The state of football

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/17/manchester-city-sponsorship-covered-by-abu-dhabi-government-not-etihad

Fantastic article from Jonathan Wilson which gives some insight into how the financial competition between the game's two biggest governing bodies plays a contributing factor to wider issues.

The problems discussed in this thread are leitimate, but they do not seem new or worsening, imo. At least for people of my generation and younger, this parity people are discussing never existed. Football doesn't particularly seem more or less competitive than before, tbh. A few sides have always been the ones that dominated and this was generally determined by money. It is nothing new. At the end of the season, there will have been six champions between 2000 and now and there were only seven between 1980 and 2000.

Agreed. The stats revealed in Miguel Delaney's first piece, where he showed how points totals are much higher in the top 4 than previously, are obviously undisputable, but I don't believe they really point to a reduction in competition. They're saying you have to be better, these days, to get there - but then teams generally are better thanks to better resources across the board.

Sheffield United, Wolves and Leicester will all finish between 3rd and 8th this season. That doesn't point to a closed shop, imo.

Reason number 1367 against modern football. If reports are to be believed then Barcelona are about to sign ex-Boro forward Martin Braithwaite from Leganes.   

So due to Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele both picking up long-term injuries Barca are expected to somehow get through the rest of the season with ONLY Messi, Griezmann and wonderkid Ansu Fati to choose from to play up front. I mean how could they cope?           

So now they are allowed to buy someone from La Liga outside of the window and seem to have opted for Braithwaite who has a release clause meaning Leganes have no say over whether he can go or not. This means Leganes lose their star player whilst being in a relegation scrap and have no option to get a replacement but as long as Barca are happy it’s fine. I mean this can’t be right surely?     

And how come Barca are so unhappy with their current squad. Bruce seemed fine and dandy when we currently have precisely 0 strikers available (I’m obviously not classing Joelinton as one).

Well, quite. We just lost Son to injury, after Kane - them’s the breaks. How exactly has the Barca situation come about?

oddly the more i've detached myself from SDFC i've started to enjoy football across the board a lot more and am watching more than in many years

i've nothing invested in it so can appreciate the skill and quality on show, or lack of in many cases

still would never bother with CL games prior to the stage of tonight, group stuff is absolute bollocks...champo a great league

Don't watch anything except NUFC these days.  PL is stupid with all the hype and the fact it's basically shit, just don't really care anymore, it's only my love for Newcastle that has me interested in English football at all.

The problems discussed in this thread are leitimate, but they do not seem new or worsening, imo. At least for people of my generation and younger, this parity people are discussing never existed. Football doesn't particularly seem more or less competitive than before, tbh. A few sides have always been the ones that dominated and this was generally determined by money. It is nothing new. At the end of the season, there will have been six champions between 2000 and now and there were only seven between 1980 and 2000.

 

Agreed. The stats revealed in Miguel Delaney's first piece, where he showed how points totals are much higher in the top 4 than previously, are obviously undisputable, but I don't believe they really point to a reduction in competition. They're saying you have to be better, these days, to get there - but then teams generally are better thanks to better resources across the board.

 

Sheffield United, Wolves and Leicester will all finish between 3rd and 8th this season. That doesn't point to a closed shop, imo.

Not sure I totally agree with that.  If you take our last decent period under Robson, we had a chance of winning the league for 3 seasons or so.  It might have been a small chance, but we were involved in the title race until March on a couple of occasions.  And the same could be said for at least 5-6 clubs over that period. 

In addition, making the leap from mid table to CL qualification was possible and something that could be sustained if you were a well run club.  Sheffield United could finish in the top 4 this season - although extremely unlikely - but they sure as hell won't be doing it the season after or the season after that.

I just find myself getting incredibly jealous of other well-run football teams and every time i try to separate NUFC and other football I find myself going back to raising a fist at NUFC in disgust.

Segun Oluwaniyi[/member] Think you're right about the getting old bit tbh; although there are many reasons to detest the game nowadays they are mostly variations on old ones. Maybe a few scales have fallen from our eyes.

I used to enjoy the banter, but the one thing that always got me was "glory-hunters". I had no choice in the matter, grew up in Spurs-land with a father who'd been going since the 50s. Many friends at school simply chose Liverpool to support, and feel batter about themselves. Well done you. I also grew up watching football at a time when it seemed like society was against us, at a point where we were literally put in cages. It was appalling, but did foster a certain togetherness among supporters.

Now the advent of the Internet, extensive TV coverage of football and changes to the matchday experience have made football supporting more socially acceptable and more diverse. Good in many ways, but primarily just different. Do I want the old days back? Not entirely. Was it more exciting and fun? Absolutely. Those "glory-hunters" are now more prevalent partly because there are just more supporters in general, and maybe we're more aware of the global "glory-hunters" because of the internet. All those Liverpool or Arsenal keyboard warriors from faraway lands on forums and in internet polls. You can still hit the pub before a game, but otherwise the matchday experience is much changed, for me at least. And, of course, I moved away, which is probably my main driver.

Being a Spurs fan has always been an integral part of my identity, in many ways. My heart's just not in the banter in quite the same way it was. A mate's son out here is a City fan - as plastic as you can get, but that comes with the territory here anyway. I try my damnedest not to talk about football with him. A doc at my work is a Barca fan - lived there for a while. We have some banter but I feel like it's just performative on my part. Yesterday I met a nurse in my hospital who has relatives in Hertfordshire - she visits them often and like them is a Spurs fan, she's been to a couple of games this year, toured the stadium etc. We had a nice chat, but I just felt a bit less engaged than I used to be.

All this HTT-ing is to say that I can point to hundreds of billions of reasons why football sucks right now, but probably the main reason is that we've just grown apart. It's partly football, but mainly me.

That last line leffe186[/member] cut me up a bit. I feel the same way i think.

The state of sport, in general. It's all about the narrative, because you can't sell a lot of advertising for a 2 hour event.

Look at this shit man, WWE all ower it.

I know there are a lot of people who don't like that there is so much money in the game now, and also I guess plastic fans if you like. Hand on heart, the only thing which truly pisses me off is that for teams like us, there is nothing to play for season in, season out. The top teams are in a mini league by themselves, and we have been consigned to hoping for survival as the only point of interest. It's not because of lack of money either, it's because we have an owner who uses this club as an advertising tool for his business, and doesn't see us as a sports enterprise at all.

So just to reiterate, it's not the state of football which has made me lose interest, it's the sheer disregard for NUFC by the owner. Look at clubs like Leicester and Bournemouth investing in their future. Are you telling me their fans think this is a terrible age for the game?

I know there are a lot of people who don't like that there is so much money in the game now, and also I guess plastic fans if you like. Hand on heart, the only thing which truly pisses me off is that for teams like us, there is nothing to play for season in, season out. The top teams are in a mini league by themselves, and we have been consigned to hoping for survival as the only point of interest. It's not because of lack of money either, it's because we have an owner who uses this club as an advertising tool for his business, and doesn't see us as a sports enterprise at all.

 

So just to reiterate, it's not the state of football which has made me lose interest, it's the sheer disregard for NUFC by the owner. Look at clubs like Leicester and Bournemouth investing in their future. Are you telling me their fans think this is a terrible age for the game?

Not sure who the "you" is? I do think that many Newcastle fans are primarily disillusioned because you've been run in a slipshod fashion for years. What I find interesting is that I'm disillusioned despite my club being run better than almost any other club out there for over a decade.

I know there are a lot of people who don't like that there is so much money in the game now, and also I guess plastic fans if you like. Hand on heart, the only thing which truly pisses me off is that for teams like us, there is nothing to play for season in, season out. The top teams are in a mini league by themselves, and we have been consigned to hoping for survival as the only point of interest. It's not because of lack of money either, it's because we have an owner who uses this club as an advertising tool for his business, and doesn't see us as a sports enterprise at all.

 

So just to reiterate, it's not the state of football which has made me lose interest, it's the sheer disregard for NUFC by the owner. Look at clubs like Leicester and Bournemouth investing in their future. Are you telling me their fans think this is a terrible age for the game?

in the case of Bournemouth investing as to what end? Like pretty much everyone outside the likes of Liverpool etc their only objective at the start of the season is to stay in the league and on the massive tv money gravy train. Hell these days you have championship clubs playing 2nd string sides in the Cups because they want that tv money and thats the only aim.

I wouldn't be surprised if some Bournemouth fans have hit that point that every team who is not what you might call a typical top flight team hits at some point, that feeling of "what is the point in this anymore?"

It happened to Stoke, West Brom, Sunderland, Wigan, there comes a point where Premier League survival becomes the most tedious thing the game can offer a supporter.

I wouldn't be surprised if some Bournemouth fans have hit that point that every team who is not what you might call a typical top flight team hits at some point, that feeling of "what is the point in this anymore?"

 

It happened to Stoke, West Brom, Sunderland, Wigan, there comes a point where Premier League survival becomes the most tedious thing the game can offer a supporter.

Aye, at least Wigan had the best day of their lives during it.

I’ve come to like the Championship. A bunch of classic clubs and anybody can beat anybody.

I know there are a lot of people who don't like that there is so much money in the game now, and also I guess plastic fans if you like. Hand on heart, the only thing which truly pisses me off is that for teams like us, there is nothing to play for season in, season out. The top teams are in a mini league by themselves, and we have been consigned to hoping for survival as the only point of interest. It's not because of lack of money either, it's because we have an owner who uses this club as an advertising tool for his business, and doesn't see us as a sports enterprise at all.

 

So just to reiterate, it's not the state of football which has made me lose interest, it's the sheer disregard for NUFC by the owner. Look at clubs like Leicester and Bournemouth investing in their future. Are you telling me their fans think this is a terrible age for the game?

 

Not sure who the "you" is? I do think that many Newcastle fans are primarily disillusioned because you've been run in a slipshod fashion for years. What I find interesting is that I'm disillusioned despite my club being run better than almost any other club out there for over a decade.

You seemed happy enough the last couple of seasons when Spurs were making the CL with a great brand of football under a dynamic young manager.

I know there are a lot of people who don't like that there is so much money in the game now, and also I guess plastic fans if you like. Hand on heart, the only thing which truly pisses me off is that for teams like us, there is nothing to play for season in, season out. The top teams are in a mini league by themselves, and we have been consigned to hoping for survival as the only point of interest. It's not because of lack of money either, it's because we have an owner who uses this club as an advertising tool for his business, and doesn't see us as a sports enterprise at all.

 

So just to reiterate, it's not the state of football which has made me lose interest, it's the sheer disregard for NUFC by the owner. Look at clubs like Leicester and Bournemouth investing in their future. Are you telling me their fans think this is a terrible age for the game?

 

Not sure who the "you" is? I do think that many Newcastle fans are primarily disillusioned because you've been run in a slipshod fashion for years. What I find interesting is that I'm disillusioned despite my club being run better than almost any other club out there for over a decade.

 

You seemed happy enough the last couple of seasons when Spurs were making the CL with a great brand of football under a dynamic young manager.

I’m sure I did, but I wasn’t. I mean, I’m a born and bred Spurs fan so it feels good when we win and feels bad when we lose - that won’t ever go away - but the whole thing just feels more empty than it used to. Personally I think moving to the US was the nail in the coffin, it took me away from physical and virtual communities that were a huge part of my feeling for and connection to the game.

I just find myself getting incredibly jealous of other well-run football teams and every time i try to separate NUFC and other football I find myself going back to raising a fist at NUFC in disgust.

100%

Anyone else think there seems to be more “wonderkids”, than ever before and that players seem to be coming through younger than they previously did?

Fati, Sancho, Foden, Camavinga, Vinicius, Rodrygo, Esposito, Greenwood, Gilmour, Bellingham, Hickey, Martinelli and loads more tbh.