We have a stadium debt to repay. Chelsea are backed by a billionaire so they don't have to live within their means.
I think we could be spending more, we probably should be, but we can't compete with Chelsea, City or ManYoo in the transfer market.
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We have a stadium debt to repay. Chelsea are backed by a billionaire so they don't have to live within their means.
I think we could be spending more, we probably should be, but we can't compete with Chelsea, City or ManYoo in the transfer market.
We don't have to sign the same players, in addition it isn't always about money, of course it is now as we're not really seen as a desirable destination anymore but once upon a time players were desperate to link up with us and play alongside some of the players we had. It's our own fualt for losing that appeal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Anyway the point is we could spend, the money from team should be re-inested in the team and be totally independent from the stadium, that's how it was sold to us. We've wasted money on big contracts for kids who have in time proved to be just that, a waste of money...that money could have been used on bringing in quality players, in addition our squad is over-inflated mainly with overpaid players who aren't giving us anything it has to be said.
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Do they get put down to the 4th place team?
im trying to find positives today, the thought of arsenal getting knocked in a qualifer makes me a little happy and im sad cos west ham and the ****s won today.
We need to spend big this summer on luke wells, nick powell, and that zaha lad at palace. I knows they are youngins but they are goodens.
http://www.glory-glory.co.uk/showthr...-champs-leagueQuote:
No. All english clubs enter the group stage of the UCL. Tottenham go straight into the group stage for the Europa League.
:haha: Spurs
Work spud has given up her season ticket after35 years as doesnt live near the shithole and is tired of being dicked around by tv fixtures. She was definitely giving up if not in chumps league as Thursday night Sunday matches would really fuck up her home life. sky 1 spuds 0...or should that be channel5?
ITV 4 I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Injury Time
There is an itv4 now, well who would've thunk it....presses retune on digbox...Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsMe
Tongue in cheek comment about us being 10th as you well knowQuote:
Originally Posted by Letters
R.I.P. :rose: :rose: :rose:Quote:
Anyway, I'm going to Wembley tomorrow with my brother who's a Luton fan and we're going to watch a proper game of football played by proper teams, and I'm thinking I might just become a Luton fan if I can't shake football altogether.
Saha and Pienaar congratulated Chavs on their CL purchase and Spud fans arent happy :lol:
I did. :engagesmugmode:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Fair enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coney
Don't feel sorry for the spuds at all. 4th shouldn't be good enough to quality for the "champions" league anyway. Neither should 3rd or probably 2nd in truth. If the spuds couldn't even finish above us then they deserve nothing. If Platini and co genuinely cared about the integrity of the game they wouldn't be trying to expand this competition to a point where it has become a second league. They say one thing and do the opposite.
Yep these are the guys who are Ruining the Sport with all these Silly rules etc. All they care about is money, money, money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Oh and on Spurs too right they'd not care if that was us they laught and laugh so feck em.
I don't get the enmity for the name of the competition. It's called the Champions League because the winners become the Champions of Europe surely. If it was as you say it should be, it should be called the League Champions League.
Just go back to the European Cup tbh.Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
No thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie the Gooner
European Cup music. :bow:
It doesn't seem as grand.
It replace the Euro Cup so that's a convenient rather than accurate way of looking at it. We moan about Arsenal winning the 4th place cup all the time but if this silly Euro comp didn't exist in its silly form where basically everyone gets in maybe we would have focused on domestic cups and actually winning the league instead. It's a disruptive foreign league that runs smack in the middle of our season. And most of the games are atrocious, anything but champion levels of football on display. All so people who are already filthy rich can get even richer. I view the tournament in much the same way at the European Union - unnecessary and unrepresentative. At least the money should go back to the various leagues rather than into the pockets of a few clubs who are already financially ahead of the rest. This is more like a corporate thing than sport, monopoly instead of competition.Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
And calling it the European Cup is slightly inaccurate when you can win er, other, European cups in the same season. The reason for the eventual expansion to 32 teams happened (and this didn't come in to play for 92/93 when it started) I think was so that it has a direct competitionn with the World Cup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
As for whether we'd focus on the league solely, or indeed the cups is debatable. Sometimes I think we forget the gravy train we have as the domestic competition and in recent years we'll get more money from that than what we do from the Champions League.
I don't see the point in arguing about the quality of matches (even though I would say you're wrong) but would the quality of those games really be any better if it went back to the 'old' format?
http://www.goonersweb.co.uk/forum/sh...p?t=776&page=3Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
:fingers:
No, but there would be less games to endure and less impact on our domestic season. It's just money replacing excellence again, isn't it? Another way to scalp the fans. We've even had to cut the amount of teams in our leagues and play less games to accommodate this shit. The whole group stage thing is shit, it's even seeded to favour the big clubs. We know who's getting through and then it becomes a knockout comp anyway so why bother with all that boring shit beforehand? It's just for the money.Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
When it was pure knock-out it was easier to win as well. Lesser clubs doing the odd giant-killing and the random selection meant that there was a good chance you could get an easy path to the final, especially if you got one that included a lot of league winners from the smaller leagues. The group stage means that in the knock-outs you are going to come up against more serious opposition on the way. In terms of effort and skill requirement, CL > EC.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
I do think since The they have allowed letting the top 3/4 into the CL it has made the comp and our league and other league's boring tbh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
These people don't give a shite if the best teams don't get in the the Cl anyway only bothered about the money it will bring.
So can they really complain when they get a final like that. With Chavs pub teaming it.
Oi, geezers, what a load of self-loathing, pansyfied whining. Me, I’m taking a long, hot shower in sweet Spudenfreude water…
What was everyone's view of the 2nd group stage when that used to be around?
The league was expanded as many will recall in response to the threat of a breakaway league by the `big`teams all who wanted a piece of the pie that was excluded to them since they all couldnt be in the old European cup at the same time. It was the only solution at the time as the G14 would have it no other way. I disagree that the games are mostly crap. as can be seen with the final on saturday. It is not the football that is crap but the teams that elect to play crap football. I have now realised that "shit on a stick" is mostly a Chelsea invention as they have been a party to all the crappiest encounters in recent history. The recent europa cup games and the Bayern/Real semi show that football is always exciting when BOTH teams want to win the match.
What really ruined this final was the nonsense of excluding players for cumulative yellows in the biggest match of the year. They could just as well have made the bans effective for the following season and reaped the reward of a better spectacle. I think most would agree if Alaba and Gustavo et al had played yesterday. Bayern would have steamrollerd Chelsea. Plus we would have probably seen more comedy gold from the big man doing the splits or collaring Robben as he went by him
Basically dont blame the players, blame the lousy scriptwriters for the calamity show served up.
The only part I blame UEFA is thier insincere attempts to rigmarole the competitions to bring in so called lesser teams at the expense of the established ones. Isnt that what the Europa cup was designed for?
Wasn't a fan of it, made things too bloated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie the Gooner
Always felt the European Cup felt a lot more special, to qualify you had to achieve something which is very hard to do, win your own league. This meant that you didn't qualify for it all the time and that when you did it have that extra special something about it.
Nowadays getting 3rd/4th gets you in, so basically you don't have to win anything or even be anywhere near the winners of your league, makes a mockery of the competition to have this. I'd rather see cup winners go into it than 3rd/4th place, at least they've had to win something to qualify.
I don't see why you should be rewarded for losing to be honest.
I wouldn't say it was easier to win at all, a pure knockout competition gives you no 2nd chances, if you concede away goals the punishment can be severe, unlike now when you have 5 other group games to pull you out of the fire.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coney
Straight knockout is always riskier, right now we can have an off day lose comfortably and still qualify as winners of the group. In 2 legged affairs if you underperform away, sometimes there's no way back and the away goal can be a killer.
There are barely any cup competitions where the best teams don't eventually get through, seeded or otherwise. You get the occasional mess-up in the group stage - Man Utd have twice, Liverpool have once and Citeh did too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
You say that we know who is going to go through so how can then you say those initial six games impinge on our season? Especially when those six games are finished by early December.
It was not a straight knockout. The ties are two-legged, that will obviously give an advantage to the better teams anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsMe
That's what I meant, the point is though away goals are a real problem in two legged affairs.Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
A bad result at home, 3-2 for example can't be very hard to recover from, Benfica showed that against us in 92, when we got done at home with away goals pretty much finishing us off (after a draw in the 1st leg), likewise Chelsea in the semi.
The group stages are p*ss easy IMO.
Problem with that it would either be the teams that wins the league who wins the cup or like Chelsea this season then how would it be decided.Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsMe
I think the Fa cup winners should get in the CL gut the 4th place thing. Don't think the CC winner should get in the CL spot.
I can see why Uefa may not want that. Can you immagine if A team like Cardiff or Barnsley or even Stoke one the cup. It would be bad for the comp in their eyes.
If you think that 3/4 get a reward for loosing then does that not apply to 2nd place too?
Too many games though, I know what you mean id you loose 1 game you can rely on 5 others but it takes a lot out of you. and was even worse when the had 3 group stages.Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsMe
We could easily get a group of ourselves, Shakhtar Donetsk, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund next season. If you're lucky in the draw, it can be 'piss easy' but other times, you can get a nightmare group. Just ask Citeh.Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsMe
Away goals are a danger but they're a danger for the inferior side in each tie too. The rallying against the Champions League for me is missing the point slightly - we get the benefit of being able to qualify for the competition from a position of third and fourth because English sides have been able to do well year-on-year.
And why is that? The big smoking gun would be the money Premier League teams get from the gravy train competiton we're involved in for 38 games a season.
If a CL place was offered I don't think you'd see too many teams like Cardiff winning the cup, to be honest the teams who win the FA Cup tend to be pretty good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie the Gooner
The CC shouldn't get a CL place I agree, I think 1st the cup winners and then maybe the winners of a playoff between 2nd-5th maybe should get a 3rd place if we had to let 3 teams in.
You'd have more of a sense of achievement, a bit like the playoff finals we have now.
While I'll always revel in Sp*rs' misfortune, its difficult not to sympathise with their predicament. They are, like us, suffering because of a steep playing field where success correlates simply with how much money you have. CL football was so important to them because of the ability to attract top talent and trying to avoid your best players leaving, just like us. They were having their most successful ever season, and then imploded - just like we tend to do...
...but in a specific, rather than a general way its stretching a point to say Chelsea bought that trophy on Saturday. They won firstly through sheer good luck, secondly through mental strength, and thirdly through pragmatic Mourinho-style tactics, the second and third of which are the main problems with Wenger's teams. So while the Chelsea win, and its ramifications for more or less ensuring that they will remain a stronger club than our's for the forseeable future - sickens me, it also turns an uncomfortable mirror on our own team.
We had as tough group this year. Dortmund absolutely battered us 1-1 but them we killed them in our back yard didn't we? Should be interesting to see how Dortmund get on next year. They don't particularly seem dependent on anyone and they will retain their stars over the summer minus kagawa. Seem to be everyone's second favourite.
True but that's very rare, being a seed it means you tend to avoid the harder teams. Away goals are a danger for both teams yes, but what a 2 legged tie doesn't allow is complacency, if you have a bad game and get done by a smaller team it's hard to recover from.Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
You have a point, but I just don't like the idea of 3rd/4th getting in, would rather see the winner of a playoff with a cup at the end like the playoff's in lower divisions and the cup winner going into the CL.
Well thats true and im sure as much as Chavs fans are happy it would have been better if they won it as EPL Champs like the Mancs did.Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsMe
:gp: you hit the nail on the head tbh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Berg Kamping
Maybe it was Chavs Destiny to win the thing as they keep saying.