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BHPian ![]() Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Pune
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
Also it is widely acknowledged by players as well as managers that EPL is the toughest league in the world so am surprised by your comments. Tell me one team which genuinely challenges Barca, RM for title? In EPL we have six team who can win title. Quote:
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![]() | #767 | ||||||
BHPian ![]() Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Pune
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
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And could you cite the names of players and managers who have 'widely' acknowledged that EPL is the toughest league in the world? Even UEFA President Michel Platini doesn't feel that way. Quote:
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![]() | #768 | |||||
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
Pre-CL it was a different competition, level was much much lower. No wonder no team has ever managed to retain UCL, not even Barca. While earlier there were teams that would win it 3 in a row. Quote:
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fact is, Barca and Real are good, but outside of them EPL top 4 have no match in europe. bundesliga is actually very poor, the defenses there are no match to the elite in europe. Quote:
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![]() | #769 |
Senior - BHPian ![]() Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: The Football Thread Panko - Looking at your points, am not able to understand your POV. Is there a personal grudge against SAF or United? If yes, then its understandable otherwise its puzzling. Because you see though am an United fan, I mean no disrespect to the other teams. I just love Football and am all for a great match up. I have been following them from the early 90s when Cantona and the then lesser known Roy Keane ruled the roost. Followed by the famous youth camp which nurtured the likes of Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Neville...etc. It is difficult to not really like them and respect them and SAF for what they have done in the last 2 decades. I guess thats all we are try to put across. |
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![]() | #770 | |||
BHPian Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Bangalore/Mysore
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
And it was indeed not a tough challenge for pep. He inherited a very good squad, which was doing quite well already. Not denying any credit to him, but certainly doesnt compare to the situation in which SAF took over! Quote:
Torres said, "It is difficult to say which league is better, but the Premier League is more competitive because the British are becoming stronger and players are coming to England." Fernando Torres: Premier League Is Still Toughest In The World - Goal.com Robben said "Well, from my point of view, I've always said Spain and England have the strongest leagues in Europe at the moment. I think, looking back at last season, England has proven that maybe they are one little step ahead of the Spanish league simply because last year there were three English teams in the Champions League semi-finals. The English teams are doing really well and we see them as one of our biggest rivals on our way to the final of the competition." Spanish La Liga - ESPN Soccernet Gyan said “It's the most difficult league in the world and you need to be 100 per cent fit to survive, which I wasn't when I arrived" Asamoah Gyan hopes to improve for Sunderland in the upcoming season ~ iBetSports And these are players who have played in multiple leagues. And does anyone care about what platini says about england? Everybody knows he is biased against them! Quote:
Even this season, all of the top 4 teams had a very good chance to win the league, even in april! havent seen anything close to it in either spain or italy in a long time now! | |||
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![]() | #771 | |
BHPian ![]() | Re: The Football Thread Quote:
Wenger is the one reason why Arsenal aren't majorly in debt, like Man U was. That is inspite of not having the Merchandising revenue or gaining the TV revenue that Man U does. He's bought players cheap, developed them and sold them off expensive. Now i'm not saying he's right, but there is more than one way to look at his situation. 1> He's Building a financially stable foundation on which he will build a team. It might take some more time, but looking at the money he has spent, the Money he has earned, Qualification for the UCL and his league position i think he has done an admirable job. Arsenal are on the cusp of Sustained glory. Once they take that step, they will be formidable. His is a long term plan that will eventually bear fruit for a long long time. 2> He's grown senile and doesn't know what he is doing. I personally think he's the former. You have to consider that Arsenal don't have the financial backing that some of the other clubs have and they have just built a new stadium. If Arsene had spent big monies, i have no doubt that Arsenal would have performed Much better, maybe even won the UCL, but then they would have had a debt that is much larger than what they have now. Arsene's policy of buying cheap and selling expensive is going a long way towards reducing that debt. PS: I'm not an Arsenal fan. I just think Arsene is going the right way about things. Making a sustainable model that all clubs should follow. | |
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BHPian ![]() Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Pune
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
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![]() | #774 | |||||||
BHPian ![]() Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Bangalore/Calic
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
How can you even compare a team like Tottenham with major teams from other European leagues just based on a couple of games? For all their might, Tottenham managed to just reach the final 8 of CL, that too just once Spanish teams have been running riots in Europa League/Champions Cup ( the tournament to judge the best of the rest) with Sevilla winning twice and Atletico Madrid once, the same tournament where tottenham etc have been competing for years just to make up the numbers. The only achievement of an English club off late has been Fulham reaching the finals 2 years back, only to be beaten by Atl. Madrid. I agree that the 3rd and 4th EPL teams are more consistent than La Liga but thats about it. The rest are nowhere near them. Quote:
Wenger finds an excuse every year to justify his philosophy that has clearly failed to bring any success. Quote:
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How can the performance of top 4 EPL clubs alone judge the quality of league considering the other 16 teams have been dismal in Europa league etc like i've said before? Quote:
They were not in debt(atleast anything close to current figures) till their present American owners bought the club and transferred all the debts onto the club's shoulders. Arsenal never had such a situation. They had to build a new stadium and i understand Wenger parting with some good players when the funds were necessary. However, Wenger has taken the task of rebuiding as the motto of his life and even though emirates stadium generates twice the revenue as Highbury, Wenger continues his obsession. In fact, the board has repeatedly spoken about availability of funds. Its Wenger's stubbornness to accept the failure of his football philosphy thats preventing Arsenal from taking a serious shot at titles. Quote:
Fact is, Arsenal has a large number of mediocre players whose wages are far more than what they deserve. Instead of getting rid of them, Wenger is selling off his best assets and investing back in youth scouting/poaching etc Players get tired of being with a club and manager who lacks any ambition and would be content at being fourth in the league When will the ever so called "long term plan" see light as long as they keep selling off whichever good players they have for 16yr olds Its an eternal team rebuild thats going on in Arsenal Talk about reinventing the wheel! ![]() Quote:
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![]() | #775 | |
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
Europa Cup is NOT a priority for most top teams. The reason being the financial importance of finishing in TOP 3 or 4 (and getting a CL berth which is worth millions). There is no substantial financial reward for winning europa cup (not even prestige , plus it only means nuisance of extra games). Thats why we didnt see Liverpool or Spurs going for it (they played their second teams in this competition). And its not just English teams- we didnt see Juventus or AC Milan or Bayern going for it in recent times when they played Europa cup. For all these teams CL qualification is more important. Most of the spanish teams who won it were either already out of CL spots or maybe didnt bother. Dont know much about spanish mentality. And we can compare Spurs with other major sides. why not? They did beat AC Milan convincingly and also beat Inter Milan. They play very attractive, attacking football and generally produce better games than most continental teams. They boast players like Modric, Van der Vaart and Bale who are very much respected all over. They are a good team, better than likes of Villareal, Atletico or Sevilla. And they are only 6th in England!!! EPL now has at least 6 very good teams. No other league can boast that! Last edited by joslicx : 7th July 2011 at 19:42. | |
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![]() | #776 | |
BHPian ![]() | Re: The Football Thread Quote:
What i was trying to get across was that Arsenal aren't monetarily too good either. If the go all out and buy the Kaka's and the Sneijder's of the world they'd be seriously in debt. it is not a sustainable model. Look at Bayern's finances. They have no debt. They have posted profits for the last 18 consecutive years. Inspite of their TV revenue & ticket sales figures being dwarfed by their English & Spanish counterparts. If you look at the last 15 years of Wenger's reign over Arsenal, he's almost earned half of what they paid for the stadium. Most clubs earn from Merchandising, TV Rights and Ticket sales.... Besides I personally do feel Wenger has gone senile ![]() | |
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![]() | #777 | |
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
Football clubs are also big business, esp the big clubs. This idea is extended to a common person as well. Suppose I were to buy a house. In Bangalore a good property (lets say a 3BHK flat) will cost upwards of 75 lakhs. One way is to wait till I have that much money and then buy it. otherwise if I have decent enough income and decent enough future potential in me then I can go and get a loan, say for 60 lakhs, put 15L of my own money and voila, I have a house. i can then pay back in the next 10-20 years from my future earnings. Man Utd, if you dont know, have been hugely profitable (in fact this year their profits were in range of 100m pounds). From pure business perspective they have never made a loss! They are the biggest, most profitable, and most valuable sports entity on earth (source Forbes). they have had to write off lot of money (which was more financial mumbo-jumbo) as they had debt restructuring (and some money might have been siphoned off by the owners themselves) but as things stand, their liability now is only 45m per year while they make much much more than that. They have made deals worth almost 50m a year in marketing in the last year itself, and are in the process of negotiating a 400m pound deal with Nike for merchandising. All this plus they have a 76k seater stadium that generates 100m pounds per year from footfalls only. united, historically, have been the best manages club in football world. The fact remains united are a massive money making machine. thats why glazers are still clinging to it even when they have had huge offers (1.5B) which would have doubled or trebled their investments. Until united keep winning, theres no stopping them making lots of money. On the other hand, you can look at clubs like Barca or Real. Barca are also about 400m in debt, and they made a loss of about 39m this year (when they won CL). Real were also in massive debt until the spanish govt bailed them out. Fact is, you cannot just compare uniteds prudence in financial matter with any other sports franchise in the world!!! | |
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![]() | #778 |
BHPian ![]() Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Mumbai
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| Re: The Football Thread This debate is getting more and more interesting. I will make my contribution too. First of all, Wenger is a good coach. He is an average tactician. There is a difference between the two. Many people accuse Wenger of not going on a spending spree. Well as far as I know Arsenal had a huge debt post the move from Highbury to Emirates. They also built some real estate in that area which has started to yeold revenue now. So as far as spending is concerned I think Wenger did not have sufficient funds. EPL - I have been following EPL for the past 3 years only. I am not well versed with the history of EPL. But on the basis of what I have seen English football is very direct and physical. Take the case of Manutd. If you observe most of their goals come from crosses. Wingers play the key role for Manutd. Rooney is good at providing the finish touches. Is this style of play wrong? No. Is this style of play as entertaining as Barca or Arsenal? No. The reason why Arsenal are not able to acheive what they deserve is simply because of their playing style. I admire their style of football but they need to be direct at crucial stages. Passing game works well only when you have players like Xavi and Messi. |
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![]() | #779 | |
BHPian ![]() | Re: The Football Thread Quote:
Man U was just a case i was pointing out. Because if they can't pay off their PIK loans by 2017, they'll lose the club. Now i doubt that will happen. The Chelseas & Man Cities of the world will all fail when their benefactors lose interest in the club. My point of a sustainable model is to preclude that fact that a club has to rely on other external business entities to be able to compete. I agree that Man U don't need a rich benefactor to bail them out, but they did need a bond. if that bond had tanked, they'd be in deep trouble right now. | |
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![]() | #780 | |
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: The Football Thread Quote:
BBC News - Manchester United's Glazer family to pay off PIK loans And in a hypothetical scenario if Man Utd start going down, Glazers can always find willing buyers. There will be a posse of rich businessmen outside OT the day Glazers put Utd for sale! Already they have turned down an offer of GBP 1.5B from Qatar (this would have given them a cool 800m profit on their "investment" in Man Utd). As I said, United are too big, they have a global fanbase (estimated at about 300+million) and a very strong business model. Their liabilities at present are only about 45% level (about 500m of debt while their worth is more than 1.2B in GBP terms) and that is a very comfortable level in most businesses. Add to that the kind of profits they make (purely as a business, it was more than 100m last year and is only going to increase when that 400m deal with Nike is done), their debt is hardly a headache for the owners anymore. On the other hand, from supporters point of view, it has been a problem because most supporters feel united are not so aggressive at pursuing big-name signings because of debt problems and Fergie's hand tied by the owners. How much of a truth in there, nobody knows, but still fact remains that during Glazer ownership Man Utd have had one of their most successful time on the pitch - 4 PL wins and 3 CL finals (inc a win). Not many clubs can match that right now (except maybe Barca and Inter.) | |
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