The Premier League - 2021-2022

- Weak championship, championship TV money is £5m per year, so losing gate receipts wiped out at least 75% of every clubs income. Nobody could strengthen where they needed because they were more worried about going bankrupt.

- We kept players like Sarr who we had no right to keep and wouldn’t have kept of it wasn’t for Covid. We were overly strong in attack and our opposition had no threat themselves the other end.

Our strong defence was just a red herring, it wouldn’t have panned out like that if it wasn’t for covid.

We also didn’t really strengthen our defence at all, unless you count Rose. Most promoted teams at least attempt to improve it. Brentford for example spent £15m on a CB.

Teams often change their approach to allow for being in the PL as well, like we did with QSF and like Brentford have. We kept a manager on who didn’t know how, and replaced him with another who wasn’t at all defensive either.

 

I'm not just some random idiot online. Im a specific idiot online.

 

I think part of it is that our pitch was in very good condition last season, even through all the games in quick succession, there were a few times last season where the team would mention if the opposition’s pitch wasn't quite up to standard

 

Craig Pawson should get zero. This is the man on VAR who after watching numerous replays gave Jota a penalty against Palace and failed to give a penalty when Ederson completely wiped our Fraser. The man is either actively giving the big clubs decisions despite the multiple replays in front of his eyes or otherwise he’s a complete moron.

Special mention to Kevin Friend for being a coward in the Jota incident and not just deciding his colleague was a baffling imbecile.

 

The fact that he sees ****-well as one of the better refs says it all really.

 

Strong suggestions that the reason he turned down Spurs was because he didn't want to play right-wing-back, though, which if it was indeed the case, means he was never right for them/what Conte was actually after, and it would always have been a non-starter.

 

Shows how far Barcelona have fallen

 

It’s really disconcerting that your avatar just shows the standard forum pic.

It feels like a violation of my forum comfort.

 

Your comfort will be restored soon enough.

 

Glorious news.

 

Villa sign Chambers from Arsenal. They're having a great window so far, incredible to think that we probably should have relegated them a couple of seasons ago.

 

The EPL engineered Villa’s survival. They were never in danger of going down. The biggest clubs will always be helped in these situations. It’s better for the Premier League’s branding.

If Everton continue to be crap, you’ll see all the contentious VAR decisions go their way towards the end of the season.

 

I don't think the EPL made us throw away points to Villa, Everton and Palace in the new year. Then after lockdown I don't think the EPL made sure that we didn't turn up for the Burnley, Southampton or West Ham games. We had plenty of chances to pull away and bury Villa but we bottled it.

 

Legend has it that it was actually the EPL who had Pearson and Shakespeare locked out of London Colney.

 

The referee’s GLT stopped for the only time in history and VAR saw it but said nothing. Villa get a point at Sheff Utd. Palace scored a perfectly valid goal with 20 minutes to go to go 1-0 up. VAR intervenes saying handball when it came off the top of the shoulder. Villa go on to win 2-0. Arsenal weaken their side making 6 changes and lose 1-0 to Villa but a few days later go full strength to try and beat us, etc, etc. It was engineered like it always is.

 

Haha, I remember the week building up to the Arsenal game. The dreamers all thought they’d be a reserve team on the beach and we’d stroll through the game. 3-0 down after half an hour. A few forum members went into hiding that day for sure. Lol. ‘With the squad we had we should have stayed up, so I wasn’t wrong with my prediction’. All time classic coggery.

 

EPL insisted on us fielding Mariappa due to chronic underinvestment and then programmed him to randomly lash the ball into his own net against Brighton.

 

Exactly. A complete engineering of results all in Villa’s favour.

 

I can't believe there was anyone thinking that, and I'm often over-optimistic with my predictions! I always thought it was going to be tough as Arsenal are usually strong at home but I thought there was a glimmer of hope that we might battle to a low-score draw and Villa would lose (realistically the only combination of results that was going to save us). Probably our result had some influence on Villa's (as did our hammering against City midweek) as they knew after hearing we were 3-0 down early all they had to do was keep it tight.

I was sure Arsenal wouldn't lose at Villa as they'd been in good form during the New Year and it was a risky strategy pinning their hopes of European qualification solely on winning the FA Cup against a very tricky opponent, and much more certain Everton wouldn't lose to Bournemouth after they won at Sheffield United to show they still had some interest in their season (Everton hadn't lost at home for a while and Bournemouth had just lost their last nine away games). I've learnt from that to never again rely on other teams helping us out, assuming we have some hope of survival this season.

 

More people on here should have supported Pozzo when he complained about this. If anything, I think team BW are responsible for our relegation.

 

I wish they would .

 

Don't forget these too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51884263

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53358478

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52072988.amp

I’ve always called for an investigation into these performances. I refuse to believe we could be that bad naturally.

 

Never forget.

 

Lamps has been offered the Everton job. I think that’s good for us. I really don’t think he’ll turn it around for them.

Also leopards don’t change their spots. They made another tapping up move on Derby. I really hope they get what’s coming to them in spades.

 

Still had more impact in that game than Sema has in any of his sub appearances this season.

 

To the Tower of London with you now.

 

I know, wonderful isn’t it

 

Everton fans need to accept the half a billion spent has been and gone, just because it was spent it doesn’t change the fact it was largely wasted and counts for nothing right now. I completely understand them being angry that it was wasted, but it was wasted, and the current team has no relevance to the fact that money has been spent.