The race for third and fourth

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Seeing as Liverpool have clawed their way back into this (at least temporarily, Man City are up next) it is looking a bit tense now, isn't it? Twelve games to go, and four points separate Arsenal in third from Tottenham in seventh, with Man United, Southampton and Liverpool in between. West Ham aren't entirely out of it yet, either, although today's late setback opens up a gap they now have to claw back.

Which two of those teams will prevail? Which managers out of the ones that don't make it will get sacked in the summer if they fall a point or two short of the final line?

[EIM]

The race for third and fourth

"The race for third and fourth"

[tee rex]

The race for third and fourth

I see Rogin atop the hill, waving the banner, calling "To me! To me!". It's a noble last stand by the leader of the telly tribe, driven out of football threads by the game-goers.

It looked like we were going to go a whole weekend without going on about what's going on up there.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The race for third and fourth

What, everyone else has signed up to a manifesto pledging never to mention the Premier League or its teams ever again? Sorry, I missed the memo.

[EIM]

The race for third and fourth

It's not that. It's championing an entirely manufactured 'success' where the only prize is a financial one. It's shite.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The race for third and fourth

Well of course. Hence the thread title. But it's there, and once Chelsea have completed their inevitable march to the actual title with four games to go, it's all the national football press will be on about.

[Calvert]

The race for third and fourth

It is funny though.

This is familiar. Rogin's team gets a result and he's like an excited puppy but lays the bet off with the 'at least temporarily' caveat.

If it weren't for the horror regimes at City * and Horrible Chelsea™ taking the certain CL places it'd be hilarious watching Manchester United and Liverpool fighting for the crumbs.

*i know, I know.

[ian.64]

The race for third and fourth

Well of course. Hence the thread title. But it's there, and once Chelsea have completed their inevitable march to the actual title with four games to go, it's all the national football press will be on about.

Because the national press are a bit like those gits on talk shows, phone-ins and the like, who talk about, say, the royals and mention how 'we' love or 'we' find interest in what they do, when the reality is different. To me the ring-fenced exclusivity of the top three/four berths of the PL create a cold detachment in me that negates any kind of interest. It's a bit like being urged to be compelled about how lottery winners spend their cash. I sound like a moaning bastard - well, I am, actually - but the sports hacks world is exclusively centred on the focus of the great and good and that focus remains there and bugger you if you're not at the party. The Usual Suspects Channel that flings Mourihno, Van Gaal and that po-faced humour vacuum, Rodgers, at my face and expects me to lap up every snarling moment of tiresome Master Of The World-type posturing. Cue some wankwagon telling you that they've succeeded with their psychological cunning if you ever mention that you find them irritating, the easily-pleased, guff-swallowing ball-sacs.

Yep, so I'll have to wait until the next Sunday Supplement, where the 'race for third or fourth' will be discussed by a table of complacent arseholes whose incessant journalistic orbits around Jose, Brendan, Louis and Arsene have rendered them inured to the other matters and aspects of the game and the business and politics around it, and loftily talk about how Jose will succeed as if they were discussing the inner secrets of the Vatican, when in fact anyone could do that if they added a little more eloquence to their arguments.

Ooh, Rogin, you've made me annoyed enough to sound like an old man shaking his walking stick at kids on his lawn. D'oh!

[DCI Harry Batt]

The race for third and fourth

Why would anyone here be interested by what's in "the national football press" anyway?

[Nefertiti2]

The race for third and fourth

The reward isn't only financial, fans get the chance to see their team in competition against some of the best players in Europe.

[Outside Agent]

The race for third and fourth

The figure that tends to be used a lot when describing the CL bounty is £30m for reaching the group stages. Assuming that the windfall doesn't alter over the next few years, then reaching the CL one season, perhaps even getting out of the group, can be offset by this one campaign affecting domestic league performance, when the new PL TV deal kicks in. A team finishes third and qualifies for the CL, but only finishes seventh the following season as they struggle to cope with both competitions. The fall in league position and the difference in prize money won't be far off what they made from the CL.

In short, the notion of qualification for the CL bringing a club to a whole new level will no longer be the case.

[Outside Agent]

The race for third and fourth

Anyway, watching Spurs fail to qualify for the CL in three of the four occasions a serious challenge was mounted has marked me somewhat. Not scarred, but merely rendered a battle for fourth place a bit dull at this stage.

[Nefertiti2]

The race for third and fourth

Of course Outside Agent reminds us of the other reason why the race for 4th place gives so much joy to fans.There's not only the excitement about your own team qualifying, there is also the Schadenfreude as a rival doesn't. Just think how much pleasure Spurs, Liverpool and latterly even Man United have given over the years.

[ian.64]

The race for third and fourth

The reward isn't only financial, fans get the chance to see their team in competition against some of the best players in Europe.

Well, some fans anyway. The Champions League possibly has romance if you're in it, but has that closed shop sign if you're unlucky not to be prepared for it both structurally (squadwise, I mean) or financially. Its an obvious gripe, but there you go.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The race for third and fourth

It's not just financial, it dictates who you can sign and how much you have to pay them to not be in the champions league. That was nearly as big a problem for man utd this summer as lvg tuning up in the middle of July and United starting their business then.

[Outside Agent]

The race for third and fourth

Are you implying that Man Utd had to pay Di Maria & Falcao more because they cannot offer CL football?

[EIM]

The race for third and fourth

He's also implying that's not financial, I think.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The race for third and fourth

Lol.

[EIM]

The race for third and fourth

Anyway, I'm not buying into it. The media report on this bollocks because they're sweetcorn in the football poo. I refuse to be a hungry coprophagian fly.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The race for third and fourth

Kind of. It certainly restricted man utd to signing hyper expensive players in the stable of a er.... friendly agent. But normally contracts are structured with a basic and a cl bonus, and if you are signing players you have to at least integrate the bonus into their basic. I suppose essentially united have to pay di Maria as if they were in the cl, and if they get into the cl, they'll have to pay him even more.

[Outside Agent]

The race for third and fourth

I remember when Newcastle and Middlesborough were buying players like Ginola, Asprilla, Juninho & Ravanelli, there was a common belief that players of that calibre had to be offered higher wages than they were likely to get at, say, Spurs or West Ham, as a greater incentive was required to get them to move somewhere not fashionable and not London. I suppose, along similar lines, if a player has a choice of clubs and one of those suitors is not in the CL, that club might feel they have to offer higher wages in order to get the player to join.

I think the line from players about wanting to play Champions League football is merely a statement designed to make them appear ambitious. They'll go to whoever pays more. A couple of games against Porto, Bayer Leverkusen & Steau Bucharest is hardly a deal-breaker.

[Nefertiti2]

The race for third and fourth

I don't think that's true. I think players are motivated by a number of things, and money is only one.

The desire, during their relatively short careers, to play in the best competitions and to win things are clearly others- as are to play for certain managers or with certain other players, to play in particular positions or particular kinds of football.

I read an interesting interview with Wenger somewhere who said that for young men who are anyway earning such huge amounts and who have had to be so enormously focussed on the game for such a long time, more money isn't a huge motivator. Far more important is the desire to be part of something special to play great football and/or to win something.

[François dan un fez]

The race for third and fourth

Our season in the. Champions league was brilliant. We had a group with teams I'd heard of. We played Real Madrid. Watched Bale destroy some reputations.

Given the choice I'd rather win next Sunday than come third though.

Arsenal have perfected the boredom of focussing on top 4 finishes to the detriment of actually winning things.

[EIM]

The race for third and fourth

Yup. If LvG manages to win the FA Cup, I couldn't give a fuck where he finishes in the league.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The race for third and fourth

But then you are nailed on for a league title win as well, so, you know.