Gap between Premier League and Championship

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At the mo
It’s a bit like the first year footie team at comp playing the 6th formers
 
Having watched another round of games on MOTD, it's increasingly obvious that teams who win games almost always have players who show a significant level of skill, composure and decision making, experience, determination and strength.

Skilful players - whether a defender makes a perfectly-timed tackle, or midfielder skips through challenges to create a chance for a forward, or a striker who takes not just easy chances, but difficult ones too. The teams down the bottom lack defenders with sufficient skill to compete against skilful midfielders and attackers. They lack midfielders who can successfully run at defences and forwards who can take chances when they come along.

Composure and decision making - how many times do we see defenders from bottom teams give up possession far too easily? It could be argued they don't have the skill to do what they're trying to do, whether it's trying to control the ball in the first place, trying to dribble out, or finding a team mate with a simple pass, but composure is also needed. So many players from teams who will struggle in the Prem cannot handle the pressure of being pressed, or sometimes even approached slowly! Composure doesn't necessarily mean creating a piece of magic under pressure to clear the decks when defending, it means having the calmness to asses the situation and act accordingly. That might be to take the ball away from the attacker, it might be a first time pass back to the keeper, it might be to put it into row Z, but the correct choice under pressure needs to be made, and all too often isn't. When attacking, picking out the right pass, taking the shot early...there's loads of examples of where composure is lacking in struggling teams.

Experience - established teams have established Prem players. Rarely do Champ and lower league players take to it instantly. It's faster, stronger and much more difficult to adapt for players not to used to the pace of the game and the level of players they will face.

Determination and strength - Struggling teams get 'bullied' off the ball. Sometimes possession is lost because of a lack of skill, a lack of composure, making the wrong decision, but often players are just knocked of the ball. It honestly seems like it's men against boys, dads v lads, such is the gap. Every week we see big, powerful, athletic, strong skilful players rob the game of it's competitiveness. They have a handicap system in horse racing to try and level things up, but no such thing exists in football, and boty does it show.

Where does this leave us?
In need of too many unaffordable replacements who have the skill, composure, decision making, experience, determination and strength, unless... unless Hecky or someone else can work miracles with our current squad.
I do believe that if we went down, and here's about the only positive having such a gap, that we will have no problem with this squad returning quickly, but to what?!
 
Formula now seems to be you need outfield , 7 monster athletes, 2 skill players, 1 quality striker in the first eleven
Mcatee , Archer , would work if we had the other 8, Trusty does have potential though, as does Anel maybe with right players around him. I suppose problem is that we don't have many finished articles ..
If top sides had their signings not performing they just loan them out and buy another.Our signings have to work every time as we can't afford to do that, so it ain't always about wrong signings , it's we can keep buying until one works like others can and at another level of player in addition
 
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Mattblade68 said:
Formula now seems to be you need outfield , 7 monster athletes, 2 skill players, 1 quality I many striker in the first eleven
Mcatee , Archer , would work if we had the other 8, Trusty does have potential though, as does Anel maybe with right players around him. I suppose problem is that we don't have many finished articles ..
If top sides had their signings not performing they just loan them out and buy another.Our signings have to work every time as we can't afford to do that, so it ain't always about wrong signings , it's we can keep buying until one works like others can and at another level of player in addition
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I meant we CANT keep buying
 
Disco_Blade said:
I don’t think last years promoted teams are comparable though.

Fulham, location and money.
Bournemouth, money, money, money (just hide it well)
Forest, shit fivers and buy buy buy

All three were in a MUCH better position than the three that came up this year.

The gap is getting bigger, I feel. Only have to look at the top of the Championship and apart from Leicester, it’s hardly terrifying and think with this team we’d be straight back up again.

Until we have the cash and/or ambition to do better, we’ll just keep yo yo’ing for a few years at best.

But considering the dross we had for years and years, in the Champ/League 1 etc…I’ll happily take it and enjoy the ride 😂
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With this team you think we'd be straight back up again?The way this current team are performing,getting out would not be up.Some of the newer players have not even played Championship football,that's how desperate this season is.
 
blade too long said:
the prem is 3 leagues in one 7 capable of spending billions 6 wannabes trying to catch up and 7 hard working sides picking up crumbs
3 promoted stayed up last season so its possible to cling on but every year the rich get richer
wish theyd buggar off to a euro league so the competition improves
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The mega wealthy cabal at the top is all that matters. The rest are only there to make up the numbers because the top clubs need other teams to play against. I can’t see the point of being in a league that we can never be competitive in. Finishing 17th is defined as success? Fuck that.
 
I'm not sure how convinced I am by this argument that the gap in quality between divisions has increased.
Last season all the promoted teams stopped up relatively easily.
I think it's more just that this time around we are shit.
 
Honestly think the gap is getting worse over past few seasons.

Even the mid-table teams can now bring on subs who are regular international and worth £10M - £20M each. Our subs are generally youth team players who haven't yet made the jump to men's football.

Only thing to keep positive, is that Luton are terrible, wolves are struggling, and Bournemouth going in the wrong direction!

Utb!
 
I was just going to post a thread about this, the gap is now huge.

Leicester got relegated last year, if they couldn't stay up what chance do any of the promoted clubs have?

With that said, we should be well ahead of Luton having finished higher than them in the championship and with more time to prepare, that's the benchmark for me as well as getting over 11 points.
 
FMBlade1 said:
I was just going to post a thread about this, the gap is now huge.

Leicester got relegated last year, if they couldn't stay up what chance do any of the promoted clubs have?

With that said, we should be well ahead of Luton having finished higher than them in the championship and with more time to prepare, that's the benchmark for me as well as getting over 11 points.
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You answer your own question? Last year all 3 promoted teams stayed up with one finishing as high as 10th
 
Heard hasslebank say on Saturday night, if you go up to the prem you need to buy prem players to have a chance to stay up. We haven't ours at best are championship and unknown foreign players because we have tried to do it on the cheap. When Saudi are paying big money for players not used by long standing prem clubs they can spend that on my bigger players leaving promoted clubs way behind. It's a joke when the subs are worth more than our club. We will only survive up there if we get a billionaire and that's not happening anytime soon. There will be flukes that stay up for a season but the gap is becoming too big between the divisions
 

chesblade said:
Heard hasslebank say on Saturday night, if you go up to the prem you need to buy prem players to have a chance to stay up. We haven't ours at best are championship and unknown foreign players because we have tried to do it on the cheap. When Saudi are paying big money for players not used by long standing prem clubs they can spend that on my bigger players leaving promoted clubs way behind. It's a joke when the subs are worth more than our club. We will only survive up there if we get a billionaire and that's not happening anytime soon. There will be flukes that stay up for a season but the gap is becoming too big between the divisions
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I think the difference in standard is slightly misleading.

The real reason for the gap and some did mention it at the time is the new 5 subs from a bench of 7 subs rule.
Promoted clubs tend to have a highly competitive first 11 but the standard severely drops when you go through the squad.
Also injuries massively affect newly promoted clubs.

The gap is more related to the back up squad players,
Established PL teams even have reserve players and sometimes 3rd choice players who are top level PL standard players.

I've given (what I believe is valid) criticism towards Hecky but he must feel so depressed on the 70 minute mark of every match.
The opposition are able to make mass changes, taking off tired players, replacing them with fresh similar standard top PL players.

Where as we're taking off players and replacing them with development players (like Traore) who aren't even Championship standard.

So we're always at a massive disadvantage during the last 20 minutes of every match.
Also the new rule creating additional extra times......makes this situation worse.

The PL clubs are quite clever...they want to protect their own interests and almost create a closed shop.
So they come up with ideas to give their clubs a big advantage.
Regards the Prince, think he's done OK regards producing a first 11, but he never legislated for a massive injury list
and as you delve into our squad the back up players are really lacking quality.
 
Sheffsteel said:
I think the difference in standard is slightly misleading.

The real reason for the gap and some did mention it at the time is the new 5 subs from a bench of 7 subs rule.
Promoted clubs tend to have a highly competitive first 11 but the standard severely drops when you go through the squad.
Also injuries massively affect newly promoted clubs.

The gap is more related to the back up squad players,
Established PL teams even have reserve players and sometimes 3rd choice players who are top level PL standard players.

I've given (what I believe is valid) criticism towards Hecky but he must feel so depressed on the 70 minute mark of every match.
The opposition are able to make mass changes, taking off tired players, replacing them with fresh similar standard top PL players.

Where as we're taking off players and replacing them with development players (like Traore) who aren't even Championship standard.

So we're always at a massive disadvantage during the last 20 minutes of every match.
Also the new rule creating additional extra times......makes this situation worse.

The PL clubs are quite clever...they want to protect their own interests and almost create a closed shop.
So they come up with ideas to give their clubs a big advantage.
Regards the Prince, think he's done OK regards producing a first 11, but he never legislated for a massive injury list
and as you delve into our squad the back up players are really lacking quality.
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Fully agree. Seals our fate somewhat.
 
Sheffsteel said:
I think the difference in standard is slightly misleading.

The real reason for the gap and some did mention it at the time is the new 5 subs from a bench of 7 subs rule.
Promoted clubs tend to have a highly competitive first 11 but the standard severely drops when you go through the squad.
Also injuries massively affect newly promoted clubs.

The gap is more related to the back up squad players,
Established PL teams even have reserve players and sometimes 3rd choice players who are top level PL standard players.

I've given (what I believe is valid) criticism towards Hecky but he must feel so depressed on the 70 minute mark of every match.
The opposition are able to make mass changes, taking off tired players, replacing them with fresh similar standard top PL players.

Where as we're taking off players and replacing them with development players (like Traore) who aren't even Championship standard.

So we're always at a massive disadvantage during the last 20 minutes of every match.
Also the new rule creating additional extra times......makes this situation worse.

The PL clubs are quite clever...they want to protect their own interests and almost create a closed shop.
So they come up with ideas to give their clubs a big advantage.
Regards the Prince, think he's done OK regards producing a first 11, but he never legislated for a massive injury list
and as you delve into our squad the back up players are really lacking quality.
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Yep 100% vaild- only thing is in addition our starting 11 is not highly competitive.

Barring Luton - I'd say 10 of our 11 don't start in any other Prem team.

The ask for Hecky is plain ridiculous- it's just not his fault-

Pages & pages on here about

1- His lack of plan B
2- No fight in the team
3- Slow to make changes
4- Poor substitutions

It's all bollox - the grim reality is the team is not good enough. He and his team are fine- but it's impossible task.

Stick with Hecky until 10 matches in the champ next year.
 
coolasanidiot said:
Yep 100% vaild- only thing is in addition our starting 11 is not highly competitive.

Barring Luton - I'd say 10 of our 11 don't start in any other Prem team.

The ask for Hecky is plain ridiculous- it's just not his fault-

Pages & pages on here about

1- His lack of plan B
2- No fight in the team
3- Slow to make changes
4- Poor substitutions

It's all bollox - the grim reality is the team is not good enough. He and his team are fine- but it's impossible task.

Stick with Hecky until 10 matches in the champ next year.
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The morale of the team will be on its knees by then, and we continue to slip down the leagues.
 
JayGreen17 said:
The morale of the team will be on its knees by then, and we continue to slip down the leagues.
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I agree but the point I am making- is that is not going to change with a new manager- if you were looking at a team that was massively underperforming- then an option to change would be valid to freshen things up- impose different structures blah blah blah.

But with these players a change in management is going to achieve exactly nowt and cost a lot of money to do so.

Saturday night- for 60 minutes we were competing- McB gets injured- we having zero back up- thats not on Hecky - its the mire we are in.
 
coolasanidiot said:
I agree but the point I am making- is that is not going to change with a new manager- if you were looking at a team that was massively underperforming- then an option to change would be valid to freshen things up- impose different structures blah blah blah.

But with these players a change in management is going to achieve exactly nowt and cost a lot of money to do so.

Saturday night- for 60 minutes we were competing- McB gets injured- we having zero back up- thats not on Hecky - its the mire we are in.
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We are a solid championship side and weren’t always all that convincing last season I don’t think but a solid defence got us through how many 1-0 wins plus some excellent loans performing for us in Mcatee and Doyle (wish we could have got him back, before Wolves got in) and Ndiaye performing his magic. The problem in Prem is that most teams have all these ingredients already and then some
 
We got promoted with a 1 man team last season with Illiman.

We got promoted under Wilder with a great team spirit.

That’s the difference for us.
 
coolasanidiot said:
I agree but the point I am making- is that is not going to change with a new manager- if you were looking at a team that was massively underperforming- then an option to change would be valid to freshen things up- impose different structures blah blah blah.

But with these players a change in management is going to achieve exactly nowt and cost a lot of money to do so.

Saturday night- for 60 minutes we were competing- McB gets injured- we having zero back up- thats not on Hecky - its the mire we are in.
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Exactly this. Piggies aren’t good enough to compete in the championship, and changing their manager is widely acknowledged on here to be sure to achieve very little. Same goes for us. I suspect we’ll get a few wins across the season but the gulf in class and the strength in depth of other teams is frightening.
 
To much time on my hands and wondering if the data actually supported the theory that the gap between Championship and Premier League is getting bigger.

If this was the case you would expect all 3 promoted teams to come tumbling back down on a regular basis, in fact that has only happened once in 97/98 Barnsley, Bolton and Palace.

So if this is not the case then you would expect the 4 bottom clubs to get less points every year or the gap between the top 4 and the bottom 4 to get bigger.

The black bar shows the points for the top 4 teams and the red bar shows the points for the bottom 4 teams every year since the EPL dropped to 20 teams.

chart2.png

Conclusion, the trend lines show a slight increase in points for the top 4 and a slight decrease for bottom 4 but its not significant and not linier, make of it what you will.
 
Last seasons championship was widely regarded by many people to be the worse championship since it took up that format looking at the premiership table as it stands today who can argue
 
The worrying thing although we might not have to worry about it next year is the gulf in class between the top half and bottom half of the Championship too. We really need a good preseason if relegated with a plan just so we can float around the playoffs. We can't afford to have a double drop.
 

SRA76 said:
Last seasons championship was widely regarded by many people to be the worse championship since it took up that format looking at the premiership table as it stands today who can argue
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In 97/98, the only EPL season where all 3 promoted teams were relegated the bottom 3 teams ended up with 108 points, Bolton 40, Barnsley 35 and Palace 33.

After 10 games they had acquired 25 points Bolton 8, Barnsley 6 and Palace 11.

This season after 10 games, the promoted teams make up the bottom 3 places and have acquired 10 points.

Not taking into account requirement as all three teams said they were happy with their transfer business, that’s reasonable evidence to show just how shit last year’s Championship was.
 
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