Premier League 2021/22 Thread

[brucey]

38 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

I feel like every season I say this, but every season it stays the same; the spending power of the top clubs feels so unfair.

 

- Man United 50m for Varane, 70m for Sancho.

- Man City 100m for Grealish, possibly 150m for Kane.

- Chelsea have bid 100m Euro for Lukaku.

- Arsenal have spent 50m on Ben White.

 

For Leicester to have won the Premier League, FA Cup and finished 1st, 5th and 5th over the last 5/6 years is unreal given that level of spending.

 

The CL money helps.

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

To be honest the 'big' clubs would argue we benefit from them being in the league. Clubs in Europe bitch about clubs like us bring able to pluck players out of the champions league. It's all a bit ****ed tbh.

 

What I really care about is leicester city, we've cracked the top 6 now and firmly disrupted that. We need to maintain that as a top 6 club and hope that one of the big 4 **** up.

 

Slowly slowly as claudio would say.

[SemperEadem]

Figures like that on players spin my head.

[Spudulike]

It's nothing new though, is it. Throughout most of my supporting life it was the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool signing all the star players, not because they needed them but more to dent a rivals threat. 

 

ManC are doing it now so that no other club can get near them. It could be argued that it helps us in our mini league behind them as it weakens the likes of Aston Villa and Tottenham. 

[Jon the Hat]

They will move on one of Mahrez, DeBruyne, Gudogan in the next 12-24 months, and rightly see Grealish as needing a year or so to settle in.  He is 4 years younger than all of them.  Decent move I think.  Hopefully Pep will make him a World Cup winner for England.

[trabuch]

Man City disgust me.

[Ric Flair]

I don't get why people think this is a disgrace to football and that this is something new. Other PL teams have always had to sell their best players to other teams, it was way worse in the 90's and 00's, at least now with all the TV money many PL clubs can ensure they get a huge fee for their prized assets as they are no longer under huge pressure to sell financially. More because they don't really want an unhappy player on their hands. But 15 years ago it was much easier for the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool to shit ball smaller teams in to taking their best players and leaving them in a difficult position.

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

Just now, Ric Flair said:

I don't get why people think this is a disgrace to football and that this is something new. Other PL teams have always had to sell their best players to other teams, it was way worse in the 90's and 00's, at least now with all the TV money many PL clubs can ensure they get a huge fee for their prized assets as they are no longer under huge pressure to sell financially. More because they don't really want an unhappy player on their hands. But 15 years ago it was much easier for the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool to shit ball smaller teams in to taking their best players and leaving them in a difficult position.

Exactly. The overall premier league is probably stronger and more competitive than ever. Its just man City spending 100m rather than real Madrid.

[Ric Flair]

This is a pivotal season for us, we've a number of very sought after players that have been here a fair few years who are going to be approaching only 2 or dare I say it 1 year left on their contracts. If we have a disappointing season we could be in a right pickle on what to do.

 

Let's say there are no new contracts agreed this season then we'd be facing the prospect of the following:

 

Tielemans 1 year left

Ricardo 1 year left

Soyuncu 1 year left

Barnes 2 years left

Ndidi 2 years left

Maddison 2 years left

 

Big year for us, we have to play the game wisely. Show ambition and achieve what we've promised otherwise we could witness a bit of a break up of this golden era.

[The_77]

3 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I don't get why people think this is a disgrace to football and that this is something new. Other PL teams have always had to sell their best players to other teams, it was way worse in the 90's and 00's, at least now with all the TV money many PL clubs can ensure they get a huge fee for their prized assets as they are no longer under huge pressure to sell financially. More because they don't really want an unhappy player on their hands. But 15 years ago it was much easier for the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool to shit ball smaller teams in to taking their best players and leaving them in a difficult position.

I mean, the criticism has less to do with the fact that Grealish is being sold and more to do with that he’s being purchased by an endless source of money that knows no accountability. 

[bovril]

26 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

Think Southampton and us have had it much worse when it comes to losing star players:

 

Southampton: Van Dijk, Mane, Lovren, Shaw, Wanyama, Bale, Walcott, Lallana, etc.

Leicester: Kante, Mahrez, Drinkwater, Maguire, Chilwell.

 

Admittedly Grealish is a homegrown player, but he's not won anything with them. That said had we have lost Vardy it would have probably felt similar to how the Villa fans are feeling right now. 

It's not so much the smaller clubs losing star players, it's the Man City hoovering everything up so they can beat Burnley 6-0 for the 10th season in a row or whatever.

 

As others have said it's not necessarily new. It's just boring. Think about how much people - including fans of other teams - have enjoyed Leicester's success. Precisely because it's different, it lets other fans dream. Why not try to make that more common? 

 

There's a very conservative attitude in football as a whole - definitely English football - of 'it's always been like this'. That doesn't make it any easier to like. We saw this with the Super League - people were outraged by it although it embodied many of the worst aspects of the Premier League that people have just begun accepting. 

[Ric Flair]

1 minute ago, The_77 said:

I mean, the criticism has less to do with the fact that Grealish is being sold and more to do with that he’s being purchased by an endless source of money that knows no accountability. 

Yeah I get that, it's a disgrace that the governing bodies quite easily get overuled by CAS and so it probably deters them from dishing out more investigations and punishments. Corruption at its finest.

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

1 minute ago, The_77 said:

I mean, the criticism has less to do with the fact that Grealish is being sold and more to do with that he’s being purchased by an endless source of money that knows no accountability. 

Very different debate I think. I don't think any billionaire owner of a football club is a Saint, some are clearly better than others though.

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

5 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

This is a pivotal season for us, we've a number of very sought after players that have been here a fair few years who are going to be approaching only 2 or dare I say it 1 year left on their contracts. If we have a disappointing season we could be in a right pickle on what to do.

 

Let's say there are no new contracts agreed this season then we'd be facing the prospect of the following:

 

Tielemans 1 year left

Ricardo 1 year left

Soyuncu 1 year left

Barnes 2 years left

Ndidi 2 years left

Maddison 2 years left

 

Big year for us, we have to play the game wisely. Show ambition and achieve what we've promised otherwise we could witness a bit of a break up of this golden era.

Ndidi has just bought a big house in Rothley so he'll be settled.

 

We need to get Cags, Ricardo and Youri sorted soon.

[Ric Flair]

1 minute ago, bovril said:

It's not so much the smaller clubs losing star players, it's the Man City hoovering everything up so they can beat Burnley 6-0 for the 10th season in a row or whatever.

 

As others have said it's not necessarily new. It's just boring. Think about how much people - including fans of other teams - have enjoyed Leicester's success. Precisely because it's different, it lets other fans dream. Why not try to make that more common? 

 

There's a very conservative attitude in football as a whole - definitely English football - of 'it's always been like this'. That doesn't make it any easier to like. We saw this with the Super League - people were outraged by it although it embodied many of the worst aspects of the Premier League that people have just begun accepting. 

I don't get what the issue is though? Man City are signing a player they desperately want and are willing to break the British transfer record and their own transfer policies to do so. Although they spend a lot of money over the years they usually try and drive prices down which I'd argue is more of a problem to other teams in this division. 

 

Man City have also already raised £60m this summer in transfers and sell on fees for ex players, so to date they'll have shelled out £40m. Grealish had a very high release clause and they triggered it, I'm sure they wanted him cheaper but that's the power clubs like Villa now have in the PL, they can't be shit balled.

[Ric Flair]

1 minute ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

Ndidi has just bought a big house in Rothley so he'll be settled.

 

We need to get Cags, Ricardo and Youri sorted soon.

Hopefully, we are approaching a time where some of these players have been here 4+ years and motivation levels can tail off naturally. We need to play it wisely.

[urban.spaceman]

Why are there still people like this?

 

 

 

[CosbehFox]

I wouldn't worry about Ricardo. I am hoping that that his injury also led to some Spacejam sequel loss of his power and it's going to come back. However it does not look like it is 

[foxfan92]

22 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

It's nothing new though, is it. Throughout most of my supporting life it was the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool signing all the star players, not because they needed them but more to dent a rivals threat. 

 

ManC are doing it now so that no other club can get near them. It could be argued that it helps us in our mini league behind them as it weakens the likes of Aston Villa and Tottenham. 

Exactly the way I see it too.

 

Regardless of how much money these clubs spend on players, they can still only field 11 on the pitch. And its generally accepted Man City will buy the title again, so let's not get too upset about whatever they do in the transfer market, and hope we can spring some surprises of our own once the season begins.

 

Besides, winning games is about more than the team with the most valuable players. Lets hope they don't click as a unit.

 

Mainly though, if, what Man City are doing,  disrupts Villa and Tottenham,  thats 2 teams we might not have to worry about so much.

 

 

[Jon the Hat]

4 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

Why are there still people like this?

 

 

 

I feel a bit for the presenters - I would imagine the reason they didn't call it out on air was they were aware it was cut out immediately.  Whoever let it go out online should be in the doghouse though.

[RowlattsFox]

Always makes me laugh when you see fans pissed off when someone signs their best player but then immediately suggests they should knick someone else best player to replace him. 

[purpleronnie]

It's a good deal for Villa, as long as they spend it wisely, they could get 3 class players and be much stronger for it.

[Ric Flair]

3 minutes ago, purpleronnie said:

It's a good deal for Villa, as long as they spend it wisely, they could get 3 class players and be much stronger for it.

The issue for them is they have already spent £350m in 2 seasons.

[Spudulike]

2 hours ago, pmcla26 said:

I know its annoying, but for a lot of us living outside of Leicester it is just natural to say "City" in reference to Man CIty and "Leicester" in reference to us as it's how all non-Leicester supporting people around us refer to the two sides. 

What did you call Man City before they got rich and became one of Sky's pet clubs? I would suggest that if you simply referred to them as 'City' you might have had a questionable response (unless you were in Manchester). 

[urban.spaceman]

1 hour ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

To be honest the 'big' clubs would argue we benefit from them being in the league. Clubs in Europe bitch about clubs like us bring able to pluck players out of the champions league. It's all a bit ****ed tbh.

 

What I really care about is leicester city, we've cracked the top 6 now and firmly disrupted that. We need to maintain that as a top 6 club and hope that one of the big 4 **** up.

 

Slowly slowly as claudio would say.

Which is an offensive argument especially when you consider that we were the 5th highest earners when we won the league. Everything is set up for their benefit and it needs to stop.

Edited 4 August 2021 by urban.spaceman