Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 31,093
Am I alone in giving matches like Spurs v Man Utd a miss when a year or two ago I would have watched them?
The players of "The Big 4" almost without exception fall into one or more categories of Mercenary / Cheat / Twat / Chav and there is very little to endear the casual viewer to any particular one of those 4 sides.
This week Benitez says Everton are a little club, while Spurs lose to Arsenal reserves.
It is almost 40 years since Newcastle have won any sort of trophy, 30 years for Man City, 1 trophy in 16 years for Spurs and not much more for Villa. All proud clubs rendered impotent by simply missing the Premiership gravy train leaving the station.
All of the teams that come up from the Championship struggle and go back down, and if they don't in Year 1 they do in Year 2.
The rest of them - Boro, Fulham, Blackburn, Bolton are simply there to make up the numbers.
The League Cup Final is another Arsenal v Chelsea v Man Utd v Liverpool love-in, while the best the armchair punter can hope for is a plucky outsider a la Millwall / West Ham / Southampton makes the FA Cup Final for a frisson of interest.
People seem opposed to the idea of Celtic and Rangers coming into the Prem, but apart from that I fail to see how the competition can hope to sustain interest over time with such predictability.
And what does it all mean anyway, when most of the players are foreign, no loyalty exists except from the fans, grounds have been stripped of atmosphere and traditional derby rivalries are trivialised by mollycoddled players as "just another game"?
The players of "The Big 4" almost without exception fall into one or more categories of Mercenary / Cheat / Twat / Chav and there is very little to endear the casual viewer to any particular one of those 4 sides.
This week Benitez says Everton are a little club, while Spurs lose to Arsenal reserves.
It is almost 40 years since Newcastle have won any sort of trophy, 30 years for Man City, 1 trophy in 16 years for Spurs and not much more for Villa. All proud clubs rendered impotent by simply missing the Premiership gravy train leaving the station.
All of the teams that come up from the Championship struggle and go back down, and if they don't in Year 1 they do in Year 2.
The rest of them - Boro, Fulham, Blackburn, Bolton are simply there to make up the numbers.
The League Cup Final is another Arsenal v Chelsea v Man Utd v Liverpool love-in, while the best the armchair punter can hope for is a plucky outsider a la Millwall / West Ham / Southampton makes the FA Cup Final for a frisson of interest.
People seem opposed to the idea of Celtic and Rangers coming into the Prem, but apart from that I fail to see how the competition can hope to sustain interest over time with such predictability.
And what does it all mean anyway, when most of the players are foreign, no loyalty exists except from the fans, grounds have been stripped of atmosphere and traditional derby rivalries are trivialised by mollycoddled players as "just another game"?
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