I think this season is a little different to most due to the strength of the clubs relegated from the prem. I think it will be much closer next season.
The relegated teams have been unusually strong this year, two established mid-table teams and then Leeds who had stayed around for a few years, but the general trend is that it's getting easier for teams to bounce back up
Maybe but ourselves and Norwich didn’t bounce last season and I’m not sure SU, Burnley and Luton will dominate the league next season.
We did in the Covid season, plus Fulham did the year after, joined by Bournemouth who were in the second year of PP. Burnley then did it at an absolute canter last year, followed by another PP team in Sheffield United. Moral of the story, Parachute payments: important, don't **** them away by spending £5m on a striker who doesn't score goals and over £10m on random punts in January!
This season has been an anomaly in that regard though - the quality and strength in depth of the Leeds and Leicester squads this season are simply absurd; their current squads are both much better than the squad we had when we got relegated even before we had to sell many of the players. They'd have both run away with the league if they were in the division last season as well, being far stronger than all three of last year's promoted sides. It's not just them either - including Southampton and Ipswich, the top 4 this season appear to be on course for record points hauls for a top 4. Ipswich are the only unusual one in having just come up from League One with a bit of momentum, but they seemed to be trailing off a bit before they managed to sign Kieffer Moore who is just way too good for this division. Next season will probably revert to being a bit more competitive again, with Burnley and Sheffield Utd not looking great when they come back down, and hopefully them being joined by Luton (as opposed to the point deductions costing Forest or Everton, either of which would likely do a Leicester).
Burnley spent way more than us, while Sheffield Utd spent just as little as us. When you factor in Bayo was a Bayat buy and as such the fee probably doesn't mean very much, we didn't really spend the PP at all; we've hardly seen them be put to use much beyond servicing debt. This season we've still had them and spent a grand total of £1mil in the summer.
Yes, it was exactly that. If you go back to the early 70s crowd size was very healthy and the violence was on the pitch. That was a time of easy access to grounds (cheap, pay on the day), which mostly had terracing on three sides with no kind of segregation of fans. By the late 70s hooliganism had taken hold and it took the authorities a long time to react (some would say overreact) to it with crude measures like fencing and indiscriminate policing. No wonder attendances plummeted through the 80s.
I remember reading a book a few years ago that had an interview with David Dein (ex Arsenal chairmen), he went to a NFL game in the late 80s and was amazed at how family friendly it was, how the stadiums and toilets were so clean and ultimately how busy the stadiums were. He envisaged the same for English football and that helped form the PL a few years later. Going off on a bit of tangent here but Italy is now seeing the same problem, dirty and crumbling stadiums, fan violence + extremism is keeping a lot of families away and as such attendance isn't great for a lot of the teams (Bologna who are the surprise of the season and are on track to qualify for the CL have only sold 65% of their tickets on average) with nobody really going to away games (I remember a story a few years ago about Udinese having 1 away fan - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20700529). It's interesting seeing what some of the Italian clubs are doing to combat that, Como and Venezia really market themselves to the foreign + tourist fanbases, Como stream every game on their website for free to foreign fans and their social media pages are all in English with no separate Italian page. Venezia lean more into the football hipster side of football tourism with a lot of lovely kits that they release in a sort of fashion launch each year.
Every league is the same. You will always get surprise results. Most results between top and bottom sides will end up as an easy win for the top side but you will get the odd anomaly to that. In fact the top three non league league tables have teams running away with the title and those teams have battered the strugglers
People think that because they’re comparing it to the Premier League, where the financial disparity is far greater and we’ve lost to City every time by some ridiculous aggregate score now. But it’s still a normal league where the top is better than the bottom, and the top teams will end up with more than double the points of the bottom few teams. Upsets happen a bit more frequently because as mentioned, the financial disparity from top to bottom isn’t so big, plus there are two games a week and it’s harder to maintain constant form with more games, but the good teams mostly win and the bad teams mostly lose, that’s a pyramid style competition for you.
Would be interesting to see for the last say 10 years what the % points difference is between say top & 3rd top and bottom & 3rd bottom in the prem vs the champ % to eliminate the fact that more games are played in the champ so more scope for a wider gap). My guess is that the % gap would be greater in the prem. The other thing that makes the champ "seem" more competitive is that at least it's not the same teams dominating each season. The 3 who came down from the prem last season won't be dominating next season and my guess is that SU/Burnley etc won't do quite as well, where as the prem top 6 has been reasonably consistent and predictable.
I wonder how much of an impact the internationals will have. Most of Leeds' first team are away on international duty, with Firpo and Gruev both traveling long distances. We don't have quite as many away, but have a fairly important player in Kone traveling far. There also won't be much of a turnaround time with most countries still having international games today and then the league game being on Friday already. You'd imagine it would be more disruptive to Leeds, especially as they're also the away side. Though I doubt it would still be enough to significantly impact the result given the depth of their squad.
Just at a glance, the team 3rd top in the champ has 2.08x the points of the team 3rd bottom. The team 3rd top in the prem has exactly 3x the points of the team 3rd bottom, and Luton would need 9-10 more points to keep the ratio the same.
I have a memory that the athletic ran an article in the past few seasons (that was linked to Watford) made reference to data that showed the top clubs in the PL have been hoovering up more and more points every year. 80 points used to be able to sometimes win you the title, now it won’t, 40 points used to be the benchmark to aim for for survival, it hasn’t been that for donkeys years.
Not sure why Sky have chosen what is going to be the nearest thing to a bore draw to show on tele. We are unbeaten in 2 and with Leeds having crumbled to a draw at Huddlesfield a month ago, there is no reason why we shouldn't sneak this one 0-4 to Leeds #ClevsOut #PozzoOut #MogiIn # TeaLadyOut #ProudHornetsOut #DoTheOkiKoki
Be shocked if Chak plays, not only did he play 104 mins, but he probably 'enjoyed' the aftermath too...
Does anyone know if the Red Lion is open tmrw night? At the last game, bar staff said to us that they didn’t know what was happening following the sale.
Andrews sounds like he's fit to play. Lewis seems touch and go, but worst case we've still got Morris for that side (shudder).
People saying we should go out and attack them . Fine but goodness knows how much they will break on us and exploit the lack of pace .
That feeling will soon go away once you see the team sheet. If you manage to get through that, then 5mins after kick off that feeling will definitely be gone.
A quick glance at their stats and Morris' don't seem quite as heinous overall as I was expecting. Meanwhile overall Lewis' weren't a surprise. The stats both seem to reflect fairly well the types of player they are and where they have clear weaknesses (and relative "strengths"). Morris seems decent at backs to the wall defending and putting his body on the line. However, he seems a "waste of a shirt" in an attacking sense, scoring low on progressive passes, successful take-ons (dribbling beyond an opponent) and expected assists. Lewis also isn't great going forwards, but at least offers something every now and then. His tackling is also good reflecting that he does seem a good defender when 1 vs 1 against his winger. But some of the rest of his defensive stats show that he does lack commitment to the more physically demanding aspects of defending and can be a bit of a shirker. Considering we're likely to be on the back foot for most of the game vs Leeds then maybe that will end up suiting Morris' game, but I would worry about his lack of pace against someone like James or Gnonto, whereas Lewis would probably be more adept at dealing with them directly.
The most intriguing game today is probably QPR vs Birmingham, with both teams hovering just above the drop. But of course Sky have gone for showing the top 3 in what seems likely to be fairly routine wins.
Happy Easter everyone. Enjoy the game. I'll be trying to pretend we aren't playing and not look at the score
We had alright Thursday leading to Good Friday until 8pm. Looking forward to sorrow Saturday, pain helps you to evolve, know thyself.
