Wolfsburg

[Arriba]

dont be daft.liverpool have run man ure close, and league 2 football is fucking awful.(we were there,it was painfull)man u,chelsea,liverpool or arsenal could win the prem next year.celtic or rangers will win the scottish league.
i'm not banging the prem drum, but fuck me i think its pretty good really

[Rich Pullen]

As someone who watches far too much football I can safely say that all levels conjure up its fair share of enjoyable games and complete dross

[Spencer_White]

The relegation scrap going to the last day really isnt that big a deal? Vast majority of leagues go to the last game of the season.

It hasnt been a bad season for the top flight. But the richest team has won, again. The richest team also played the best football and had the best players.

Its supposed to be sport. But all I can see at the top of the Premier League is £$£$£$£$ signs talking.

If Newcastle dont get relegated it will have been a right let down.

A great example of how unhealthy it is would be Arsenal. They finnished in the top 4 and reached the semi final of the champions league. But their supporters are beside themselves with grief. Almost hounding their best ever manager out of the club. IT IS NOT HEALTHY. Bottom line is Arsenal fans are not enjoying football very much. These teams fans need to feel the full range of emotions of being a football fan, including relegation.

[Rich Pullen]

I'm not hugely concerned about the other fans experience to be honest. Although, we've experienced our fair share of ups and downs - the older TEF'ers have pretty much experienced it all.

A vast amount of Manchester United, Liverpool et al fans support them because of the guarentee of some kind of success and as it stands they'll only feel the woes of 4th place or a Runners-Up medal (sob). Older Geordie fans experienced hard times, they'll hurt because they became spoilt - the Premiership needs a bigger scalp, Spurs in the 90's would've been quite significant.

[pumbaa]

Today the Premier League and Newcastle United will go their separate ways.

[stfctownenda]

The relegation scrap going to the last day really isnt that big a deal? Vast majority of leagues go to the last game of the season.

It hasnt been a bad season for the top flight. But the richest team has won, again. The richest team also played the best football and had the best players.

Its supposed to be sport. But all I can see at the top of the Premier League is £$£$£$£$ signs talking.

If Newcastle dont get relegated it will have been a right let down.

A great example of how unhealthy it is would be Arsenal. They finnished in the top 4 and reached the semi final of the champions league. But their supporters are beside themselves with grief. Almost hounding their best ever manager out of the club. IT IS NOT HEALTHY. Bottom line is Arsenal fans are not enjoying football very much. These teams fans need to feel the full range of emotions of being a football fan, including relegation.

Has the richest team won again? I thought the amounts Chelsea and Liverpool have spent in recent season have to come close or have spent more then United.  Look at leagues around the world and you will see the vast majority are dominated by the same teams i.e Spain Barca & Madrid, Italy the Milan Clubs and Juve.

I don't think it has been boring at all, the premiership is a great watch and the relegation battle today should be an excellent watch.  I really don't know how anyone would rather watch a league 2 game, no atmosphere, terrible ground and awful players.  I would watch Swindon over any premiership game but them aside I would not watch lower league rubbish over a big game in the premiership.

[Spy]

The premiership is good for betting as it is reasonably predictable and teams tend to maintain form. Not that many upsets. You can put the big four into multiple debts to increase your returns, especially when they're playing away.

[pauld]

Has the richest team won again? I thought the amounts Chelsea and Liverpool have spent in recent season have to come close or have spent more then United.

All three of them are massively in debt thanks to their benevolent foreign owners (although at least Abramovich didn't saddle the club with 3/4bn of debt to finance his own takeover) so I doubt any of them qualify as richest in a bottom line sense. In the sense of "money to spend" who knows? Football is still living the economics of the madhouse.

I don't think it has been boring at all, the premiership is a great watch and the relegation battle today should be an excellent watch.  I really don't know how anyone would rather watch a league 2 game, no atmosphere, terrible ground and awful players.  I would watch Swindon over any premiership game but them aside I would not watch lower league rubbish over a big game in the premiership.

Plastic
[/quote]

[Reg Smeeton]

I'll be cheering on Barcelona come Wednesday (it is wednesday innit?). Andybody having a few in a pub whilst watching?

I could be up for this...dig out my Barca shirt

Arriba, I'm surprised you think the Prem has been good this season, you seem a discerning sort of fella. I'll grant there has been the odd decent game, but it has become a stale format, more or less with a predictable top 4, maybe 4 or 5 wannabe sides next, then the rest who play a mostly negative game because they fear getting relegated.  Has any player scored 20 league goals this season?

The likes of Blackburn, Bolton, Wigan, Sunderland even Pompey are truly dire to watch. Stoke are comedy value, in the same way as Wimbledon used to be, MBoro take some credit for trying to produce English footballers, but it has got them relegated.

Newcastle have been value for comic ineptitude on and off the pitch.

Spurs have just been Spurs...exemplified by David Bentley, someone who looked a decent player, gets his big move, and a stupid haircut, and promptly tries to see out the season, on the back of one somewhat fortuitous goal in October.



Now we have the farce of your middling Prem sides not bothering with the domestic cups, for fear of tiring the players, and sides around the top 6 eg Fulham, Villa saying they don't want to qualify for Europe, because of the extra games.

[Rich Pullen]

A good argument well made Reg, I can't argue with that.

I've thoroughly enjoyed some games this season - but the problem for me is that when you see Blackburn vs. Bolton or Wigan vs. Portsmouth on tele we joke that it'll be shit... but on the whole those types of fixtures are indeed shit.

[strooood]

Still, in Brum, Wolves and hopefully Burnley there will be a further three 'footballing' sides in the Prem.

[RobertT]

The problem with the Prem, is not so much the top teams being the same, but more the complete lack of chance that anyone is going to come along and break that up without serious hard cash.  You always had a team dominating, but you could rely on some smaller less fashionable team to run them close or in the very odd season, pip them (Derby, Forest, Watford, Villa, Everton etc during the Liverpool years).  It's a season of avoiding relegation for 10 teams these days - look at the delight amongst clubs who had fucking awful seasons.

[dell boy]

But Rob, the same can be said in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and many other leagues. It is not just the Premiership.

[RobertT]

Yes, which is what used to be so much more interesting about our league, and probably what allowed the PL to become so popular at the start - it, and the FA Cup still trade off past romances.  Italy is a little more open I think.

[Spencer_White]

Newcastle got relegated, which saves it a bit.

The efforts of the bottom 5 on sunday were fairly pitiful (apart from maybe WBA).

Agree with Reg that something has to be done about the cup competitions. The FA needs to get some balls and give a Champions League place to the FA Cup, Platini has already given the go ahead.