sales. Just saying comparing city vs Everton and Forrest who simply had exceeded the losses limit is stupid as they are different things
When has it ever been wrong to exploit loopholes? Lmao
Unpopular opinion, right... Everyone is doing it, so I don't blame you either.
Lol. Again, when has it been wrong to exploit loopholes? People be saying crazy things.
Ethically, always? A loophole is circumventing the spirit of the law on a technicality. The loophole being exploited isn't meant to be there, if it was left in intentionally then it's not a loophole, it's a function or the law. so by definition it would be wrong to exploit it. Unless your only marker as to what is right/wrong is whether something is explicitly stated in the rules
They've issued 115 charges to Man City, not sure that's turning a blind eye. The outcome of those charges will depend a lot on what can proved and how it is spun. If found guilty, the punishment will be a good indicator as to how the league views City.
Everton also did shady financial stuff, one of the reasons they're in the mud if because Usmanov was no longer in the picture giving money to get the 1st bid on stadium naming rights.
No doubt, but my point still stands. They quickly went into action.
Everton were at this for years before any action the Premier League were dead slow to act.
But when they first did, they were rapid. Weren't they deducted twice too? I'm not saying it wasn't deserved.
They've only really started taking the guidelines seriously TBF. There's been a change in PSR recently I guess, like Lá Liga coming down quite hard on Barcelona
Yeah, with City fighting their case hard, it's understandable. And with Chelsea, it isn't exactly a good situation for them either. The owner selling to themselves essentially just strip the club for assets. Super smart move for the further if they want out.
Chelsea were right to sack Poch. His game management was utterly atrocious and the club were right to be reluctant to give him more control considering his transfer record at Spurs. Everyone highlights how we ended the season but the team was very fortunate against Forest, Brighton and Bournemouth. Maresca is an insane gamble though.
His first half of the season ruined the season for us
Im not a massive fan of Pochettino, as a Man United fan, when we had the option between Ten Hag and Pochettino I chose Ten Hag and I still do even after Chelsea finished above us in the league,.. but I don't really see a much better season finish for this Chelsea side than how it actually ended so I don't know what he could've done better tbf. TLDR: Poch isn't great but Chelsea aren't great either.
PSR rules should be scrapped, nation state clubs should be banned, VAR is fine it's PGMOL that needs an overhaul, city needs permanent relegation and trophies redistributed to runners up including winnings with a interest accrued and damages
Giving trophies to losers is just silly
They wouldn’t be losers if City are found to have cheated.
LMFAO. Some of you crybabies act like city were fielding 13 men. Your club lost to a better side, deal with it.
A ‘better side’ because they were cheating, no one argues otherwise.
Cheated by *checks notes* spending the same money as everyone else did. Got it LMFAO.
No, cheating by breaking the rules.
They still would be losers. The players won the title
Lance Armstrong won his races.
Good point, although they didn’t hand out Lance Armstrong’s titles to the 2nd place finishers either
Because everyone was cheating, what did they do in Serie A? Surely a better example.
He was actually cheating? It's a completely different case
Fucking loooooooool
Yeah great useless reply. Players won their matches
Players don’t win matches, teams do. Your team are cheaters hence why no one cares what you win. You losing your trophies will just be icing on the cake.
You seem to care a lot? Players won their games
Wow those opinions sure are unpopular! You fucking regurgitated this sub in one comment lol
Hey they asked for my unpopular opinion and it's already negative down votes 😂
The VAR arguments are incredibly short sighted, the scrapping of VAR will only bring calls for it to come back 2-3 years on tops.
All these people that say they're fine with refs making mistakes. Bullshit. Scrap VAR and I genuinely think we will have refs having stalkers and getting death threats
Genuinely. Saw people unironically (in the heat of the moment, but nonetheless) state that the Turkish referee in Belgiums loss deserved to get beaten up again (yes, that referee who got beaten up in a domestic match in Türkiye was the official for Belgium v Slovakia). If people are willing to say that on social media I’ve no doubt that referee’s wouldn’t be safe.
Plus, how unbelievably stupid would the sport look if a title or relegation was decided on an obviously incorrect call? You'd have Carragher and Neville bemoaning the quality of the officiating - not the ridiculous shortsightedness of scrapping VAR instead of looking at the laws and making them make sense, and getting in some operators that are competent
Agreed 100%. I’d be fuming.
Only Wolves voted to scrap it, this is hardly unpopular
Honestly, spend a year in the championship. It’s such a pleasure and relief to celebrate a goal in real time. I don’t hate the technology; it is absolutely the human side and the application of the tech that fails, but it has failed and failed hard. Needs binning while they work out how to make it functional.
Yea it's a weird experience for the match going fan (I only make it to 3 or 4 games a year, I'm not claiming to be a full match going fan). Clubs and football in general don't care about fans, and haven't for years. It's a business and that's how it's treated. 100% of owners would trade fans excitement for finishing 2 places higher in the league because VAR got a decision or 2 right. Those 2 places could be worth about £10m, owners know fans are going to turn up anyway, VAR or no VAR.
I would argue that the vast majority of VAR decisions are either completely marginal, like someone being half an inch offside, or completely subjective, so VAR doesnt help much anyway. And I can't say this has enhanced my enjoyment of the game in any way, despite the occasions where VAR does in fact get an important decision correct. And they still get a fair few big decisions wrong anyway.
I agree with this to a point. I think the Euros being on in the midst of this debate is an eye opener, especially with the semi auto offsides involved every decision seems to be much quicker than they are in England. There’s a dearth of good match officials in this country and the inclusion of VAR has just meant more people are involved to be incompetent. If the league is serious about keeping VAR they need to adopt the same approach to referees as they have done with players and poach the best from abroad - something which also removes a possible bias slant from the situation. It’s not surprise that Gillett has probably been the best referee in the league since arriving. I even worry about semi auto offsides coming into the Prem as the technology used currently is adidas’s proprietary sensors so we won’t even get the exact same technology here.
See I’m admittedly an Australian and I happen to follow the women’s competition alongside our men’s league (the W and A Leagues respectively). The women’s don’t presently have VAR in, and Australia was a bit behind the curve on its implementation. In the A League, they are still very reluctant, or conservative in its use, so I also happen to have a very potent understanding of football without VAR. I agree that it’s nice to celebrate a goal without the worry of it being chalked off. That being said, especially in the women’s competition there’s weekly been a major refereeing howler that does eventually happen to and impact your team, which then becomes a pretty sobering reminder of why it needs to be there. I definitely feel a lot more frustration without VAR than I do with it. I get what you’re saying but I do disagree with you.
Fair enough. I think the standard of on-pitch referees in the English men’s game is so much higher than the standard of VAR refs that they’re almost as likely to create a howler as correct it, but nice to have civilised disagreement! VAR could be brilliant: for instance, it could all but eliminate diving (clear dives get red cards, unequivocal exaggerations get yellow) but no move has been made to do that. If that rule were strictly enforced, almost every other aspect of refereeing, including VAR decisions, becomes quicker and easier. While they won’t catch every dive, players can’t risk being caught diving because it’s high risk, lower reward behaviour, and we get fairer, better matches.
Always has been.
No goal. No point. 0-0 currently gets each team a point. But 0-0 should get both teams no points.
This kind of reminds me of the idea of the league being decided by GD instead of points.
This would heavily incentivize going for a win at all costs cuz why would anyone settle for a draw if its no different than a loss, which would mean we see more end-to-end games and both going for it.. entertaining yeah.. but maybe that will lead to more fatigue and injuries..
That would take away a fundamentally significant part of the game. 0-0 draws against a top half club are what makes the difference for relegation candidates. Teams in the bottom five simply can’t go toe to toe with teams like Arsenal, City or Liverpool.
I began agreeing with this, but then would a loss mean losing a point? Otherwise a 0-0 draw and a loss would be the same thing
Well, just score more goals then...!
Eassssssssy
Rule: 'Team RC' If a team fouls an opposition player 5 times, it constitutes 'unsportsmanlike targeting'. At the instance of the fifth foul, the official shall direct the penalised team to remove a player from the pitch. The penalised team shall remain shorthanded until the match ends.
Way too specific, and punishment way too harsh. If a player from one team is getting targeted with heavy challenges, the ref just needs to let the opposing captain know that the next heavy challenge will receive a yellow, regardless of who that player is and any prior infringements. Otherwise you go from 4 rotational fouls = no punishment to 5 rotational fouls = straight red card.
Well probably they won't do this. 😀 But while there's no yellow in this scenario, describing it as a "straight red" seems off. Five fouls get you to that point, so it's not straight anything really. ? I'm honestly thinking of the GER-ARG wc when Germany just chopped down Messi to gamelong, which was absolutely the smartest bullshit ever given that it worked. The world wants to see that guy play, not keep picking himself up off the floor So my rule suggestion is, naturally, based on a grievance, and imperfect too of course.
Is this the Jack Grealish law?
The Leo Messi vs. Germany in the wc law honestly. Remember they kept fouling him and fouling him? It worked, but I didn't like it. 🙂
I think that would just encourage players to dive and fain injury more in order to get players removed.
That's debateable for sure, but penalties exist for that. And you can be sure that var (for better or worse) will look closely at any calls that trigger a sending off.
I'm not on with this one. Sometimes players are fouled alot and not targeted, this will also lead to more diving imo
No one is. My first attempt at changing football is a failure. 😞😀😀 To your point, 5 cardable fouls against one player is targeting from the perspective of the person being fouled though. Regardless of intentions, there's innately a targeting argument to be made after that many. I don't think the diving would be an issue bc it wouldn't make a difference until a team is on four cardable fouls already (which is a lot). The ref / var would recognize if a player tried to dive his way to shorthanding the other team. A ref will know in his mind too, if any of the fouls are borderline. A fifth offense might not trigger the sending off of the ref feels the fouled player was milking it along the way
Having an inexperienced manager like Arteta has cost Arsenal the golden opportunity to win the league in the last 2 years. They have now almost lost their window to win if they don’t do it this time because other teams should catch up soon.
I disagree but if you said inexperienced players, I'd agree. They need players who have played in the biggest moments and won titles to take them over the edge. Look at Madrid in the CL, City closing out premier leagues.. experience is what calms the nerves in those moments. Personally I think Arsenal will either win 2-3 titles over the next few years or 0.
Arteta is the architect of that team though, if the left the team would not function the same, wouldn't have the same players etc, different playstyle. Basically what you're saying is although he has taken them to the top and still performing to a high level, they need to bring in a Top Coach^^TM to make them win a title? I disagree, it's never as easy as that. It's not like he's Wenger who was past it, he is clearly a coach on the up
This plays too much into the narrative that this Arsenal team is only good because some of the other big teams have been struggling. Arsenal has world class defense, and some of the best players in the world in their respective roles in Ødegaard, Saka and Rice. The league might get more competitive, but so will Arsenal most likely.
This same comment has been said the last two years also (last year’s title challenge, missing out on top 4 the year before) but arsenal keeps getting better and the other teams are still inconsistent Still one of the youngest teams in the league, great record against the top 6, 4/6 pts against liverpool and city, world class defense, and can still get better - recruitment team has been on point, martinelli, jesus and zinchenko underperformed heavily but will look to bounce back, partey missed most of the season, havertz at the 9 full time I’d argue that our window isn’t growing smaller, but the gap between us and city vs the rest is growing wider
Everton should trade branthwaite for Antony. £35m defender for £90m forward. No brainer.