CL/EL/ECL 2023-2024: Page 25 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

CL/EL/ECL 2023-2024

Meatwad

are we the farm league?

daredevil

The PL being the best in the world is just Sky propaganda. Spanish league has always been better. All the best players move there and the best club sides compete there.

JazzG

Problem is, in this country people would rather tear each other down and all fail together rather than give the clubs the best chance to do well in the European Cups.

Coombs

JazzG problem is managers like Klopp and Guardiola bitch and moan about this way too much. It's getting really tiresome. They want the prestige and the pay, but don't want to pay the price.

Qwiss

You are going to get years that are outliers. The Premier League still tops the coefficients by a distance. You could cut down on games, etc but if that effects the leagues popularity then it stops you making money, which stops you getting the best players and being the top league. Until its a trend I wouldn't worry about it. Friday night fixtures might help but I wouldn't be making huge changes yet.

goon

Simple solution is binning the league cup for teams in Europe. It’s a dumb competition anyway, basically the FA Cup bit with fewer teams and significantly less prestige.

Qwiss

goon Simple solution is binning the league cup for teams in Europe.

If its an issue play your reserves

Burnwinter

Coombs These are the managers who are uniquely well placed to rotate their squads due to their clubs' wealth. Imagine the excuse-making coaches from the continent could go in for.

QuincyAbeyie

Apparently controversial if the suggestion is made by a non-Arsenal manager, but fewer games is a good idea.

Coombs

QuincyAbeyie I'd also like to work less and get paid more. Life's tough that way.

goon

Burnwinter

To be fair both Arteta and Pep have said similar at other stages and they're far from being the only ones. You can dismiss them as whingers but I tend to think when these guys (and the players) keep telling you something, and bear in mind they have all the data behind them, it's probably worth listening.

Qwiss

A few youth players would probably make me want to watch more, which tells you all you need to know about the competition. But the point is to take it out of the players and managers hands.

I'm someone who always prefers us to have games rather than not, but if it's in the form of a tin pot cup or a couple of extra CL group stage games, I can definitely live without it if it results in higher quality games in the ones that matter.

Qwiss

The thing about fewer games is it means less revenue and I don't see a single coach or player saying "play 10% less games and I'll accept 10% less money"

Burnwinter

It's all a bit full of shit given the expanded post-pandemic subs bench and the wealth of the league.

Perhaps the biggest irony is Klopp, of all coaches, complaining about fatigue as the famous innovator of gegenpressing, equally well known for running whole squads into the ground after his initial successes.

It's a bit unnerving when Arteta says every elite player should expect to compete two or three times a week in season, but at least it's not chickenshit.

Burnwinter

goon You can dismiss them as whingers

I'm not dismissing any of Klopp, Arteta or Guardiola, that's three solid football managers.

Workers in "volume" jobs—whether they're emergency doctors, IT helpdesk or elite sports coaches—will reliably claim the current workload is untenable and any proposal to increase it, absurd.

Klopp admitted he's burnt out after a couple of decades, and now he seems to be projecting his fatigue onto his squad to rationalise their weak finish. Well yeah, Liverpool's focus has crumbled, but it's arguably due to the way Klopp himself has openly faltered.

We've heard as we always do how impressive Liverpool are challenging on many fronts, and the context is always Klopp's famous "heavy metal" football.

Now the world's smallest violin is being lined up to play Klopp's funeral dirge at Anfield, I'm ready for Arsenal to get some credit for our resilience—we've been relentlessly hassled for over a decade for a lack of grit.

Qwiss

goon but its the likes of Klopp moaning about this. Its his choice to play strong players in the Carling Cup. If they are tired by May then thats on him. Same for Pep and Mikel. I have no problem with us fielding Nwanieri and Lewis-Skelly in that competition with Eddie, Reiss, etc In fact I'd prefer it. If you pull the European teams from it, its devalued even more.

Managers of big clubs are moaning but they are the best equipped to deal with it. Prioritise, rotate, etc Its part of your job. Klopp only ever wheels it out as a distraction anyway.

QuincyAbeyie

I think you're talking about Real Madrid. Barcelona still have the pull though.

Clrnc

The top teams in Spain are very very very good and has always been, nothing new.

In terms of league the English league is infinitely better. Outside of the top few teams the Spanish league is incredibly poor. They are not competitive at all.

daredevil

Clrnc

It's hard to consider a league as the best in the world when two of the top 5 GOATs reigned supreme in a rival league for almost a decade. Part of what makes something the best is having the best teams and best players play there. It's like a boxing promotion claiming it's the best whilst Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali are boxing elsewhere.

I'm not saying the PL doesn't have a claim and there are justifiable reasons for that to be the case. But nobody gives a shit about the competitiveness between 4th and 20th or that Forest have more spending power than Villareal. People want to see Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham or Zidane and Ronaldo or Messi and Cristiano. These guys all played or will play in Spain, not England.

QuincyAbeyie

Coombs https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/feb/21/four-day-week-made-permanent-for-most-uk-firms-in-worlds-biggest-trial

Burnwinter

QuincyAbeyie

Slight issue: how's a football club going to produce fifty fixtures worth of broadcastable football without, uh, playing the fifty fixtures? Really makes you think: perhaps the AI revolution holds the answer 🤔

daredevil

QuincyAbeyie

Parkinson's Law.

QuincyAbeyie

Burnwinter the question is whether the quality of football shown would be higher with fewer matches. If it was only about the number of matches and quality was irrelevant, you could just play me and my mates.

Burnwinter

QuincyAbeyie If it was only about the number of matches and quality was irrelevant, you could just play me and my mates.

Let me get this straight: you weren't implying clubs could produce as much entertainment by playing fifty matches in forty 90s ... you were claiming the league could improve its entertainment value by making sure squads were always rested and injury free.

That doesn't stack up too well. One-sided hammerings of the less wealthy clubs is one reason (among a few) the season total scoring record was broken a week ago.

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