Leicester than zero? - Premier League 2018/19

[Simon G]

Where does Everton's treble attempt rate in 1985? Cup Winner's Cup may not be as lucrative as the European Cup, but it's still a European competition. From what I've read (I was 9 months old at the time) it was pretty much exhaustion that did them for the FA Cup Final.

[Jah Womble]

If that happened it would undoubtedly lessen the achievement. But it never has. And nor will it in reality. Points records have incrementally been broken throughout the League history. Preston unbeaten record set in the very first season 1889 has been matched only once so can see why Arsenal achievement merits the consideration it does.

Well, yes, I was obviously exaggerating to make a point. Arsenal's 2004 achievement was impressive, sure, but - as pointed out upthread - their ninety-point title is still ten shy of Man City's last term.

Let's be honest, we'd all rather take more points than fret about remaining unbeaten.

[Jah Womble]

Liverpool's 1976-84 achievements are superior to any EPL era achievements IMHO due to being done with such a smaller squad with no rotation. Crippled some of the players for life, though.

Hmm, rather hard to quantify that, especially given that Liverpool didn't really have the kind of competition that top EPL clubs face today. They were miles ahead of the next-best - which fluctuated between Man Utd, Forest, Ipswich, Villa and even Southampton in that time.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Hmm, rather hard to quantify that, especially given that Liverpool didn't really have the kind of competition that top EPL clubs face today. They were miles ahead of the next-best - which fluctuated between Man Utd, Forest, Ipswich, Villa and even Southampton in that time.

Two of whom won the European Cup and another the UEFA Cup in that era, despite Liverpool being "miles" ahead of them. You also missed off Spurs, who were right in the title mix in 1982 before fixture congestion on 4 fronts did for them. There was only one of Liverpool's title wins that didn't go all the way to the very last game, 1983. United and then Arsenal and Chelsea in the 2000s all had far, far more dominant seasons in terms of the relative ease with which the rest of the Prem rolled over in various seasons so I'd definitely argue the league was a lot more competitive back in those days.

[Jah Womble]

Oh, come on - there were several opponents that came and went but Liverpool were consistently better than anyone else during the era defined (as well as before and after). Much like Utd during the nineties/early noughtes, if you like.

Spurs weren't 'really' in the mix in 1981-82, tbh - a good start and okay finish weren't ever going to deflect Liverpool, tbh. The sheer volume of fixtures did for us that season, but at least we just about retained the FA Cup.

I just think that, these days, there are far more teams consistently - that's the key here - jockeying for the title.

[Snake Plissken]

Downside to that is that there is a lot bigger gulf on quality between the top and bottom of the division.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Yeah, that's definitely true. The all-time "least points" (in a 38 game plus season) table must also largely consist of PL era teams like Derby and various Sunderlands. There were teams out of their depth in the past - Stoke in 1985 spring to mind - but not with such regular frequency.

[Sporting]

I'd say Liverpool's achievements in the 70s and 80s have more merit because the financial playing field was a lot more level; I have no figures at hand but I doubt they spent much more on new players than many other clubs at the time.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

That has to be set against players running about 2000 metres in every game, taking long breaks, during the frequent stoppages, and every time the ball is played back to the keeper. To a very real degree the football you saw on the pitch was very much a function of teams having 14 man squads, and one substitute in every game. I saw a quiz doing the rounds there where you were given a man utd season, and the numbers of appearances made by each player and you had to guess the players. It looked like a mad quiz, but the eye catching thing was that in the 1992-3 season three players played all the games, (42) three players missed one game, and two players missed two games. So essentially there were eight players that played in nearly every single game. I thought that that was extraordinary.

[Satchmo Distel]

Wages would also be less extremely skewed. The ratio between Dalglish's pay and the lowest paid first-teamers in Div 1 was far less than their equivalents now.

The one area where today is harder is for an English side is winning the European Cup. It's much harder to go for the EC and the top flight title at the same time. Europa League, on the other hand, is nowhere near as credible as the UEFA Cup, which was won by Liverpool, Ipswich and Spurs.

Everton 1985: I am less convinced about the toughness of the task (they played Fortuna Sittard in the QFs) but I think they would have been favourites to win the EC in 1986 and maybe 1988, in a world where Heysel never happened.

[Snake Plissken]

It's almost as if we're trying to compare apples and oranges.

[Sporting]

It's almost as if we're trying to compare apples and oranges.

Apples are better because they don't need to be peeled.

[Hot Orange]

The last two seasons are the first (in a 38-game season) in which the champions have won 30 or more games. As Snake suggests, while it may be more competitive amongst the top two or three, it seems easier now for the best sides to sweep aside the rest without any trouble. Arsenal's achievement in remaining unbeaten in a (slightly) more even field feels more impressive to me.

[ursus arctos]

Sporting, you are going to lose your reasidence permit if the local authorities see that sacrilege

[Nocturnal Submission]

Yeah, that's definitely true. The all-time "least points" (in a 38 game plus season) table must also largely consist of PL era teams like Derby and various Sunderlands. There were teams out of their depth in the past - Stoke in 1985 spring to mind - but not with such regular frequency.

I'm not so sure about that. I had a very quick look at the final Division 1 tables in the 70s and there are quite a few teams finishing last that would have mid-20 points if you add an extra point for wins but then knock a few points off because they played 42 games.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Wages would also be less extremely skewed. The ratio between Dalglish's pay and the lowest paid first-teamers in Div 1 was far less than their equivalents now.

I wouldn't be sure about that. There were young players playing in the league still on YTS schemes, proportionately the gaps within football have remained pretty constant, even as the absolute values have rocketed. Even by 1997 there were players like ravanelli and shearer were earning 10 times as much as paul scholes. The other thing is that the relative gap in size between teams is much smaller now than it was in the past. back in the mid nineties man utd would have 12 times the turnover of the lowest team in the premier league. It's at most four times now. That's down to the tv contracts becoming so big, and the common elements are so big that it has substantially lifted the financial floor of the league.

One reason why it's much harder to go the season unbeaten is that even the bottom teams of the league are full of international players from all around the world, so the likelihood that one of them will do you over the course of a season is very high.

[Sporting]

Sporting, you are going to lose your reasidence permit if the local authorities see that sacrilege

Don't worry; I try to cover all my bases depending on the forum I'm posting in. In Valencia, I would argue in favour of oranges given that once beyond the peel problem you can eat all of an orange whereas with apples you have the core issue to deal with (although cores can be eaten easier then orange peel. That said, I'm sure some of you are aware of this short story: https://www.kiddingtown.com/seventee...bill-naughton/)

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I must say that Declan rice's winner against Arsenal is very poorly timed from Mick mcCarthy's point of view. He's been over there and given declan the full emotional blackmail treatment, but after a goal in a game against a big team the clamour will now be on for him to get one cap for england. It's shit like this that will see us through the nightmare of dealing with a hard brexit.


It all means that man utd will pass out Arsenal tomorrow when they beat Spurs by 4-1 or better, which is obviously what is going to happen. It's odd how optimistic I feel about football since I removed all memories of the 30 months before the return of solskjaer with a spoon.

[Logan Mountstuart]

Stay as optimistic as you like, Berba. No matter how obviously Ireland has the moral high ground over our septic Isle at the moment, I fear England might have found its new Bobby Moore in Rice. He looks like a natural leader for all these emerging U19 blokes that don't seem ready to accept 4 years on loan but might actually prefer to play.

Like Moore he's immensely likeable and strangely photogenic. Like Moore he will probably be horribly mistreated throughout his life. He'd be better off being Irish, but in a couple of month's time the hype about him him will be too much.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Why did Solskjaer return with a spoon?

[Ray de Galles]

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr C. Wanker :

[URL="https://twitter.com/danielstorey85/status/1084204614994612225?s=21"]https://twitter.com/danielstorey85/s...994612225?s=21[/URL]

[ursus arctos]

I wonder how his employer feels about the last line.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

only seven of their 30 man premier league squad were born outside of these islands. I feel sorry for Greg Cunningham. A good galwegian like him shouldn't have to put up with a twat like that as a manager.

[Snake Plissken]

I also found his comments on Leeds' spying to be interesting, since he once sent Kevin Blackwell to listen in on a half time team talk being given by Stan Ternent in the away dressing room.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Everton really do have quite the selection of unpleasant dickheads playing for them.

Anyway, put me down as completely unsurprised that Colin is a gammon.