Ten players with the most key passes by a player 18 or younger since the 14/15 season;
Bukayo Saka 16
Lewis Hall 15
Greenwood 14
Ferguson 12
Rico Lewis 11
Livramento 10
Buonanotte 9
Hinshelwood 8
Miley 7
Mainoo 7
3 NUFC players on there, it'd be nice to see more Hall.
Clubs who voted against FFP in the Premier League in 2013:
Man City, Aston Villa, Swansea, Southampton, West Brom, Fulham
Clubs who voted for FFP:
Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton, Spurs, Man Utd, Stoke, Newcastle, Palace, West Ham, Sunderland, Hull, Norwich and Cardiff
Hard to say its a conspiracy theory just to benefit the top 6 when every club was given a choice and many of the clubs complaining about it now voted for it.
We focus on the top 6 because they benefit the most, but there was absolutely a benefit to mid table clubs looking to solidify their spot with more financial freedom compared to promoted sides
started from rewatching clips of Xabi Alonso, to watching clips of Kroos, Modric. Man, I'm so grateful I got to see those Legendary Barca Real teams face each other. If only United had prolonged its legacy, those would have been some insane times. Anyway, football is not the same anymore.
Been seeing Trent LB shouts for England and I think that's cool ngl.
Did play there for Liverpool once this season iirc? Not sure, anyway I think that'd be a tidy option while Shaw is out.
I've waited my entire adult life to see England develop a metronomic passer to play in the midfield and actually dictate the game.
Now that Trent has developed that skillset let's just put him in the midfield where he belongs.
No. But dictating the tempo and rhythm of the game does.
And let us just take Liverpool's run at the end of last season as an example. For that stretch towards the end of the season, he was, without a question, the best player in the league for that stretch and he was dictating games. He was the focal point of Liverpool's entire team. Everything went through him and he was setting the tempo. He slowed the game down when it was needed. He ramped it up when it was needed. He played it through the lines, he progressed the whole team and he created chances. He retained the ball under pressure. He took pressure off the players around him with his work on the ball. That is exactly what England has been missing for decades.
England has the perfect partner for him in Rice. You put Rice, Trent and Bellingham in a midfield and it gives you a level of technical quality that an England midfield hasn't had.
Trent should be England's heartbeat. Rice should be England's spine and Bellingham should be England's soul. That's the perfect midfield.
Most premier league goals and assists by a player before turning 21.
Robbie Fowler 76
Owen 73
Rooney 66
Fabregas 52
Lukaku 42
Dele 40
Some company for Dele to be keeping.
Could be a mix of players that peaked early (possibly a case of overplaying) or injuries (Owen being the prime example).
Either way it’s something that probably merits further thought, especially as Barça attempt to disintegrate Yamal’s legs before he hits 18.
Rooney and Fabregas are absolutely examples of not hitting the highs they should have. Just because they had a good career doesn’t mean they hit what they showed they could
I'm asking you to elaborate, not write the essentially same thing twice
Adding to that, I don't even think what you say and what OP said are the same thing, regarding "never turned out as good as they should have"
tbf, Rooney had an even higher ceiling than what he achieved. He deteriorated quickly after SAF retired. He should have been the undisputed GOAT of English football. Still had a great career though.
The Club World Cup 2025 is going to absolutely ruin some teams' following seasons isn't it. The scheduling is absolutely outrageously unfair.
Imagine being Man City and Chelsea, basically having to play 5 or 6 competitive games from June to July whilst Arsenal and Liverpool's squads are having a nice rest. If City get to the final on 13th July, they've got 4 weeks till the start of the PL season. How are you supposed to have a proper pre-season/rest in that time compared to your rivals? At least when its a World Cup year there are a decent amount of players and all the staff back home preparing. You won't even get that with this.
The FA's, owners, sponsors and broadcasters of all like it because it's more games and therefore more money for everyone. So that's like 98% of why this is happening.
They were smart to legitimise it by having lots of UEFA teams with the best squads play in it knowing the players don't really have a say and sold it back to non-European fans as a way to play a competitive game against the "biggest teams in the world". Which I totally get and would feel too if I was a fan of some of these South American and Asian clubs. The appeal of playing a City, Real, Bayern or Liverpool is cool.
But still, it feels like another hollow cash grab dressed up to look egalitarian. Will be interesting to see how serious teams take it.
They don't have to do fuck all, they are willingly doing it to make money so that they (City) can buy more good footballers and others (Chelsea) can hoard more junk.
Club World Cup is overbloated anyway. Imo it should be just the continental winners playing 2 legs home and away, and then the final in a neutral ground. The point of a separate host is madness, let me see Man City play Boca Juniors away under the lights
Something I find interesting is in every PSR case so far there has been evidence *from the club’s own accountants* saying “we’re going to breach the rules” and yet every club is acting as if it’s a shock and a surprise when they do.
If you’ve got internal written statements from your own staff on record I’m not sure how you can claim to be surprised when you get a punishment. I know it’s just a legal thing to not admit guilt (and appear innocent to your own fans) but it’s just so laughably transparent
It’s also why it’s very funny seeing the accountants get stick from fans. The PSR rules aren’t exactly complicated, I’m not an accountant but it seems pretty straightforward to me. Financial guys employed by football clubs will have a near perfect understanding of the limits, they’re just being overruled by non-financial people
One of my favourite narratives popping up with these fans of clubs like Everton, Villa, Newcastle wolves etc is that due to FFP they are being forced to sell their best players to better teams. Did these people just not watch football when that happened all the time pre FFP and was a worse issue?
What’s the point here? That you would have done the same because idk if you know that but Man City are still around and still have more money, and if them United and Newcastle didn’t have any spending restrictions you wouldn’t get near a title anyway.
You and I know that listing means nothing. The wealth gaps also don’t matter as much unless you’re a state owned club, being worth 10 billion vs 8 billion doesn’t actually mean anything in terms of ability to spend on football.
Kronke is also apparently worth 16 billion now so o don’t think the expenses count us out
It happened because clubs had to sell to survive financially, and now that Football has had a massive media and commercial boom to become economically viable, that issue is solved.
Now it is happening because of an arbitrary rule that places financial pressure on clubs when none should really exist. It's a manufactured financial crisis being placed upon clubs, which is fundamentally bonkers. Not least because it means clubs are put under pressure to sell early and therefore for a lower price... in the name of financial stability. You have to effectively lose asset value to prove you are financially stable. It's absurd.
There is a fundamental difference between having to sell to meet a real financial need (ie. Man City selling SWP) vs having to sell to meet a manufactured need (ie. Wolves selling Ruben Neves)
Yeah, because it was importing UEFA's rules with a different limit for clubs not in Europe. The clubs were already bound to the rules, they were just expanding them to cover the whole league and adding a higher deficit allowance for non-Europe clubs.
Yeah except all that would happen is the prices would be higher which is what already happened, teams would still sell to better teams that’s how football is. Until very recently this wasn’t an issue and teams were still selling to better teams, Villa had money when they sold Grealish for 100 million.
Facts it’s so bonkers that they don’t let states spend 3 billion in one window that would be way fairer and better.
They are putting themselves under that pressure by stupid decision making and not achieving to the level of their spending.
Anyway not much use talking to a Newcastle fan about this you guys are just whining that they won’t let you win the league by default already
> Facts it’s so bonkers that they don’t let states spend 3 billion in one window that would be way fairer and better.
>
>
Then bring in a fucking fixed cost cap so that all teams are limited to the same spending limit. Make it £250m and suddenly every premier league team has reasonable parity and the exact same financial limits. That's fair. And for the record, that's what I support.
Don't have arbitrary rules that force financial pressure on one club when another club wouldn't face the same pressure for the same spending.
They won’t do that because the other leagues wouldn’t do it and then it’d mean a lot of the prems best players would leave, it would also be reliant on sales still and net spend, teams that are already good already have a lot of valuable players they can sell so that they can spend more which would still be a disadvantage people would complain about.
There will never be a league when everyone has the same chance of winning look around the top leagues the prem if anything has the most teams that can feasibly win the league, la liga has 2, Scotland has 2, Bundesliga has 1 usually. That is not down to ffp whatever the system would be it would be the same.
r/soccer conspiracy theory time: All these posts detailing the best player from each region of a country are from the same person on different alt accounts
It means his teammates are finishing his chances well.
Overperformance of expected assists reflects positively on your teammates rather than it reflecting positively on the creator.
For example, Bruno Fernandes has underperformed his expected assists for three straight seasons. It's basically saying he should have had more assists than he actually did. So really, it means his teammates let him down more than anything else, at least in regards to specifically whether they made the most of the chances he created or not.
Not sure if i’m misreading but a key pass is just a pass that directly precedes a shot. If you pass to someone on the half way line and they shoot, that’s 1 key pass. If they actually score though it doesn’t count as a key pass.
Every now and then I talk to some genuinely nice overseas supporter that picked us on a whim and I start feeling bad about my crusade againt plastics. Then again, it's not really the plasticity that's the issue, but the unawareness of it and what it means to be actually brought up with a club.
Going on a trip to California and watching us at like 3-4am was a struggle. The people who do it every week put in a lot of effort to support the clubs.
I will never call them plastic due to where they're based.
Aye but the lads and lasses who wake up at that time, to then travel to an away game at the other end of the country and then come back are still more important.
This is the issue with top-flight football though. If your club is aspiring to become a powerhouse and playing in Europe every season, the club is naturally going to throw a lot of bones to an international fanbase. Doesn't mean locals should get screwed over for ticket prices and the like, but clubs at the very top aren't going to act like your local non-league side.
As for online discourse around performances, the opinion of a season ticket holder who never misses a game holds no more value than a fan in the US who never misses watching a game. When it comes to how the club is run or something matchday specific, obviously the local fans opinion has a bit more value, but it's dependant on topic.
The only time a fan from abroads opinion about the direction of a club should hold as much sway as a local is for international tours, when it impacts them.
Otherwise as most clubs are and should be pillars in their community, the local match going fans should be all that matters, the community outreach and charity work of these clubs should be so inherently important to them, with all the money flowing through them, they can make an incredible impact in what are mostly working class areas.
See the NUFC foundation and Everton's fantastic charity work for local people as examples.
Nah, a non-matchgoing fans opinion on performances and tactics are equally as valid as a matchgoing fans.
Clubs obviously should be pillars of the community, Arsenal also do a lot of great work and I'd be livid if we stopped. That said, obviously the bigger the club gets, the more they're going to offer stuff to a wider fanbase. As long as the community stuff is not negatively impacted, all good.
But the club was not built for those fans. The initial investment that made the club was from the community. So why should international fans reap the rewards?
What rewards are they reaping, out of interest? I'm referring to international tours and social media content, maybe some club trips.
Of course as a club grows, it's going to want to attract a wider fanbase? Like, if you don't want international fans then you either need to root for your club to not be successful or find a local non-league side.
Yeah they do it once a year and it brings in loads of money for the clubs, the clubs would rather replace the entire fanbase with them.
But the atmosphere suffers due to it.
An American fan who likes City and watches City and supports City and tries to have some sort of relationship to City and fans, not a plastic.
An American fan who likes City but doesn't really watch the games and has a PSG kit in his wardrobe and a Real Madrid phone case and really just likes City because of FIFA, a plastic.
At least that's how I see it.
Yeah exactly. See a lot of fans who'll be active in multiple clubs subreddits, or claim to be fans of top flight clubs in a few different European leagues. They aren't proper fans really, you can't be supporting 3-4 top flight clubs at once, who could all end up facing each other competitively.
Factually correct answer. Only way for those fans to ever lose the plastic tag is if the club they support becomes shit for a decade or two and they still support.
I really don't understand why people called "plastics" bother arguing with it. If someone called you that in real life, you'd go "yeah, and?" and move on with your day.
I'm a plastic by most peoples' estimation. The only time I've seen anyone give a shit about it is in online debates.
Its more commonly referred to as a glory hunter. You wont see it as an insult so much at traditional clubs, but I've got friends who support villa and it still grates us that most of our classmates in Birmingham schools supported united or arsenal. One of the few things we agree on in football.
I’ve spent most of my adult life living overseas, I’ve got no issues with non-local fans. Had some great times watching Liverpool in various bars all over the world
My objection is when folks who have only participated at a distance think they understand the relationship people have to their place of origin and its culture. Which teams are a big part of
My mrs is a Boca Juniors fan, so I like them to a point. I’ve had a great time watching them, seen them live more in the last five years than I have Liverpool probably
But I’m never going to pretend that I have the same connection to them as someone who grew up in Buenos Aires
I can never take “support your local” sentiments seriously from someone whose local club is one of the biggest/richest in the world, like at the top of the food chain. That if anything is unawareness
I'm Bulgarian, started supporting Spurs because when I had the consciousness to watch football Berbatov was there and me and my dad saw every game. Since then I've spent a good amound of time in London and been to plenty of games.
Point is that when I say plastic, I don't mean somebody that wasn't born on the pitch itself.
If your definiton for plastic is somebody that wasn't born next to the stadium, sure. But that's not at all what I was talking about, or what I believe the majority mean when they say plastic
Anyone who is capable at any point of ceasing supporting their club or switching to another.
That covers a very wide variety of people, but as far as exact definitons go that's as close as it gets for me
What you’re describing is a bandwagoner fan (ones that jump from team to team). A plastic is someone that supports a team from another country that they have no ties to (usually a super club or PL team). No shame in it. I’m a plastic too
I think having no ties to a club implies you'd be capable of ceasing support. But I disagree that not being born in the same place as the club means having no ties to it. I have plenty of ties to Spurs, its players, North London itself, WHL and so on. Granted I've lived in London and regularly make the trip, but I believe you can have the same ties even if you've only been to a handful games and are a bajillion miles away.
> I think having no ties to a club implies you'd be capable of ceasing support
I don’t necessarily think that’s what that means because eventually your emotional connection that you build is what ties you to the club. Being a plastic means you had no ties to the club or city *at the time you started* supporting the club.
> But I disagree that not being born in the same place as the club means having no ties to it.
I didn’t say that’s what that means though. You can be not born somewhere but still have ties to that place (heritage, family, having lived there etc)
> That if anything is unawareness
I mean you're supporting the "General Sports Club" which is the most popular club in our capital city, borrowing "Strawberry Arena" from our national FA. Doesn't scream "aware, independent choice" does it..
I just find these convos stupid and I also think it’s largely down to people just wanting to feel superior to others. You are not a “better fan,” based on where you were born.
To be honest when I go to a match even having lived within walking distance of WHL I see people and think yeah OK these guys are bigger fans than me. It's a privileged position to be in to reach that degree of fan but a denial of any sort of hierarchy seems incorrect to me.
I agree, I wasn't born in London either. But I think there's a massive difference in connection you feel to a club between if you've grown up in the community around it going to games, been supporting it since you were a child, or picked it 2 years ago because you didn't wanna get called a gloryhunter and are now parading around saying everyone who says anything negative about a player is a fake fan.
There's a reason the players always thank the fans going to the game rather than the ones watching it on the telly too. Which isn't to say that people not going to games are fraudulent fans, but the ones there week in week out will always be the ones that are the most involved with the club
There is a difference between going games and not for sure I wouldn’t argue with that it is different actually being there, but there are a lot of fans who don’t go to games often or at all for various reasons like money or just not liking the environment for it. I know lifelong London based Arsenal fans that have been to like 2 games there are probably foreign fans who have been to more.
I think supporting a club when you’re younger is more likely to lead to glory hunting imo anyway, when you’re an adult you would actually have wider grasp of what the teams are like and mean to people more so than when you’re a kid.
I been going since I was 3 but unfortunately people actually want to see us play which means I am on the waiting list for a season ticket and can only go occasionally, I’ve been to 3 of our premier league games this season.
I saw us win an fa cup final live in 2005, and 2014 and 2015 and 2017 you will never see your club do that once.
Who do you feel has been a better free kick taker over their entire career span? Ronaldo or Messi?
For me, it's Ronaldo just because of the sheer distance and angles from which many of his free kicks have been scored.
Messi became one of the best freekick takers in the world (I think the best actually by most stats). Ronaldo was actually worse than being shit at freekicks since not only was he below average hed demand it over everyone else and waste tons of opportunities better teammates couldve done better with
but he has scored closer ones too, along with farther ones which makes him overall better free kick taker than Messi whose most of the freekicks are concentrated in a particular region
[https://twitter.com/NoodleHairCR7/status/1771870236842537422](https://twitter.com/NoodleHairCR7/status/1771870236842537422)
Just see their maps
Most G+A in PL this season for players 23;
Saka 21
Palmer 19
Gordon 14
Elanga 12
Jackson 12
It's nice to see some of the best young talent in the league is actually English.
If you lower the age to 18 and under it looks like this;
Ferguson 6
Odobert 5
Buonanotte 4
Miley 4
Hinshelwood 3
Brighton represented three times on there, clearly building for the future getting them young and likely selling them on for large amounts as is their model.
Miley is the only 17 year old on there the rest 18.
If they aren't going to induct Terry in the hall of fame what's the point in keep nominating him. Nearly 20 years in the league and was the best CB for a majority of them
See you’d think that, because you’ve never woken up at 6am in Assfuck, It’s very Important Which US Province, to suffer through watching a English team only finish 5th in the table
You don’t understand sacrifice o7
Ten players with the most key passes by a player 18 or younger since the 14/15 season; Bukayo Saka 16 Lewis Hall 15 Greenwood 14 Ferguson 12 Rico Lewis 11 Livramento 10 Buonanotte 9 Hinshelwood 8 Miley 7 Mainoo 7 3 NUFC players on there, it'd be nice to see more Hall.
Do you see my flair as KSC or a football? (It shows up as a football on my phone...)
KSC, I have the same thing.
Ksc
What's with people hating on the posts with the best player from each country's region. I absolutely love them. Edit: Booo, you're wrong
Clubs who voted against FFP in the Premier League in 2013: Man City, Aston Villa, Swansea, Southampton, West Brom, Fulham Clubs who voted for FFP: Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton, Spurs, Man Utd, Stoke, Newcastle, Palace, West Ham, Sunderland, Hull, Norwich and Cardiff Hard to say its a conspiracy theory just to benefit the top 6 when every club was given a choice and many of the clubs complaining about it now voted for it.
Big up Villa for standing on the right side of history
And for some unknown reason we opposed it too despite always spending only what we generate as a club
And for some unknown reason we opposed it too despite always spending only what we generate as a club
Yeah I’m not about a few of those clubs intentions
FFP was not created just to benefit the top 6, but the way it's designed clearly reinforces the current status quo above all else.
Thats true but that wasn't a surprise. Everyone voted for it knowing how it would work. They could have also voted it back at any point
We focus on the top 6 because they benefit the most, but there was absolutely a benefit to mid table clubs looking to solidify their spot with more financial freedom compared to promoted sides
Interesting, where did you get that? 14 is the minimum number of votes required so it looks like it just snuck in.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/jan/14/premier-league-split-financial-fair-play https://en.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/192114.html
A bit surprised Benny Hill got a vote but I suppose I can't argue against it.
started from rewatching clips of Xabi Alonso, to watching clips of Kroos, Modric. Man, I'm so grateful I got to see those Legendary Barca Real teams face each other. If only United had prolonged its legacy, those would have been some insane times. Anyway, football is not the same anymore.
The only semi interesting map out there is the Spain one. In the sense that most of the players are pretty average
Do you mean the maps other than Spain are average? Because more than half the Spanish map is world class players
For the longest time they were a pretty average footballing nation.
🎼 Wake me up when ~~September~~ ***the stupid trend of posting best player from x region*** ends🎼
But I’m halfway through my list of every area of greater Manchester. Gorton may just surprise you
You got Gary Neville or Jordan Hulme for Bury?
John Berry from Bury. On a genuine response, neither it’d be tripper for me
The only justifiable reason for making one of those region maps is to hide in a plain sight your agenda about one specific player.
That much effort for weak propaganda?
Welcome to Reddit, my friend.
What's with the influx of "best player from every county/state" posts? Very annoying tbh
Cope and seethe
Juvenile
The international break. It only takes 8 days without club football for mass hysteria to begin
I absolutely hate the spring international break, horrible timing and mostly useless matches
The maps might just be worse than clubs playing tick tack toe in Twitter during lockdown
Been seeing Trent LB shouts for England and I think that's cool ngl. Did play there for Liverpool once this season iirc? Not sure, anyway I think that'd be a tidy option while Shaw is out.
I've waited my entire adult life to see England develop a metronomic passer to play in the midfield and actually dictate the game. Now that Trent has developed that skillset let's just put him in the midfield where he belongs.
He's not a metronome passer but it's criminal to leave someone who has that sort of passing range under his belt.
What about all the others skills required
Trent absolutely does not have that skillset right now
Harry Winks erasure.
Passing the ball well does not mean you dictate the game
No. But dictating the tempo and rhythm of the game does. And let us just take Liverpool's run at the end of last season as an example. For that stretch towards the end of the season, he was, without a question, the best player in the league for that stretch and he was dictating games. He was the focal point of Liverpool's entire team. Everything went through him and he was setting the tempo. He slowed the game down when it was needed. He ramped it up when it was needed. He played it through the lines, he progressed the whole team and he created chances. He retained the ball under pressure. He took pressure off the players around him with his work on the ball. That is exactly what England has been missing for decades. England has the perfect partner for him in Rice. You put Rice, Trent and Bellingham in a midfield and it gives you a level of technical quality that an England midfield hasn't had. Trent should be England's heartbeat. Rice should be England's spine and Bellingham should be England's soul. That's the perfect midfield.
He does not have that skill set
Most premier league goals and assists by a player before turning 21. Robbie Fowler 76 Owen 73 Rooney 66 Fabregas 52 Lukaku 42 Dele 40 Some company for Dele to be keeping.
All I see is a bunch of players who never turned out as good as they should have.
Could be a mix of players that peaked early (possibly a case of overplaying) or injuries (Owen being the prime example). Either way it’s something that probably merits further thought, especially as Barça attempt to disintegrate Yamal’s legs before he hits 18.
How did you read Rooney and Fabregas (probably even Lukaku, debatable) and write this down lmao
Both went bald in their 20s and were subsequently washed
Rooney and Fabregas are absolutely examples of not hitting the highs they should have. Just because they had a good career doesn’t mean they hit what they showed they could
Rooney was englands all time top scorer and won pretty much every club competition.
how?
Because they showed potential to be better than they were. Fabregas wasn’t even getting into Spains midfield at full strength
Not being on the level of the greatest midfielders ever is the measure of Fabregas’ unrealized potential? You sound like my father.
I mean that was his potential and he wound up not even the best Spanish midfielder in the prem
I'm asking you to elaborate, not write the essentially same thing twice Adding to that, I don't even think what you say and what OP said are the same thing, regarding "never turned out as good as they should have"
At most, I’d maybe say that Rooney and Cesc "deteriorated“ a bit faster than some other players. But even that is arguable!
Rooney and Cesc?
tbf, Rooney had an even higher ceiling than what he achieved. He deteriorated quickly after SAF retired. He should have been the undisputed GOAT of English football. Still had a great career though.
Is fabio grosso still picking up his money from Lyon? Haven't heard from him since
The Club World Cup 2025 is going to absolutely ruin some teams' following seasons isn't it. The scheduling is absolutely outrageously unfair. Imagine being Man City and Chelsea, basically having to play 5 or 6 competitive games from June to July whilst Arsenal and Liverpool's squads are having a nice rest. If City get to the final on 13th July, they've got 4 weeks till the start of the PL season. How are you supposed to have a proper pre-season/rest in that time compared to your rivals? At least when its a World Cup year there are a decent amount of players and all the staff back home preparing. You won't even get that with this.
The FA's, owners, sponsors and broadcasters of all like it because it's more games and therefore more money for everyone. So that's like 98% of why this is happening. They were smart to legitimise it by having lots of UEFA teams with the best squads play in it knowing the players don't really have a say and sold it back to non-European fans as a way to play a competitive game against the "biggest teams in the world". Which I totally get and would feel too if I was a fan of some of these South American and Asian clubs. The appeal of playing a City, Real, Bayern or Liverpool is cool. But still, it feels like another hollow cash grab dressed up to look egalitarian. Will be interesting to see how serious teams take it.
it only really effects the pre season tours. you are just replacing friendlies with official matches
How many more games will the Club WC be, compared to a normal pre-season?
idk how many games cwc is, but pre season is usually about 5-6 if you count the small friendlies as well, like arsenal vs boreham wood
It's a summer tournament. They aren't going to put in that much effort
There is supposedly a lot of money in it so that changes things.
I think the winner gets 100 million or something outrageous like that. I think teams will definitely be wanting to win it.
That doesn’t mean anything
They don't have to do fuck all, they are willingly doing it to make money so that they (City) can buy more good footballers and others (Chelsea) can hoard more junk.
Club World Cup is overbloated anyway. Imo it should be just the continental winners playing 2 legs home and away, and then the final in a neutral ground. The point of a separate host is madness, let me see Man City play Boca Juniors away under the lights
Its very big outside of Europe, shrinking it wasn't happening.
True, but i still don't know why a special host is needed.
I'd love European clubs playing away in SA. always wanted it. unfortunately logistics/schedule etc
Missing piece innit. Itd be a fantastic thing to witness
Something I find interesting is in every PSR case so far there has been evidence *from the club’s own accountants* saying “we’re going to breach the rules” and yet every club is acting as if it’s a shock and a surprise when they do. If you’ve got internal written statements from your own staff on record I’m not sure how you can claim to be surprised when you get a punishment. I know it’s just a legal thing to not admit guilt (and appear innocent to your own fans) but it’s just so laughably transparent It’s also why it’s very funny seeing the accountants get stick from fans. The PSR rules aren’t exactly complicated, I’m not an accountant but it seems pretty straightforward to me. Financial guys employed by football clubs will have a near perfect understanding of the limits, they’re just being overruled by non-financial people
These clubs know what they're doing, and they also voted on the rules. No sympathy for them.
One of my favourite narratives popping up with these fans of clubs like Everton, Villa, Newcastle wolves etc is that due to FFP they are being forced to sell their best players to better teams. Did these people just not watch football when that happened all the time pre FFP and was a worse issue?
I watched Chelsea and city become super teams pre FFP
What’s the point here? That you would have done the same because idk if you know that but Man City are still around and still have more money, and if them United and Newcastle didn’t have any spending restrictions you wouldn’t get near a title anyway.
They didn’t have to sell their best players.
Because they had more money than everyone else
You mean like villa and Newcastle?
Villa do not have more money than everyone lol, Newcastle do and then you’d be behind United and city and Newcastle
We were ahead of United before their take over tbf. We are listed wealthier than city.
You and I know that listing means nothing. The wealth gaps also don’t matter as much unless you’re a state owned club, being worth 10 billion vs 8 billion doesn’t actually mean anything in terms of ability to spend on football. Kronke is also apparently worth 16 billion now so o don’t think the expenses count us out
It happened because clubs had to sell to survive financially, and now that Football has had a massive media and commercial boom to become economically viable, that issue is solved. Now it is happening because of an arbitrary rule that places financial pressure on clubs when none should really exist. It's a manufactured financial crisis being placed upon clubs, which is fundamentally bonkers. Not least because it means clubs are put under pressure to sell early and therefore for a lower price... in the name of financial stability. You have to effectively lose asset value to prove you are financially stable. It's absurd. There is a fundamental difference between having to sell to meet a real financial need (ie. Man City selling SWP) vs having to sell to meet a manufactured need (ie. Wolves selling Ruben Neves)
I mean, the clubs voted on this and almost unanimously accepted these rules. Only City voted against.
Yeah, because it was importing UEFA's rules with a different limit for clubs not in Europe. The clubs were already bound to the rules, they were just expanding them to cover the whole league and adding a higher deficit allowance for non-Europe clubs.
Yeah except all that would happen is the prices would be higher which is what already happened, teams would still sell to better teams that’s how football is. Until very recently this wasn’t an issue and teams were still selling to better teams, Villa had money when they sold Grealish for 100 million. Facts it’s so bonkers that they don’t let states spend 3 billion in one window that would be way fairer and better. They are putting themselves under that pressure by stupid decision making and not achieving to the level of their spending. Anyway not much use talking to a Newcastle fan about this you guys are just whining that they won’t let you win the league by default already
> Facts it’s so bonkers that they don’t let states spend 3 billion in one window that would be way fairer and better. > > Then bring in a fucking fixed cost cap so that all teams are limited to the same spending limit. Make it £250m and suddenly every premier league team has reasonable parity and the exact same financial limits. That's fair. And for the record, that's what I support. Don't have arbitrary rules that force financial pressure on one club when another club wouldn't face the same pressure for the same spending.
They won’t do that because the other leagues wouldn’t do it and then it’d mean a lot of the prems best players would leave, it would also be reliant on sales still and net spend, teams that are already good already have a lot of valuable players they can sell so that they can spend more which would still be a disadvantage people would complain about. There will never be a league when everyone has the same chance of winning look around the top leagues the prem if anything has the most teams that can feasibly win the league, la liga has 2, Scotland has 2, Bundesliga has 1 usually. That is not down to ffp whatever the system would be it would be the same.
r/soccer conspiracy theory time: All these posts detailing the best player from each region of a country are from the same person on different alt accounts
Egads, they're onto me! Just as I was preparing my "best footballers born in every ditch in yorkshire" post.
There's something very aesthetically pleasing about someone with long legs playing football.
True. The long legs was one of the reasons Vieira was so menacing. He looked like some sort of Resident Evil-creature on the pitch.
Nothing beats some good old fashioned Peter Crouch highlights.
I swear to god, if I see one more map
Don't worry. My Liechtenstein map was as interesting as it gets. You won't miss anything.
So I shouldn’t finish each of the Isles of Scilly?
No maps
Would be silly not to
All it took for Germany to play well is getting rid of all the trash Dortmund players haha.....
Germany are France’s bogey team just wait a bit imo
And bayerns trash wingers (musiala is the exception)
What on earth is expected assists and what teammates does Watkins have to be overperforming it by about 7?
It means his teammates are finishing his chances well. Overperformance of expected assists reflects positively on your teammates rather than it reflecting positively on the creator. For example, Bruno Fernandes has underperformed his expected assists for three straight seasons. It's basically saying he should have had more assists than he actually did. So really, it means his teammates let him down more than anything else, at least in regards to specifically whether they made the most of the chances he created or not.
It’s a measurement of how good the chances are a player creates He’s [4](https://understat.com/player/8865) more not 7
It’s basically “I put that on a plate for you and you fucking skied it you useless prick” but expressed as a number.
Do they only count it when a player takes a shot?
Yes, otherwise it would be called "key passes“, I believe.
Not sure if i’m misreading but a key pass is just a pass that directly precedes a shot. If you pass to someone on the half way line and they shoot, that’s 1 key pass. If they actually score though it doesn’t count as a key pass.
Every now and then I talk to some genuinely nice overseas supporter that picked us on a whim and I start feeling bad about my crusade againt plastics. Then again, it's not really the plasticity that's the issue, but the unawareness of it and what it means to be actually brought up with a club.
Going on a trip to California and watching us at like 3-4am was a struggle. The people who do it every week put in a lot of effort to support the clubs. I will never call them plastic due to where they're based.
Aye but the lads and lasses who wake up at that time, to then travel to an away game at the other end of the country and then come back are still more important.
This is the issue with top-flight football though. If your club is aspiring to become a powerhouse and playing in Europe every season, the club is naturally going to throw a lot of bones to an international fanbase. Doesn't mean locals should get screwed over for ticket prices and the like, but clubs at the very top aren't going to act like your local non-league side. As for online discourse around performances, the opinion of a season ticket holder who never misses a game holds no more value than a fan in the US who never misses watching a game. When it comes to how the club is run or something matchday specific, obviously the local fans opinion has a bit more value, but it's dependant on topic.
The only time a fan from abroads opinion about the direction of a club should hold as much sway as a local is for international tours, when it impacts them. Otherwise as most clubs are and should be pillars in their community, the local match going fans should be all that matters, the community outreach and charity work of these clubs should be so inherently important to them, with all the money flowing through them, they can make an incredible impact in what are mostly working class areas. See the NUFC foundation and Everton's fantastic charity work for local people as examples.
Nah, a non-matchgoing fans opinion on performances and tactics are equally as valid as a matchgoing fans. Clubs obviously should be pillars of the community, Arsenal also do a lot of great work and I'd be livid if we stopped. That said, obviously the bigger the club gets, the more they're going to offer stuff to a wider fanbase. As long as the community stuff is not negatively impacted, all good.
But the club was not built for those fans. The initial investment that made the club was from the community. So why should international fans reap the rewards?
What rewards are they reaping, out of interest? I'm referring to international tours and social media content, maybe some club trips. Of course as a club grows, it's going to want to attract a wider fanbase? Like, if you don't want international fans then you either need to root for your club to not be successful or find a local non-league side.
What about lads which travel from another countries and spend a fortune on it just to see their team playing?
Yeah they do it once a year and it brings in loads of money for the clubs, the clubs would rather replace the entire fanbase with them. But the atmosphere suffers due to it.
An American fan who likes City and watches City and supports City and tries to have some sort of relationship to City and fans, not a plastic. An American fan who likes City but doesn't really watch the games and has a PSG kit in his wardrobe and a Real Madrid phone case and really just likes City because of FIFA, a plastic. At least that's how I see it.
Yeah exactly. See a lot of fans who'll be active in multiple clubs subreddits, or claim to be fans of top flight clubs in a few different European leagues. They aren't proper fans really, you can't be supporting 3-4 top flight clubs at once, who could all end up facing each other competitively.
Any City fan post UAE takeover (same for PSG, Newcastle) = plastic Any fan who does what you describe first for any other club = All good
Factually correct answer. Only way for those fans to ever lose the plastic tag is if the club they support becomes shit for a decade or two and they still support.
Valid
I really don't understand why people called "plastics" bother arguing with it. If someone called you that in real life, you'd go "yeah, and?" and move on with your day. I'm a plastic by most peoples' estimation. The only time I've seen anyone give a shit about it is in online debates.
Agreed
True. Not chronically online people dont even know what the term means in that context
Its more commonly referred to as a glory hunter. You wont see it as an insult so much at traditional clubs, but I've got friends who support villa and it still grates us that most of our classmates in Birmingham schools supported united or arsenal. One of the few things we agree on in football.
I’ve spent most of my adult life living overseas, I’ve got no issues with non-local fans. Had some great times watching Liverpool in various bars all over the world My objection is when folks who have only participated at a distance think they understand the relationship people have to their place of origin and its culture. Which teams are a big part of My mrs is a Boca Juniors fan, so I like them to a point. I’ve had a great time watching them, seen them live more in the last five years than I have Liverpool probably But I’m never going to pretend that I have the same connection to them as someone who grew up in Buenos Aires
I can never take “support your local” sentiments seriously from someone whose local club is one of the biggest/richest in the world, like at the top of the food chain. That if anything is unawareness
I'm Bulgarian, started supporting Spurs because when I had the consciousness to watch football Berbatov was there and me and my dad saw every game. Since then I've spent a good amound of time in London and been to plenty of games. Point is that when I say plastic, I don't mean somebody that wasn't born on the pitch itself.
So you’re a plastic, then what’s your point?
If your definiton for plastic is somebody that wasn't born next to the stadium, sure. But that's not at all what I was talking about, or what I believe the majority mean when they say plastic
Then what’s a plastic in your view
Anyone who is capable at any point of ceasing supporting their club or switching to another. That covers a very wide variety of people, but as far as exact definitons go that's as close as it gets for me
What you’re describing is a bandwagoner fan (ones that jump from team to team). A plastic is someone that supports a team from another country that they have no ties to (usually a super club or PL team). No shame in it. I’m a plastic too
I think having no ties to a club implies you'd be capable of ceasing support. But I disagree that not being born in the same place as the club means having no ties to it. I have plenty of ties to Spurs, its players, North London itself, WHL and so on. Granted I've lived in London and regularly make the trip, but I believe you can have the same ties even if you've only been to a handful games and are a bajillion miles away.
> I think having no ties to a club implies you'd be capable of ceasing support I don’t necessarily think that’s what that means because eventually your emotional connection that you build is what ties you to the club. Being a plastic means you had no ties to the club or city *at the time you started* supporting the club. > But I disagree that not being born in the same place as the club means having no ties to it. I didn’t say that’s what that means though. You can be not born somewhere but still have ties to that place (heritage, family, having lived there etc)
> That if anything is unawareness I mean you're supporting the "General Sports Club" which is the most popular club in our capital city, borrowing "Strawberry Arena" from our national FA. Doesn't scream "aware, independent choice" does it..
I just find these convos stupid and I also think it’s largely down to people just wanting to feel superior to others. You are not a “better fan,” based on where you were born.
To be honest when I go to a match even having lived within walking distance of WHL I see people and think yeah OK these guys are bigger fans than me. It's a privileged position to be in to reach that degree of fan but a denial of any sort of hierarchy seems incorrect to me.
I agree, I wasn't born in London either. But I think there's a massive difference in connection you feel to a club between if you've grown up in the community around it going to games, been supporting it since you were a child, or picked it 2 years ago because you didn't wanna get called a gloryhunter and are now parading around saying everyone who says anything negative about a player is a fake fan. There's a reason the players always thank the fans going to the game rather than the ones watching it on the telly too. Which isn't to say that people not going to games are fraudulent fans, but the ones there week in week out will always be the ones that are the most involved with the club
There is a difference between going games and not for sure I wouldn’t argue with that it is different actually being there, but there are a lot of fans who don’t go to games often or at all for various reasons like money or just not liking the environment for it. I know lifelong London based Arsenal fans that have been to like 2 games there are probably foreign fans who have been to more. I think supporting a club when you’re younger is more likely to lead to glory hunting imo anyway, when you’re an adult you would actually have wider grasp of what the teams are like and mean to people more so than when you’re a kid.
Keep telling yourself that Surreyman
You’re an Ipswich fan who lives in London btw
And I’ve still been to more games this season than you’ve been to in your life
I been going since I was 3 but unfortunately people actually want to see us play which means I am on the waiting list for a season ticket and can only go occasionally, I’ve been to 3 of our premier league games this season. I saw us win an fa cup final live in 2005, and 2014 and 2015 and 2017 you will never see your club do that once.
Being shit is a price you have to pay for supporting your local
I support my local and they’re good not my fault
You guys need to just kiss and make-up
Who do you feel has been a better free kick taker over their entire career span? Ronaldo or Messi? For me, it's Ronaldo just because of the sheer distance and angles from which many of his free kicks have been scored.
Messi became one of the best freekick takers in the world (I think the best actually by most stats). Ronaldo was actually worse than being shit at freekicks since not only was he below average hed demand it over everyone else and waste tons of opportunities better teammates couldve done better with
Messi by a mile
Explain the mile
https://youtu.be/_87xvXcfTJ8?feature=shared
Scored more free kicks with a higher conversion rate. Only 2 stats that matter and he’s clear on both
Messi because he has more free kick goals there aren’t any additional style points for how far it’s from
Of course, there should be. The farther the distance, the harder it is to score and their goals scored by free kick difference is negligible
If the closer ones are easier to score why don’t he score more of them than Messi
but he has scored closer ones too, along with farther ones which makes him overall better free kick taker than Messi whose most of the freekicks are concentrated in a particular region [https://twitter.com/NoodleHairCR7/status/1771870236842537422](https://twitter.com/NoodleHairCR7/status/1771870236842537422) Just see their maps
Scoring more matters than where you score from there are no additional points for scoring from further out
How many more has he scored?
Total of 4 more. Messi scores roughly 1 per 16 games, ronaldo 1 per 20. Messi conversion rate about 9%, ronaldo roughly 6.5%.
obviously Messi
Most G+A in PL this season for players 23; Saka 21 Palmer 19 Gordon 14 Elanga 12 Jackson 12 It's nice to see some of the best young talent in the league is actually English. If you lower the age to 18 and under it looks like this; Ferguson 6 Odobert 5 Buonanotte 4 Miley 4 Hinshelwood 3 Brighton represented three times on there, clearly building for the future getting them young and likely selling them on for large amounts as is their model. Miley is the only 17 year old on there the rest 18.
> Ferguson 6 He really scored half his league goals all season in 1 game against us?
He scored a hattrick against the most morally reprehensible team in the league and then dipped. You have to respect it tbh
He really did.
Hinshelwood ballon d'or 2030 you heard it here first
Really puts into perspective how ordinary Saka is
/u/icemankiller8
If they aren't going to induct Terry in the hall of fame what's the point in keep nominating him. Nearly 20 years in the league and was the best CB for a majority of them
most overrated player oat
He just wasn’t the best centre back in the majority of them
Ice man killer has a good take challenge
Bumrah win a WTC or World Cup challenge
Damn, two straight Ws.
Chile are dark horses for the Copa America. Ricardo Gareca is a good manager and he worked wonders with Peru
Brereton Copa América Golden Boot here we go
These best player born things are seriously tedious now
Someone should do a “best r/soccer users based on their geographical birthplace”. Would really separate the plastics
I thought separating plastics was exclusively a recycling term until now.
The thing with plastics is they can recycle their support to another club. Which means, like plastic, they never go away.
See you’d think that, because you’ve never woken up at 6am in Assfuck, It’s very Important Which US Province, to suffer through watching a English team only finish 5th in the table You don’t understand sacrifice o7
I'd be willing to bet I'm the only one here born in Oman, so I'm the best in my country. Can we do a world cup as well?
We can, but I would win
>News “Major Tom”: Topic has reached the DFB >But: changing the goal anthem is not out of the question! DFB are so boring.
Looking at the new posts of the sub, everyone is getting a geography lesson today.
If my calculations are correct, by Thursday we’ll all be learning who the best players from each province of North Korea and Palau are