Gap between Premier League and Championship

[LBA_Blade]

The biggest problem is the separate entities that we have in England (and Wales) in terms of The FA, The Premier League and EFL. Sport in this country has been built on the pitfalls of relegation and promotion. There will always be the arguments of who "deserves" to play where based on different factors usually linked to jealously.

If it was possible (never in a million years due to the above) I would like to really mix things up including the scraping of both the FA & League Cup and League Trophy. The season would last nearly 2 years with a mid season break- so it would be Aug 2025-May 2027
Starting with the current top 92 teams in the league and adding the top 4 of the National league to create the "top 96". These would then be divided into "rival leagues" 6 divisions of 16 teams based on teams locality, if you were looking at ours it be likes of Us, Wednesday, Rotherham, Donny, Huddersfield, Leeds, Harrogate etc. You play each other home and away, to finalise your standings, which concludes your Aug 2025-2026. This also allows international breaks, and if needed time to catch up on missed rounds due to weather etc.

Then the leagues then break up into same positional placed leagues by 4, so top 4 of each 6 leagues to create 1 division of 16, next 4 (5th-8th) of each to create another division etc, these play out to finalise the Aug 2026-May 2027. It would mean you would have 1 year of a division of derbies week in week out and then a league of what should be 16 teams throughout the country that are similar in terms of rankings at that time and still having 3 derby fixtures too from your "rival league".

 

[dexter101]

I dont think teams ' worked us out ' I just thought wilder became less adventurous and started playing more direct and scrapping for points and it worked for a while but we became very predictable and easy to contain and have stayed that way ever since

take your point. I don't have the best memory.

My main point was more that in order to crack the PL, it doesn't seem like there many options other than spend a huge amount or deploy a secret squad of unknown but high quality players from various leagues around the world in order to take the teams by surprise!

 

[reedy63]

I think leeds burnley, and sunderland will come straight back down. The only way is money; you need to have owners or a board of directors with very deep pockets. The TV money is not enough, you can't expect supporters to pay £100 per game. So you need £300m to buy players good enough to keep you up, even that amount of money won't keep you in the Premier League, it's not guaranteed. So the gap between the Premier League and Championship will get a lot wider. I don't think this is good for the game. What's the point of going up, then getting relegated? The 17 clubs that stay up are not bothered about the EFL.

 

[dsr-burnley]

I think leeds burnley, and sunderland will come straight back down. The only way is money; you need to have owners or a board of directors with very deep pockets. The TV money is not enough, you can't expect supporters to pay £100 per game. So you need £300m to buy players good enough to keep you up, even that amount of money won't keep you in the Premier League, it's not guaranteed. So the gap between the Premier League and Championship will get a lot wider. I don't think this is good for the game. What's the point of going up, then getting relegated? The 17 clubs that stay up are not bothered about the EFL.

Especially as the depth of Burnley's owners' pockets is so deep because they want to ensure that money they have taken out of the club, never has to be put back in. We're £20m per year down because we have to pay interest to loan sharks, on loans that we only need because the owners have taken out a £100m interest free "loan".

Burnley have already spent £40m on making permanent signings of 4 loan players, Edwards, Antony, Humphries, and Flemming. I can't imagine there will be that much left in piggy bank for new players. And if they go down the route of selling Trafford and Esteve to raise funds, then relegation is even more certain.