Foxy82
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England
Keeping the ladder pulled up, as intended!
Article from The I Paper:
In among the madness of this summer’s transfer window, two transfer deals stood out like a sore thumb this week.
First, Odysseas Vlachodimos, who at a jaw-dropping £20m is the 20th most expensive goalkeeper signing of all time, departed Newcastle United for a season-long loan at La Liga club Sevilla.
Bought from Nottingham Forest 12 months ago as a piece of the PSR jigsaw that saw the Magpies escape a big points deduction, he leaves with just 90 minutes of football at Newcastle – one Carabao Cup appearance – under his belt.
The second has seen Jacob Ramsey touch down at a private terminal at Newcastle airport to complete a £39m move from Aston Villa, a deal expedited by the financial fair play sword of Damocles that is hanging over the Midlands club.
To recap: Newcastle have finished fourth, seventh and fifth in the last three seasons. For Aston Villa it is seventh, fourth and sixth.
Both jumped from lower mid-table to the Champions League and they did it the right way: great recruitment and – crucially – outstanding coaching from managers that the so-called elite either cast aside or didn’t trust enough to give an opportunity.
This is, we were always told, how football clubs should be run. Proper processes, ambition, happy fans.
So what is their reward? In a summer of unprecedented spending by the established order, Villa – not by design or by financial hardship – find themselves getting weaker.
Newcastle, meanwhile, are playing catch-up in the transfer market while their best player Alexander Isak is perhaps terminally unsettled by Liverpool because his ambitions have outstripped the project he was sold.
It is PSR playing out exactly as the critics of the rules said it would: strivers hamstrung while the so-called biggest clubs get the opportunity to atone for expensive mistakes because, well, they’re the biggest.
Chelsea – no Champions League football for two seasons – have spent more than £240m. Manchester United, fresh off the worst season in recent memory, now top £200m and are reportedly eyeing a £100m move for Carlos Baleba.
United’s recent recruitment record has been dreadful but thanks to a system that values revenue above sporting achievement, the empire gets to strike back.
It’s difficult not to look at the summer so far and get a bit of that sinking feeling. From Newcastle fans bouncing at Wembley to disbelieving Crystal Palace fans after their FA Cup glory, there was air of romance to the second half of last season. But cold, hard transfer logic has made those moments feel fleeting.
Last term’s surprise packages Brentford and Bournemouth have been ransacked by bigger clubs, leaving some of the smartest minds in the game to redouble their efforts to merely tread water in the top flight.
Palace should be basking in the afterglow of their greatest ever campaign: instead they could lose Marc Guehi to Liverpool and are fretting Oliver Glasner might follow him out of the door.
This is football’s food chain, of course, and was happening way before PSR was put in place. But what makes it worse now is that these rules are whipping away even the possibility that clubs can one day compete on a level footing.
In that sense PSR is working this summer. Newcastle and Villa – who meet on Saturday – know that getting one of those four, potentially five Champions League spots will be more difficult this season than it was last.
“The challenges teams face with those restrictions – as we know better than any – is selling players you don’t want to sell, not being able to recruit players you’d like to to freshen up the squad,” Eddie Howe said on Friday. “It’s not going to go away for us.”
“Know your place” is the comment that jars the most when you see online jousts between supporters of Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle this close season.
But the irony here is that a league where we start every campaign knowing the top clubs cannot be caught is corrosive to the Premier League.
What really sells is jeopardy and possibility. Why do you think Tom Brady and Ryan Reynolds have jumped on the EFL bandwagon? Because there’s supposed to be a route to the top.
Instead, as Newcastle and Villa are finding out, it feels like we are constructing football’s equivalent of a glass ceiling.
Article from The I Paper:
In among the madness of this summer’s transfer window, two transfer deals stood out like a sore thumb this week.
First, Odysseas Vlachodimos, who at a jaw-dropping £20m is the 20th most expensive goalkeeper signing of all time, departed Newcastle United for a season-long loan at La Liga club Sevilla.
Bought from Nottingham Forest 12 months ago as a piece of the PSR jigsaw that saw the Magpies escape a big points deduction, he leaves with just 90 minutes of football at Newcastle – one Carabao Cup appearance – under his belt.
The second has seen Jacob Ramsey touch down at a private terminal at Newcastle airport to complete a £39m move from Aston Villa, a deal expedited by the financial fair play sword of Damocles that is hanging over the Midlands club.
To recap: Newcastle have finished fourth, seventh and fifth in the last three seasons. For Aston Villa it is seventh, fourth and sixth.
Both jumped from lower mid-table to the Champions League and they did it the right way: great recruitment and – crucially – outstanding coaching from managers that the so-called elite either cast aside or didn’t trust enough to give an opportunity.
This is, we were always told, how football clubs should be run. Proper processes, ambition, happy fans.
So what is their reward? In a summer of unprecedented spending by the established order, Villa – not by design or by financial hardship – find themselves getting weaker.
Newcastle, meanwhile, are playing catch-up in the transfer market while their best player Alexander Isak is perhaps terminally unsettled by Liverpool because his ambitions have outstripped the project he was sold.
It is PSR playing out exactly as the critics of the rules said it would: strivers hamstrung while the so-called biggest clubs get the opportunity to atone for expensive mistakes because, well, they’re the biggest.
Chelsea – no Champions League football for two seasons – have spent more than £240m. Manchester United, fresh off the worst season in recent memory, now top £200m and are reportedly eyeing a £100m move for Carlos Baleba.
United’s recent recruitment record has been dreadful but thanks to a system that values revenue above sporting achievement, the empire gets to strike back.
It’s difficult not to look at the summer so far and get a bit of that sinking feeling. From Newcastle fans bouncing at Wembley to disbelieving Crystal Palace fans after their FA Cup glory, there was air of romance to the second half of last season. But cold, hard transfer logic has made those moments feel fleeting.
Last term’s surprise packages Brentford and Bournemouth have been ransacked by bigger clubs, leaving some of the smartest minds in the game to redouble their efforts to merely tread water in the top flight.
Palace should be basking in the afterglow of their greatest ever campaign: instead they could lose Marc Guehi to Liverpool and are fretting Oliver Glasner might follow him out of the door.
This is football’s food chain, of course, and was happening way before PSR was put in place. But what makes it worse now is that these rules are whipping away even the possibility that clubs can one day compete on a level footing.
In that sense PSR is working this summer. Newcastle and Villa – who meet on Saturday – know that getting one of those four, potentially five Champions League spots will be more difficult this season than it was last.
“The challenges teams face with those restrictions – as we know better than any – is selling players you don’t want to sell, not being able to recruit players you’d like to to freshen up the squad,” Eddie Howe said on Friday. “It’s not going to go away for us.”
“Know your place” is the comment that jars the most when you see online jousts between supporters of Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle this close season.
But the irony here is that a league where we start every campaign knowing the top clubs cannot be caught is corrosive to the Premier League.
What really sells is jeopardy and possibility. Why do you think Tom Brady and Ryan Reynolds have jumped on the EFL bandwagon? Because there’s supposed to be a route to the top.
Instead, as Newcastle and Villa are finding out, it feels like we are constructing football’s equivalent of a glass ceiling.