Excitingly for us all now that Nottingham Forest have risen back up to 'where they belong', the Premier League is starting to take a more 'proper' look and feel to it. It has a whiff of the 90's going on next season. Below is a list of the runners and riders. In brackets I have taken the liberty of putting in the teams that should be in the league instead of the teams they are next too, as they are all 'proper' clubs too. Arsenal Aston Villa Bournemouth (Blackburn Rovers) Brentford (Sheffield Wednesday) Brighton (Sunderland) Chelsea Crystal Palace Everton Fulham Leeds United Leicester City Liverpool Manchester City Manchester United Newcastle United Nottingham Forest Southampton Tottenham Hotspur West Ham United Wolverhampton Wanderers
Don’t agree about Blackburn at all. They were always 2nd/3rd division in my youth until the injection of cash from Jack Walker, which was quite brief. Sunderland were always division ‘one and a half’ (a bit like Leicester). Sheff Wed - maybe; I’d certainly have them above Palace and Fulham historically.
True, I don't disagree. I'm just comparing them with say a Bournemouth or Brighton for example, who some might say have even less top flight pedigree. Plus, football didn't exist before the Premier League right?
Quite right, the PL should only contain teams that have won the top division to ensure it only contains teams that are "where they belong" Teams that are there and should't be: Bournemouth Brentford Brighton Crystal Palace Fulham Southampton West Ham Teams that should replace them: Sunderland - 6 wins Sheffield Wednesday - 4 wins Huddersfield - 3 wins Blackburn - 3 wins Preston - 2 wins Derby - 2 wins Portsmouth - 2 wins Then we could rightly call it the best league in the world
Anyone else reckon Slither will be gone by Xmas? He never lasted with us or Everton so will be interesting to find out.
I would say that depends entirely on the Fulham owner. At some point in the season they will seem to be threatened by relegation, however mildly (like Brentford were), and then it’s how the owner reacts.
The stats section of Football365 used to have a table of average league positions (along with useful stuff like record vs top/bottom half opposition, points dropped while winning/gained while losing), but they stopped updating it in 2002 and then the website stopped existing altogether. Since then I have calculated them a few times over the years (not many because it's really time-consuming and there's not much point doing it too often as the positions would hardly change, but every five or so years is fine, as upwardly mobile clubs like Swansea and Brighton and teams that go on massive downward spirals like the Scum and Grimsby can go up or down a fair few places), the most recent being up to the end of the 2020-21 season. I think it's a reasonable way of comparing sizes of clubs and the most consistent given that luck can play quite a part in cup wins and, except for the very biggest clubs, crowds can be up and down. Here's the top 20: 1 Liverpool 2 Arsenal 3 Everton 4 Manchester United 5 Aston Villa 6 Tottenham 7 Chelsea 8 Manchester City 9 Newcastle 10 Sunderland 11 West Brom 12 West Ham 13 Leeds 14 Blackburn 15 Derby 16 Wolverhampton 17 Middlesbrough 18 Sheffield Wednesday 19 Leicester City 20 Sheffield United Surprisingly, Forest aren't in it (they're between Birmingham and Stoke in 23rd), Sunderland, West Brom and Blackburn look too high, but most of the rest look accurate enough. While some may find the overhyping of Forest in the media to be annoying, I don't think anyone would consider Sheffield United to be a bigger club than them - their post-war trophy count (only counting trophies of note) is actually comparable to any of the bigger clubs outside the top six, with just one less than Leeds, Wolves and Leicester, equal to Villa and more than West Ham, Newcastle and Everton.
44th, having recently (would take too long to work out when that was) snuck up above our friends up the M1 in 46th - not that long ago, you could argue that we were punching above our weight just by being in the Championship, but this proves (just) that we no longer are. Might as well show the rest of the table - I included Notts County and Bury (who are surprisingly high) despite them being respectively non-league and dormant at the time, and excluded those out of the then 92 league clubs that hadn't been in the league for long (like Salford, Harrogate, Forest Green etc). 21 Bolton 22 Birmingham 23 Nottingham Forest 24 Stoke 25 Southampton 26 Burnley 27 Ipswich 28 Preston 29 Portsmouth 30 Charlton 31 Fulham 32 Huddersfield 33 Norwich 34 Coventry 35 Queens Park Rangers 36 Blackpool 37 Crystal Palace 38 Cardiff 39 Bristol City 40 MK Dons/Wimbledon 41 Barnsley 42 Hull 43 Notts County 44 Watford 45 Millwall 46 Luton 47 Bury 48 Oldham 49 Swansea 50 Brighton 51 Grimsby 52 Wigan 53 Reading 54 Plymouth 55 Bradford 56 Brentford 57 Rotherham 58 Swindon 59 Leyton Orient 60 Bournemouth 61 Bristol Rovers 62 Walsall 63 Port Vale 64 Oxford 65 Tranmere 66 Lincoln 67 Crewe 68 Shrewsbury 69 Southend 70 Carlisle 71 Gillingham 72 Peterborough 73 Doncaster 74 Burton Albion 75 Northampton 76 Scunthorpe 77 Colchester 78 Wycombe 79 Mansfield 80 Rochdale 81 Exeter 82 Cambridge 83 Stevenage 84 Accrington Stanley 85 Cheltenham 86 Morecambe
Interesting work. The only slight flaw I see with it as a measure of ‘bigness’ is that, by including every season from the start of the league, it gives a little bias to the northern clubs that were the first to turn professional. They had a head start success-wise, hence Blackburn for instance looking a little high in the table. Once things settled down the big city clubs started to gain a natural dominance over the ‘town’ clubs.
Fixtures out today, interesting start for Muff. Away to City and Liverpool, plus home games against Arsenal, Villa and Wolves in their first 5. Nice to see a team like Forest in there now, and not the likes of Watford, Burnley and Norwich. Tin pot clubs one and all.
Yes. Good to see the cream rise to the top. If the prem can replace Brave Brentford and Brave brave Muff with Birmingham and Sunderland they can pull up the drawbridge and get the hot tar ready up in the turrets.
Good to see the charming Pogba considered Man Utd's offer of £300k per week "nothing". Not worth £50k a week if you ask me. Dreadful player to have in your squad.
West Brom, Blackburn, Derby, Middlesbrough, Sheff Wed, Sheff U and Bolton all rank higher historically according to Football365 earlier in this thread. (Obviously not all these are currently in the Championship.) Stoke and Burnley not far behind.
Well WBA, Blackburn, Sheff Utd, or Mboro or indeed Birmingham ( derby, SW and Bolton couldn’t be promoted to prem next season). All bigger than us, Brentford and Muff so welcomed with open arms by the prem.
Pedantically speaking, that’s according to something I worked out myself, based on what Football365 did 20 years ago. Though I imagine the order hasn’t changed much because apart from Bolton (who have been above Birmingham all this time) none of those clubs have been up and down the divisions that much. I’ve never considered Brum a particularly big club - most would consider them a yo-yo club at best who’ve only won one trophy of note in modern times, with the second tier being their natural level.
I’ve just read that Aston Villa are planning to redevelop Villa Park and some of the surrounding area. The Trinity Road stand will be enhanced and the North Stand rebuilt, bringing capacity to over 50,000. It was the first ‘big’ ground I went to in the 70s as a student in Brum and the north end (opposite the Holte) was an open terrace. The North Stand was built a year later using the then modern ‘goalpost’ design, which has two large pillars on the outside edges of the stand with a beam between them supporting the roof - so no posts obstructing the view in the seats. Now they’re knocking it down. How to make you feel old.
Timeline (provisional): Planning permission will go in in August. The Brookvale academy site will be complete by July of 2023 - the work there has started already The Academy building will be demolished in July/Aug 2023, and the current North Stand will be demolished in October 2023, followed by the ticket office. Phase 1 complete by the start of the 2025/26 season. The new North stand will hold 13,200 with just over 2,000 of those being hospitality. Both the Trinity and new North Stand will be getting open balcony style hospitality areas in the middle of them. As per the image above, the new stand will have two tiers and the seating is very much like the seating in the Holte . Inside the stand will be four levels (see pic above), with the lower concourse being triple height, with glass at the front and back to give the concourses plenty of natural light. The Trinity will be extended around so that the middle tier meets the new stand, but not the top tier (which is to protect residents' light on Nelson Road). This wrap round will add a few hundred seats to the Trinity capacity. The players tunnel will move to the corner of the ground between North and Trinity, with new player facilities in the new North Stand. Capacity while the North stand is demolished and rebuilt will be reduced to around 35k for that 18 month period. How the club manages ticketing during that time will need quite a bit of thought. On the the Box Park "Villa live" - it will have restaurants, bars and a big room in the middle that will also be used for gigs - for gigs it will be able to hold 2,800 people. The club are paving Witton Lane from the traffic island up to the Doug Ellis stand and down also Station road, so that on match days there is no traffic and it will feel like a public square - there will be a subway at the end of station road linking the Brookvale academy as a match day facility.
Thomas Strakosha, Aaron Hickey, Keane Lewis Potter all in at Brentford. Fantastic business. Oh what could have been.
Oh really? Could be great news for us because he was linked with Man Utd. They might be forced back in for Bachmann.
Ten Hag been given permission to recreate Ajax. I love that Ajax team, does this mean I'm going to have to like Man Utd? :|
I am going to put Arsenal in my accumulator for division winners. Unlikely, but somehow I think they are the most likely to create an upset.
UAE set to sign Emilio Lawrence from Everton. Even clubs like Everton are nothing anymore but also rans.
Licha Martinez is a fabulous player. His intelligence and composure on the ball are superb. Can play further up the field, launch attacks from deep, has a winning mentality and is tough as a rock. I'm amazed by those questioning his aerial ability. Plenty of defenders who were not the tallest were strong aerially given how they anticipated and timed their jumps. Passarella and Cannavaro for instance. Personally I'd have him at DM.
