Premier League 2017/18

[Colly]

2 minutes ago, DarylMarrio said:

Check out @OxiIiary’s Tweet:

Paul the octopus level shit this. 

Or just extremely predictable because it's us. 

FUCKING FUCK OFF. 

Swansea PA playing Boys Don't Cry... 

[Lineker]

Quote

The Premier League makes so much more money from its multibillion-pound sales of television rights, tickets and commercial income that 14 of its clubs are in the highest-earning 30 in the world.

According to European football clubs’ 2016-17 financial information, collated by the accountants Deloitte, Manchester United made the most money of any club on the planet last year, £581m in total.

Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool were among the 10 richest clubs in Europe, and therefore the world, among historical giants Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus and the Qatar-backed Paris Saint-Germain.

Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City – ranked as the world’s 14th-richest club – West Ham United, Southampton and Everton were in the top 20 richest. Crystal Palace, West Bromwich Albion and Stoke City were among the 30 richest, with Bournemouth, whose stadium has a 11,464 capacity, the world’s 28th richest club, owing to being in the English top flight for only the second season in their history.

Deloitte illustrates the exponential growth in Premier League income, and Bournemouth as a beneficiary after their 2015 promotion, by pointing to the club’s status 20 years earlier. In 1996-97 Bournemouth were in the third tier and their revenue, £1.1m, made them the 10th least well-off club of the 92 in the Premier and Football Leagues. Deloitte, which says it had financial details directly from clubs whose accounts are not yet published, state Bournemouth’s income last year as £140m.

The Premier League clubs’ dominance reflects their earnings from the first year of the record £8.4bn TV deals for 2016-19, which are vastly greater than those of competing European leagues. The nearest financial competitor, the Bundesliga, whose clubs’ average attendances were significantly higher, makes far less from TV rights sales, particularly internationally.

The new four-year Bundesliga TV deals from this season amount to €4.64bn, a 85% increase on the previous deal but far below those of the Premier League, which is expected to announce further increases when sealing its 2019-22 deals in the next few months.

[Lineker]

Quote

Joey Barton believes gambling is “culturally ingrained” in English football and many more players are breaking the Football Association’s betting rules. The 35-year-old ex-England midfielder is currently serving a 13-month ban for admitting placing bets on 1,260 matches.

The FA tightened its regulations in 2014 to stop players in England’s top eight divisions betting on any football-related activity, anywhere in the world.

Barton, who will be able to play again from 1 June, concedes he was right to be punished – but claims he is far from the only professional footballer to have been in clear breach of the FA’s rules.

“I think, and I’m being conservative, I think 50% of the playing staff would be taken out [banned], because it’s culturally ingrained,” Barton told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “You’d have half the players out for sure.”

He added: “I had to be sanctioned, because I stepped out of the boundaries of the rules. So there’s no doubt about it, but the FA think I’m the only footballer who has ever bet on football ever. But the reality of it says that that is not the case. I’ve seen [it] with my own eyes.

“I’d place bets for other footballers on my accounts. I would say, on a conservative estimate, being in professional dressing rooms where there’s been readily available cash for over 15 years, you’d have half the league out.”

Barton says the reason for that is because of the change in regulations. He also believes it is important to distinguish between gambling rules and match-fixing rules.

He said: “The [gambling] rules have become more and more stringent. Ultimately we’ve ended up now with a totalitarian kind of ban – no football betting anywhere. Where we’ve got it wrong is we’ve got the gambling rules mixed up with the match-fixing rules.

“Because match-fixing is fundamentally wrong and challenges the integrity of the sport. I think culturally betting is acceptable. There’s nothing wrong with betting if it’s controlled – it’s when it becomes out of control and people bet beyond their means.”

[FestiveJack]

So why hasn't Barton named names and gotten the authorities to investigate, if he's supposedly seen it with his own eyes?

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Probably got a bet on who gets found out next.

[DavidMarrio]

He's a Huyton lad. He doesn't wanna be a grass. 

[MDK]

2 hours ago, MadJack said:

So why hasn't Barton named names and gotten the authorities to investigate, if he's supposedly seen it with his own eyes?

Snitches get stitches. 

[FLiam]

Glenn Murray and his wife have been arrested on suspicion of tax fraud totaling £1.1m.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/42809696

[Lineker]

 

Through to 2020, with the option of a further year.

[FestiveJack]

ffs

[9 to 5]

Mourinho is doing a good job, why the hate?

[DavidMarrio]

Smart move by Mourinho. Bigger payday for when he inevitably gets his 3rd season cob on and gets sacked

[FestiveJack]

8 hours ago, 9 to 5 said:

Mourinho is doing a good job, why the hate?

Never wanted him, still don't want him.

[9 to 5]

Well, he has gotten you two trophies last season, back into the CL and could well win that yet, and looking likely to improve your league position from 6th to 2nd/3rd this season. Like him or not he is doing a bloody good job. Better than the last two managers you have had. Who else at the time would have been a better appointment to this level of success than someone as proven a winner than Mourinho?

[stokeriño]

TBH signing a new contract is almost always the precursor to Jose's departure anyway.

Hell, he signed a new 4 year deal with Chelsea in August 2015. Similar story at Inter and Real before that.

[FestiveJack]

40 minutes ago, 9 to 5 said:

Well, he has gotten you two trophies last season, back into the CL and could well win that yet, and looking likely to improve your league position from 6th to 2nd/3rd this season. Like him or not he is doing a bloody good job. Better than the last two managers you have had. Who else at the time would have been a better appointment to this level of success than someone as proven a winner than Mourinho?

The success is good but if we just wanted trophies then we'd have stuck with LvG and not sacked him 48 hours after winning the FA Cup. We were told we'd get attacking ambitious football and as the games against Man City and Liverpool show - and a smattering of others against smaller teams, especially when Pogba was out - it's not really there, despite the potential being there for it. United all too often lack attacking intent, a problem under Moyes and LvG that persists under Jose, who has been too cautious at times.

I'm annoyed at the double standards, as well. Results that under LvG or Moyes would see the manager and team slated tend to go uncriticised, unless they can fit into the narrative of 'Jose parks the bus at big teams', and the same people who were calling for LvG to go after disappointing results wouldn't do the same to Jose if we were on a similar run. At least an acknowledgement of the double standard would be fine, but most of our fans lack that kind of self-awareness entirely.

[Baddar]

One big difference I notice under Jose is that he at least chops and changes a system based on the situation. It's not always the free-flowing attacking football but even that would come with its problems. We attacked at the Emirates and got murdered by Arsenal. How we won that, I'll never know.

Under LvG, his way of playing was the same whether it was Chelsea or Cheltenham. It was nice averaging almost 70% possession, and he did get our best results against big teams since Fergie, but the refusal to attack smaller teams until it was too late led to too many dropped points.

And if we do get rid of Jose now, who comes in? Do they get another 300m to build their own team and inject their own ideas too, taking 18-24 months to settle before we can properly judge them?

It's certainly not all rosy under Jose but I feel more comfortable under him than anyone else since Fergie. Our league finish last season wasn't good enough, but our good form in the Europa coupled with the tough run of fixtures near the end of the season meant he put all his eggs in that basket and it paid off. This season, we're comfortably behind City but still on course to finish in a good position.

[Colly]

For the money he's spent though isn't qualifying for the Champions League the bare minimum? I know City are ridiculous this season, but as you say he didn't qualify through the league last year, and with all that spending a good deal of his team still dates back to Fergie's time. 

[9 to 5]

55 minutes ago, MadJack said:

The success is good but if we just wanted trophies 

It is the point of sport, to win things. Sure Mourinho's style might not be all out attack and blood and thunder stuff but it has worked alright in his career so far. And Van Gaal's sacking, as illtimed as it was, was nothing to do with the cup success and all to do with Man United finally getting their man for the long term in Jose.

31 minutes ago, Colly said:

For the money he's spent though isn't qualifying for the Champions League the bare minimum? I know City are ridiculous this season, but as you say he didn't qualify through the league last year, and with all that spending a good deal of his team still dates back to Fergie's time. 

Certainly a fair argument and for a year on year league improvement it was not a good image but as long as they got back into the CL that's all that mattered. Plus as a fan, probably the most exciting way to do it bar winning the league. Progress is being made but nowadays it is harder to just spend money to get success in the league.

Mourinho is doing a very good job right now. Not great, but very good. Especially if they do win/get to the final of the Champions League.

[Baddar]

If you look at the points total in the season LvG got us into 4th, we only earned 1 more point than we had last season under Mourinho. And in the season that led to his sacking, we had 3pts less than Mourinho managed in his first season, with an even worse goals per game record. I think come the end of this season, it'll be clear that Mourinho will have achieved more in his two seasons at the club than LvG did.