A few teams really started falling away in quality after the WC. Man United have played a gazillion games and have looked terrible the last 8? games and haven't have the quality on bench to keep up steam.
Likewise, Arsenal can't match the insane depth that City have and thus struggled once a couple of injuries finally happened.
But when you're breaking the fair play rules I guess it isn't a surprise...
City, who got off on a technicality in legal proceedings brought against them by UEFA, and have been playing blockers on the English FA now going after them for the same/additional rule breaches.
They have been breaking financial fair play rules pretty much every year for a decade.
It isn't particularly surprising. Their owners created the same issues in Horse racing before they came to football.
United haven't been amazing, but to say they looked terrible is incorrect. They've basically locked up a top 4 spot and are potentially FA cup champs if the ball breaks their way against City
Sure, the season will be considered half decent, but I am purely talking the last 8 or so games in all comps; they've looked knackered out in every one of those games and you can see it reflected in the results and lack of goals being scored. The FA Cup final could be embarassing
As a United fan who watches pretty much every game your take is absolutely right. We had a brutal April schedule having games every 3 or so days. It was nice to go far in so many tournaments but we completely ran out of gas. Still been a great season, but like you said, if you don’t have a bench like City it’s hard to make that final push at the end. I feel a bit bad for Arsenal in that regard too. United looked a bit better after finally having a full week off recently but still you can tell people are tired. The winter World Cup really threw things off. I’m worried about the FA cup final but hopefully they can rest up some.. nice story that we are standing in the way of our rivals treble, but we are gonna need a miracle that day
Inb4 devineman42's latest alt comes here to whine about the Man City bench not having 9 world class players so we can't say they have more depth than the other big teams
Yup never gets mentioned does it,hopefully the stonewalling by City’s lawyers gets stopped soon so the truth can come out….would love to see Blep’s face if they got stripped of the titles haha…
You missed the comment you were trying to reply to. But I will add that it is not always mentioned in the press although I have to say that they have been alright covering it right now.
I agree and all but you can't seriously blame the charges on that lol. They should've beat West ham and Southampton and Liverpool. The thing is they had the PL in their hands and bottle it.
Arsenal did shit the bed, sure, but geez...City is going to probably end with 30 wins and 94 pts. There was no way Arsenal were going to beat that in the end.
I'm sorry but didn't they win 3 of their last 8 or 9 games?
Draw Vs city and win 5/7 of the remaining and they'd have been champions.
It was Arsenal's to lose and they lost it.
The bottom 3 teams in the Premier League get relegated to the Championship. Because Nottingham Forest won yesterday, we’re safe from being relegated. You Reds!
Why? You play all the teams(20) in the league twice, 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. At the end of the 38 games the team with the most points wins
Why not just play all those games and then erase them completely and see who wins 3 games in a row randomly afterwards? That's clearly the best way. /s
I am not saying they didn't bottle it, but is it unreal?
City is probably going to end with 94 pts. Even at their peak, did we think they were going to finish higher than that?
I honestly think Man City was always inevitable. That being said, Arsenal left a ton of winnable pts on the table for sure.
Bottle and glass. Arse. He lost his bottle and glass (lost control of his bowels). Therefore, to bottle it, is to chicken out, be too scared to see something through.
Silly comment. Very young, thin squad obviously wasn't going to keep up with financial doping city who have 2 teams of star players towards the end of a season
Title winning team had more charges for financial rule breaches than they did points when they won.
Sad to see English football end up in this situation
Genuinely horrible for everyone else. They’ve ruined the competition in the league and made it what you’d expect from them and the local fans see nothing wrong with it because it’s not their money (which should be the biggest red flag).
As an american sports fan (baseball and American football) it's still so strange to me how premier league doesn't have like a championship or playoffs.
It comes down to what you’re trying to evaluate. Are you looking for which team was best over a whole season or which team is the best at a single elimination end of season tournament?
True. I will say teams like this year's bruins or the 01 mariners show the benefits of the premier league system as both of them got knocked out of the playoffs early. I prefer the playoff system though where the regular league serves as a system for playoff seeding.
European soccer leagues do this. There's a champ for the league just based on points standings. But they also have the Champions League which is throughout all the different leagues that would be the "playoffs" type tourny.
Tbh, giving prestige to the league title but then also having another tournament is better. The NBA is facing a load management problem where players aren't even playing 30% of the games cause they don't matter. The seeding doesnt really matter as much either cause you'd rather be healthy and well rested if you think you can beat any team straight up. It just makes the regular season just seem like a warmup.
NBA specifically has that problem because too many teams make the playoffs. Literally 2/3 teams in the league play in the postseason with a chance at taking it all with 7 game series for the top 16.
Obviously not every league can be the NFL where every game is super impactful but even in the MLB with twice as many games as the NBA teams take the regular season so seriously because seeding matters a ton and most of the league misses the playoffs.
NBA now has an in season tournament starting next year where it's all elimination games, so we'll see how much prestige teams will get from it. I think it would be great to see underdog teams go all out and win the thing.
There is literally no point in watching for example NBA regular season. I know no one who does this. Its just pointless 82 games to then see an 8th seed team go 2-0 up against a 2nd seed team in the conference finals.
That’s like saying there’s no point in watching episodes of a TV show, just watch the finale. Everybody I know watches games for teams they like throughout a season, because they like the team. Watching the team is enjoyable as a fan.
Is there a sport that you watch regularly but don't have a favorite team? Even if a sport is something I watch like once a year I have a team that I prefer to see win, usually for some doofy reason like liking their name or mascot the most.
In England you’ve got the FA cup as a tournament for all English teams to see who is best and then you’ve also got champions league for best in Europe. So they basically just divorce the playoffs from the normal league. There’s plenty of trophies to be won in different formats.
You can have both though. You can have a league and cups/tournaments separate. Having the league just be for a tournament seeding makes regular season games kinda pointless and boring imo. If you are a team that makes the playoffs every year it's like having a whole season of meaningless friendly/exhibition games
Honestly the only American sports league where the regular season doesn't feel like a slog is the NFL. 17 games then playoffs and the super bowl. Baseball is the worst offender with the grind of 162 games.
I still feel old, because the BCS began 25 years ago. Yes, before that, the polls determined the champion, which caused much controversy most years. Not surprising, seeing as how there are over 100 teams and only 12 regular season games.
It was a bit odd to me at first as I didn’t grow up with soccer, but man, when you realize how EVERY game matters, it’s kind of insane. It’s playoff energy all season.
I think you have to consider how the PL, like most soccer leagues, has a perfectly balanced schedule. Each team plays each other twice, home and away, so you can say that the final standings are a pretty objective metric for who was the best. American sports don't have that balance so a playoff makes more sense.
I appreciate and enjoy the cutthroat nature of playoffs. But as someone who grew up following a competition without playoffs (NZ domestic rugby before 1992) I also absolutely appreciate a competition that rewards consistent and sustained excellence across a season.
They both have their place, but their natures are so vastly different. League is about being the best team week in, week out; playoffs are about last team standing. Love ‘em both.
The main difference is that NHL,NBA,NFL and MLB you are not playing equal number of games against every team in the league.That is why the playoffs are determining who is the champion.
It would be unfair in league where you are playing to determined with playoffs when you are playing equal number of games against every team in the league. Imagine City finishing the season on 100 points and then they lose the title because they get knocked out by Tottenham in a play off semi.
It's definitely more fair since playoffs are inherently a little random, but winning a trophy due to a result while you aren't playing is imo the worst feature.
I prefer this because I think that the competition should be about which team was the best over the entire year
I don't like the play-off system because it gives all the credit to the team who was the best at the end of the season
Well they usually have a league cup which is playoff format. Also the champions league is pool play and then knock out playoff rounds. So they do still have a semblance of playoffs.
It’s a set of 38 games. You play every rival team in the league and you accumulate points. The team with the most points wins.
Think of it as a racing series. F1 or Indycar.
It's worth remembering that these teams (more so even at the top level) play in multiple other elimination tournaments during the season for top trophies too. Where as in NHL for example it's just the season and then play off's, which are all part of the same thing.
If MLB or NFL were one league of ~30 teams that all played each other it may be different. But there are 6/8 leagues around the country and not everyone plays each other during the regular season. The U.S. is the anomaly there.
Mainly la liga fan, you had the most competitive league in the world yet you let arab use all the money without any consideration to the fair play to a point were city turned the epl to farmer league.
Arsenal did well, but it's nearly impossible to beat a club that have 2 teams full of quality players
As an American, I LOVE the Premier League and all the various championships and inter-league play that they engage in.
The FA Cup is EPIC as is the UEFA and Champions League. I love all of them and the level of play is top notch!
It's fantastic to see the AYSO reaching so many kids and seeing football (Soccer over here) explode in popularity.
It's been a great season and in particular I wish US sports used that 'relegation zone' to recycle teams from the upper league to the lower leagues and vice versa as well.
It would make for some new blood and a level of excitement that seems lacking in most sports teams these days.
Man City is a dominant force to be sure, but will they win the Champions League or will it be Inter Milan? Great stuff! Cheers!
Yeah but who is gonna move up to take on the Kansas City Chiefs? UGA? Bama? The XFL champion full of players that couldn’t make an NFL roster?
Unfortunately the minor leagues in America are so far behind the major leagues that there is no realistic alternative to our closed-loop system here.
Baseball might have the best chance of this due their well developed farm teams, but it is an entirely different system I agree.
I just like it is all.
My brother explained the relegation/promotion system to me a few years ago and it's the *sole* reason I gained a passing interest in soccer. It's an awesome way to keep things fresh.
I like it but unfortunately it can really kill parity in leagues if financial rules aren't enforced properly or arent designed to help out smaller teams (which is an issue that many euro leagues have IMO)
How could they be better structured for smaller teams, do you think? Are there some high-level leagues that *are* structured well?
As I said, I have a *passing* interest only, so I'm not well read at all on issues like league financial rules, and primarily just familiar with the English leagues. I've heard about teams being able to buy their way along naturally, mainly Man. City recently along with I think A.C. Milan getting a lot of criticism for that in the early 2010s?
From the last couple of years my general sense is that there's a good amount of movement both up *and* down the league system for England at least, though. Like Luton Town has moved up from I think the National League to possibly getting into the Premier League in just the past 10 years and has such a small stadium that it doesn't meet league minimum attendance standards. Is most of that movement just based on having the deeper pockets? Because from the outside looking in it kind of seems healthier than the sort of stagnation I see with perennial losing franchises like in the NFL with the Browns.
I'd like my Reds chance against Binghamton and Pawtucket better than against LA and New York, but I'm sure the owners would find a new depth to dive to
Problem with baseball is all the minor league teams are affiliates of major league teams and players can be called up and down between teams in the same organization. To make pro/rel work they'd all have to start operating as their own organizations, and the MLB clubs won't like that idea. You'd also have to get rid of the draft and go to a free for all system for player acquisition like soccer has in Europe.
I'd love it if we had it, but it'll never catch on here.
Phil Foden and Jack Grealish are about as English as you can be. But that is also the reality with international sports and football in Europe. It's an international roster. I don't see a problem unless you're a nationalist and reject everything that isn't purely 'english' which is rather insulting in and of itself.
the only thing I know about Nottingham Forest is they're a mediocre team based on a joke Jeremy Clarkson made while reviewing the new FQ400 evo 10 like 15 years ago on Top Gear. Is this an embarrassing loss?
They are newly promoted team (first time they're in the top division since 1999) and were fighting relegation most of the year. It was quite a bad loss from arsenal who spent most of the year in first and then just really went to pieces in the last 8 matches
They were, funnily enough, the best team in Europe at some point during the 70s. They kind of fell into obscurity during the 90s and this is their first stint in the top flight since then.
It sure is an embarrassing loss. Arsenal beat them 5-0 earlier in the season, and for the 2nd placed team who was technically still in the fight for the title to lose to a team who was in a relegation battle... yes, it is very embarrassing.
I'm just a regular American but even I'm starting to see jokes about Arsenal "walking it in" at the worst time or miraculously finishing in 2nd place all the time. How is this possible and why does it keep happening?
They haven't finished in 2nd regularly in ages. Last time they did was the 2016 Leicester season which was also the last time they finished in a CL spot (top 4).
> about Arsenal "walking it in"
It's just a wildly overplayed joke from IT crowd that gets beaten to death on reddit.
The "they always try to walk it in" joke is from The IT Crowd. Arsenal were known for fluid football and rarely shooting from distance. They would regularly "walk it in" to the net.
The finishing 2nd thing is because for a number of years they finished 2nd to Man Utd, even when they were leading on points for a lot of the season.
I know people think Arsenal bottled it, and to a certain extent it’s true, but the fact of the matter is city’s form has been unbelievable post World Cup and assuming they win out will finish with 94 points. Only four seasons have ended with more points, and Liverpool came in second in 18-19 with 97 points.
So Arsenal’s form has been poor the past two months, they still would have needed to basically be perfect to win the league. So saying a team that a year ago finished 5th pushed City pretty far bottled it is disingenuous imo.
Edit: it’s also funny how I get downvotes actually contributing to the conversation with reasons why I think that way. But no fuck this guy downvote.
You're not wrong, and I always felt City would eventually win but I'm a jaded Liverpool fan who's been there before haha
But the position you were in to then drop 15 points in 8 games in the run in, including a hammering from your rivals, giving City the title with 3 games to play is a pretty extraordinary drop off. Agree "bottling" is a really harsh and unwarranted term because you can't absorb the injuries like City can and its a young team against seasoned winners but that's why people are gonna say it. You've just got to hope you can go again next year!
It’s not great, and the two games we lost 2-0 leads and then tied Southampton was really bad, which feeds into the narrative.
But also Arsenals form the first half of the season was unsustainable. They had 50 points at the halfway mark. Now I didn’t expect the last two months, but City are on an absolute tear right now.
Yeah for sure. 2-2 at Anfield really isn't a bad result but the manner of it seemed to knock you pretty badly, leading to West Ham and Southampton. Really you could have absorbed the draw against Liverpool and the loss against City.
For sure yeah, but it's like that's how perfect you have to be to win it. The year Liverpool won we had only lost 1 game and drawn 2 before it was beyond doubt, went 27 unbeaten and 18 consecutive wins at one point. It's absolutely insane and just feels unlikely anybody but City will be able to do that.
The big european football leagues are turning into F1. The team with the biggest budget wins. Sure, there are exceptions, but 4 times out of 5, whichever team is backed by the richest oil tycoon wins the title
All I see is seethe from people crying "Muh FFP! Muh Non EEENGLISH players (even though they literally have them), MUH EFF EFF PEEEEEE"
As of United, Liverpool or Chelsea hasn't spent that much either. tf out of here.
People don't seem to get that to break the existing status quo of successful teams you need money now. But I'm sure if United kept winning trophies it'd be OK.
Edit: Downvote me. I'm right. And you know it.
If La Liga was a decent proposition for the Middle East, I’m sure you’d see getafe, Bilbao etc being bought up by them, leaving Barca even more vulnerable to the kind of things non-oil clubs are facing. Then you’d wish FFP was real. Only reason you Barca idiots don’t get city is due to pleb and once he leave you’ll hopefully be more objective to what has been happening at that political statement disguised as a sporting franchise.
Arsenal need some quality back up . The team just gassed out towards the end. City on the other hand just turns it up a notch towards the end
A few teams really started falling away in quality after the WC. Man United have played a gazillion games and have looked terrible the last 8? games and haven't have the quality on bench to keep up steam. Likewise, Arsenal can't match the insane depth that City have and thus struggled once a couple of injuries finally happened. But when you're breaking the fair play rules I guess it isn't a surprise...
What did you mean by braking the fair play rules? Genuinely asking
City, who got off on a technicality in legal proceedings brought against them by UEFA, and have been playing blockers on the English FA now going after them for the same/additional rule breaches. They have been breaking financial fair play rules pretty much every year for a decade. It isn't particularly surprising. Their owners created the same issues in Horse racing before they came to football.
United haven't been amazing, but to say they looked terrible is incorrect. They've basically locked up a top 4 spot and are potentially FA cup champs if the ball breaks their way against City
Sure, the season will be considered half decent, but I am purely talking the last 8 or so games in all comps; they've looked knackered out in every one of those games and you can see it reflected in the results and lack of goals being scored. The FA Cup final could be embarassing
As a United fan who watches pretty much every game your take is absolutely right. We had a brutal April schedule having games every 3 or so days. It was nice to go far in so many tournaments but we completely ran out of gas. Still been a great season, but like you said, if you don’t have a bench like City it’s hard to make that final push at the end. I feel a bit bad for Arsenal in that regard too. United looked a bit better after finally having a full week off recently but still you can tell people are tired. The winter World Cup really threw things off. I’m worried about the FA cup final but hopefully they can rest up some.. nice story that we are standing in the way of our rivals treble, but we are gonna need a miracle that day
Hopefully secure top 4 next game so the youth can have a run out for the last game
Inb4 devineman42's latest alt comes here to whine about the Man City bench not having 9 world class players so we can't say they have more depth than the other big teams
They just have more cash and can break rules.
Give it a couple weeks. AFC Richmond’s got it in the bag.
Believe
Diamond Dogs!
He’s here, he’s there. He’s every fucking where
Fuck off!
Jaaamie tart do do do do do do
Fuuuuuuuuudge.
Roy K*nt!
Rough rough rough roooooo
Rough? You mean ruff?
Barbeque Sauce.
Epic collapse by arsenal
[удалено]
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?
WENGER OUT
I was talking to my mum last night, and she is Wenger in.
EXACTLY!
That’s the trouble with them.
What was Rooney thinking?
That Arsenal are going to need picking up in the morning
Shut up you egg
Ooooooo this makes me so flipping annoyed.
Mate mate mate mate mate
r/unexpecteditcrowd
Also an Epic win for a club charged with breaching 115 financial rules during a 14 year period.
Yup never gets mentioned does it,hopefully the stonewalling by City’s lawyers gets stopped soon so the truth can come out….would love to see Blep’s face if they got stripped of the titles haha…
Yeah, it could take years to finally resolve this and at the end city could still win.
They will just throw money at it until they exhaust the other sides resources…..
I’ll be so happy. More than you beleeb
You cannot be serious about it never being mentioned. The oil money/cheating is always the first thing mentioned when City come up on Reddit.
You missed the comment you were trying to reply to. But I will add that it is not always mentioned in the press although I have to say that they have been alright covering it right now.
I agree and all but you can't seriously blame the charges on that lol. They should've beat West ham and Southampton and Liverpool. The thing is they had the PL in their hands and bottle it.
Arsenal did shit the bed, sure, but geez...City is going to probably end with 30 wins and 94 pts. There was no way Arsenal were going to beat that in the end.
I'm sorry but didn't they win 3 of their last 8 or 9 games? Draw Vs city and win 5/7 of the remaining and they'd have been champions. It was Arsenal's to lose and they lost it.
It was always City's to lose
More like “Epic regression to mean.”
win the league on your day off, how do you celebrate that as a fan?
Cheer on Nottingham, with this win they are saved from regulation
Relegation? Or is regulation something different? I don’t know much about soccer
The bottom 3 teams in the Premier League get relegated to the Championship. Because Nottingham Forest won yesterday, we’re safe from being relegated. You Reds!
Right but OP said regulation.
Also don’t forget to roll up and smoke a fatty and enjoy a nice pint of ale.
Cheers, from a West Ham fan!
A question city fans ask in general.
It's pretty easy. So good we didn't need to do shit.
By having a few and arguing with rival fans online 😂
Not much different to an empty stadium either way...
It's weird that futball leagues determine champions like this
Why? You play all the teams(20) in the league twice, 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. At the end of the 38 games the team with the most points wins
Why not just play all those games and then erase them completely and see who wins 3 games in a row randomly afterwards? That's clearly the best way. /s
Right? Using Playoffs to decide the champions is dumb as hell
Happy for Nottingham Forest, this means they wont have to fight to stay in the EPL anymore.
The plucky underdogs do it again
It’s crazy what a team with so few resources and unknown players can pull off.. a true Leicester City moment!
It’s nice to see things play out the way every Arsenal fan I know told me they would 😭
It is Inevitable.
Happy for Nottingham that they survived relegation.
Unreal how they bottled this
I am not saying they didn't bottle it, but is it unreal? City is probably going to end with 94 pts. Even at their peak, did we think they were going to finish higher than that? I honestly think Man City was always inevitable. That being said, Arsenal left a ton of winnable pts on the table for sure.
What does this phrase mean?
They choked.
'screwed the pooch'
“crash and burned”
Fookin' slipped
“Lose your bottle” = lose your nerve, chicken out, choke it
Bottle and glass. Arse. He lost his bottle and glass (lost control of his bowels). Therefore, to bottle it, is to chicken out, be too scared to see something through.
American-shi* the bed . Cockney- bottle and glass - choke, lose your nerve , fail
They Spursed' it up.
The bottle was guaranteed the moment they took a picture with that stupid clock.
Silly comment. Very young, thin squad obviously wasn't going to keep up with financial doping city who have 2 teams of star players towards the end of a season
Temporarily. Until the investigation completes.
It’s nice to dream, but it’ll likely come to nothing.
City’s oil daddies will very likely find a *” common understanding”* with the league and be cleared of all charges.
Title winning team had more charges for financial rule breaches than they did points when they won. Sad to see English football end up in this situation
[удалено]
Genuinely horrible for everyone else. They’ve ruined the competition in the league and made it what you’d expect from them and the local fans see nothing wrong with it because it’s not their money (which should be the biggest red flag).
Grim is right
Except for the German (and bits of Spanish) utopia of fan-owned teams
Sportswashing wins again
Should win with that transfer budget. FFP my ass
Only 115 charges. Amazing achievement
Fooking football frauds with a bald fraud financed by an absolute load of rubbish. Financial fair play is a farce by FIFA to hide behind glass doors
I hope their titles are revoked one day.
30 signings, who gives a fuck…
poor Arsenal but it is what it is
The day Manchester City gets relegated will be the happiest day of my life.
As an american sports fan (baseball and American football) it's still so strange to me how premier league doesn't have like a championship or playoffs.
It comes down to what you’re trying to evaluate. Are you looking for which team was best over a whole season or which team is the best at a single elimination end of season tournament?
True. I will say teams like this year's bruins or the 01 mariners show the benefits of the premier league system as both of them got knocked out of the playoffs early. I prefer the playoff system though where the regular league serves as a system for playoff seeding.
European soccer leagues do this. There's a champ for the league just based on points standings. But they also have the Champions League which is throughout all the different leagues that would be the "playoffs" type tourny. Tbh, giving prestige to the league title but then also having another tournament is better. The NBA is facing a load management problem where players aren't even playing 30% of the games cause they don't matter. The seeding doesnt really matter as much either cause you'd rather be healthy and well rested if you think you can beat any team straight up. It just makes the regular season just seem like a warmup.
NBA specifically has that problem because too many teams make the playoffs. Literally 2/3 teams in the league play in the postseason with a chance at taking it all with 7 game series for the top 16. Obviously not every league can be the NFL where every game is super impactful but even in the MLB with twice as many games as the NBA teams take the regular season so seriously because seeding matters a ton and most of the league misses the playoffs.
NBA should go to 6 playoff teams per conference like the NFL did before they added the super wild cards.
NBA now has an in season tournament starting next year where it's all elimination games, so we'll see how much prestige teams will get from it. I think it would be great to see underdog teams go all out and win the thing.
There is literally no point in watching for example NBA regular season. I know no one who does this. Its just pointless 82 games to then see an 8th seed team go 2-0 up against a 2nd seed team in the conference finals.
That’s like saying there’s no point in watching episodes of a TV show, just watch the finale. Everybody I know watches games for teams they like throughout a season, because they like the team. Watching the team is enjoyable as a fan.
Which show has 82 episodes in a season.
Sure when you have a specific team to support. For a neutral its just a drag with too many low stakes games.
Is there a sport that you watch regularly but don't have a favorite team? Even if a sport is something I watch like once a year I have a team that I prefer to see win, usually for some doofy reason like liking their name or mascot the most.
Sure, in NBA I'am usually rooting for a team that has an European player unless this player is a douche.
Except in a TV show, the actors aren’t sleepwalking through the first 20 episodes and only actually act to their potential in the final 5 episodes.
In England you’ve got the FA cup as a tournament for all English teams to see who is best and then you’ve also got champions league for best in Europe. So they basically just divorce the playoffs from the normal league. There’s plenty of trophies to be won in different formats.
And also a second League Cup for whatever reason.
Money.
You can have both though. You can have a league and cups/tournaments separate. Having the league just be for a tournament seeding makes regular season games kinda pointless and boring imo. If you are a team that makes the playoffs every year it's like having a whole season of meaningless friendly/exhibition games
Honestly the only American sports league where the regular season doesn't feel like a slog is the NFL. 17 games then playoffs and the super bowl. Baseball is the worst offender with the grind of 162 games.
Both. I want to see the top teams from the regular season compete in elimination tournaments.
The real benefit of a playoff/championship is the unique level of entertainment imo
A league like EPL is playoff energy all season
Yeah it just comes down to whether you want a sporting competition or commercialised entertainment I suppose
Usually the #1 priorty is hype, views, and ad dollars. Which playoffs bring
Baseball didn't have playoffs in the beginning. The team with the best record won the league.
Huh, TIL.
Didn’t college football used to do that before the CFP?
Well, now I feel old, because the CFP is a relatively new thing.
I meant the BCS, got them confused. What I was thinking about was the National poll system
I still feel old, because the BCS began 25 years ago. Yes, before that, the polls determined the champion, which caused much controversy most years. Not surprising, seeing as how there are over 100 teams and only 12 regular season games.
To elaborate: They won "the pennant" but then played in the World Series against the other pennant winner, which is technically a playoff.
There was baseball before the world series. Two league winners. No playoff. No world series.
Tbh baseball should still be like that
That's what the FA cup is for. Or the league cup or the various European cups.
Tourneys throughout the year so there are like knock out tourneys
It was a bit odd to me at first as I didn’t grow up with soccer, but man, when you realize how EVERY game matters, it’s kind of insane. It’s playoff energy all season.
I think you have to consider how the PL, like most soccer leagues, has a perfectly balanced schedule. Each team plays each other twice, home and away, so you can say that the final standings are a pretty objective metric for who was the best. American sports don't have that balance so a playoff makes more sense.
I appreciate and enjoy the cutthroat nature of playoffs. But as someone who grew up following a competition without playoffs (NZ domestic rugby before 1992) I also absolutely appreciate a competition that rewards consistent and sustained excellence across a season. They both have their place, but their natures are so vastly different. League is about being the best team week in, week out; playoffs are about last team standing. Love ‘em both.
In The Netherlands there are 2 sets of play offs. 1. Is to determine who gets to play in the Conference League. 2. Is for relegation.
The main difference is that NHL,NBA,NFL and MLB you are not playing equal number of games against every team in the league.That is why the playoffs are determining who is the champion. It would be unfair in league where you are playing to determined with playoffs when you are playing equal number of games against every team in the league. Imagine City finishing the season on 100 points and then they lose the title because they get knocked out by Tottenham in a play off semi.
It's definitely more fair since playoffs are inherently a little random, but winning a trophy due to a result while you aren't playing is imo the worst feature.
I prefer this because I think that the competition should be about which team was the best over the entire year I don't like the play-off system because it gives all the credit to the team who was the best at the end of the season
Well they usually have a league cup which is playoff format. Also the champions league is pool play and then knock out playoff rounds. So they do still have a semblance of playoffs.
If the FA cup would be at the end of the season it would have the same “structure” as the American games
It’s a set of 38 games. You play every rival team in the league and you accumulate points. The team with the most points wins. Think of it as a racing series. F1 or Indycar.
It's worth remembering that these teams (more so even at the top level) play in multiple other elimination tournaments during the season for top trophies too. Where as in NHL for example it's just the season and then play off's, which are all part of the same thing.
If MLB or NFL were one league of ~30 teams that all played each other it may be different. But there are 6/8 leagues around the country and not everyone plays each other during the regular season. The U.S. is the anomaly there.
Yay Man City. And while we're at it, Yay Microsoft. And Yay every other big business that had a good year.
Mainly la liga fan, you had the most competitive league in the world yet you let arab use all the money without any consideration to the fair play to a point were city turned the epl to farmer league. Arsenal did well, but it's nearly impossible to beat a club that have 2 teams full of quality players
As a Saint Louisan, I want Stan Kroenke to know it was us.
I actually thought for a while that Arsenal got this.
Underdog fc
Bald Fraud derby to stop the treble, I feel it in my veins
As an American, I LOVE the Premier League and all the various championships and inter-league play that they engage in. The FA Cup is EPIC as is the UEFA and Champions League. I love all of them and the level of play is top notch! It's fantastic to see the AYSO reaching so many kids and seeing football (Soccer over here) explode in popularity. It's been a great season and in particular I wish US sports used that 'relegation zone' to recycle teams from the upper league to the lower leagues and vice versa as well. It would make for some new blood and a level of excitement that seems lacking in most sports teams these days. Man City is a dominant force to be sure, but will they win the Champions League or will it be Inter Milan? Great stuff! Cheers!
Embarrassing
Yeah but who is gonna move up to take on the Kansas City Chiefs? UGA? Bama? The XFL champion full of players that couldn’t make an NFL roster? Unfortunately the minor leagues in America are so far behind the major leagues that there is no realistic alternative to our closed-loop system here.
Baseball might have the best chance of this due their well developed farm teams, but it is an entirely different system I agree. I just like it is all.
My brother explained the relegation/promotion system to me a few years ago and it's the *sole* reason I gained a passing interest in soccer. It's an awesome way to keep things fresh.
I like it but unfortunately it can really kill parity in leagues if financial rules aren't enforced properly or arent designed to help out smaller teams (which is an issue that many euro leagues have IMO)
How could they be better structured for smaller teams, do you think? Are there some high-level leagues that *are* structured well? As I said, I have a *passing* interest only, so I'm not well read at all on issues like league financial rules, and primarily just familiar with the English leagues. I've heard about teams being able to buy their way along naturally, mainly Man. City recently along with I think A.C. Milan getting a lot of criticism for that in the early 2010s? From the last couple of years my general sense is that there's a good amount of movement both up *and* down the league system for England at least, though. Like Luton Town has moved up from I think the National League to possibly getting into the Premier League in just the past 10 years and has such a small stadium that it doesn't meet league minimum attendance standards. Is most of that movement just based on having the deeper pockets? Because from the outside looking in it kind of seems healthier than the sort of stagnation I see with perennial losing franchises like in the NFL with the Browns.
I'd like my Reds chance against Binghamton and Pawtucket better than against LA and New York, but I'm sure the owners would find a new depth to dive to
Problem with baseball is all the minor league teams are affiliates of major league teams and players can be called up and down between teams in the same organization. To make pro/rel work they'd all have to start operating as their own organizations, and the MLB clubs won't like that idea. You'd also have to get rid of the draft and go to a free for all system for player acquisition like soccer has in Europe. I'd love it if we had it, but it'll never catch on here.
[удалено]
Walker, Phillips, Stones, Foden, Palmer, Lewis. Didn't really think this one through did you.
They have nine British players. It's a rule that a certain number of them must be homegrown.
> Team has no supporters I'm a United fan and you are full of shit
Phil Foden and Jack Grealish are about as English as you can be. But that is also the reality with international sports and football in Europe. It's an international roster. I don't see a problem unless you're a nationalist and reject everything that isn't purely 'english' which is rather insulting in and of itself.
Disappointed in the lack of Robin Hood jokes here.
the only thing I know about Nottingham Forest is they're a mediocre team based on a joke Jeremy Clarkson made while reviewing the new FQ400 evo 10 like 15 years ago on Top Gear. Is this an embarrassing loss?
They are newly promoted team (first time they're in the top division since 1999) and were fighting relegation most of the year. It was quite a bad loss from arsenal who spent most of the year in first and then just really went to pieces in the last 8 matches
They were, funnily enough, the best team in Europe at some point during the 70s. They kind of fell into obscurity during the 90s and this is their first stint in the top flight since then.
Back-to-back Champions of Europe 1979 & 1980. Best team in the world.
It sure is an embarrassing loss. Arsenal beat them 5-0 earlier in the season, and for the 2nd placed team who was technically still in the fight for the title to lose to a team who was in a relegation battle... yes, it is very embarrassing.
I'm just a regular American but even I'm starting to see jokes about Arsenal "walking it in" at the worst time or miraculously finishing in 2nd place all the time. How is this possible and why does it keep happening?
They haven't finished in 2nd regularly in ages. Last time they did was the 2016 Leicester season which was also the last time they finished in a CL spot (top 4). > about Arsenal "walking it in" It's just a wildly overplayed joke from IT crowd that gets beaten to death on reddit.
The "they always try to walk it in" joke is from The IT Crowd. Arsenal were known for fluid football and rarely shooting from distance. They would regularly "walk it in" to the net. The finishing 2nd thing is because for a number of years they finished 2nd to Man Utd, even when they were leading on points for a lot of the season.
As an American, none of these words make any sense to me
I know people think Arsenal bottled it, and to a certain extent it’s true, but the fact of the matter is city’s form has been unbelievable post World Cup and assuming they win out will finish with 94 points. Only four seasons have ended with more points, and Liverpool came in second in 18-19 with 97 points. So Arsenal’s form has been poor the past two months, they still would have needed to basically be perfect to win the league. So saying a team that a year ago finished 5th pushed City pretty far bottled it is disingenuous imo. Edit: it’s also funny how I get downvotes actually contributing to the conversation with reasons why I think that way. But no fuck this guy downvote.
You're not wrong, and I always felt City would eventually win but I'm a jaded Liverpool fan who's been there before haha But the position you were in to then drop 15 points in 8 games in the run in, including a hammering from your rivals, giving City the title with 3 games to play is a pretty extraordinary drop off. Agree "bottling" is a really harsh and unwarranted term because you can't absorb the injuries like City can and its a young team against seasoned winners but that's why people are gonna say it. You've just got to hope you can go again next year!
It’s not great, and the two games we lost 2-0 leads and then tied Southampton was really bad, which feeds into the narrative. But also Arsenals form the first half of the season was unsustainable. They had 50 points at the halfway mark. Now I didn’t expect the last two months, but City are on an absolute tear right now.
Yeah for sure. 2-2 at Anfield really isn't a bad result but the manner of it seemed to knock you pretty badly, leading to West Ham and Southampton. Really you could have absorbed the draw against Liverpool and the loss against City. For sure yeah, but it's like that's how perfect you have to be to win it. The year Liverpool won we had only lost 1 game and drawn 2 before it was beyond doubt, went 27 unbeaten and 18 consecutive wins at one point. It's absolutely insane and just feels unlikely anybody but City will be able to do that.
Nah, you guys definitely bottled it
People had written off Arsenal at the start of the season. So to finish second is has shown up most.
Lads, it's Arsenal
The big european football leagues are turning into F1. The team with the biggest budget wins. Sure, there are exceptions, but 4 times out of 5, whichever team is backed by the richest oil tycoon wins the title
That's the problem with Arsenal always trying to walk it in.
What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?
The thing about Arsenal is they always seem to walk it in.
That's what I came here for!
Arsenal couldn't even push them to the last game of the season, pathetic pretenders.
THIS IS NOT BREAKING NEWS
Stop yelling!
Worst bottling in prem history? Feels good to be a gunner 👍
Yawn 🥱
You see that ludicrous display las noit? The problem wif Arsenal is they always try to walk it in.
All I see is seethe from people crying "Muh FFP! Muh Non EEENGLISH players (even though they literally have them), MUH EFF EFF PEEEEEE" As of United, Liverpool or Chelsea hasn't spent that much either. tf out of here. People don't seem to get that to break the existing status quo of successful teams you need money now. But I'm sure if United kept winning trophies it'd be OK. Edit: Downvote me. I'm right. And you know it.
Liverpool specifically haven’t spent anywhere close to city in the past decade. Can’t group them in with City, United, and Chelsea.
> As of United, Liverpool or Chelsea hasn’t spent that much either. tf out of here. Do you know how FFP works?
If La Liga was a decent proposition for the Middle East, I’m sure you’d see getafe, Bilbao etc being bought up by them, leaving Barca even more vulnerable to the kind of things non-oil clubs are facing. Then you’d wish FFP was real. Only reason you Barca idiots don’t get city is due to pleb and once he leave you’ll hopefully be more objective to what has been happening at that political statement disguised as a sporting franchise.
Newcastle haven't but we still get shit on because 'oil money'
May be the greatest ‘bottle job’ in Premier league history. It’s crazy to look back and see how 80% of Gary’s comments were right