Guardian report on our terrible season...

[Le Cynique]

Good metaphors are like good jokes - they shouldn't require too much explanation.

I’d argue that it didn’t, at least for me, and the fact that you’re the only person who picked up on it suggests that perhaps it didn’t for others either. Good writing shouldn’t have to be dumbed down.

 

[Sean Thornton]

All that glitters isn't gold - we know that more than anyone. The same can be said for most of Europe's top leagues where at most there are only two or three that can realistically win it. You get the odd moment like Leicester had and Bayer Leverkusen did this year but even they have decent pedigree in fairly recent history. Them winning it would be akin to Spurs winning the league here - a bit of a shock but not totally beyond the realms of possibility with a bit of luck.

Sky like to peddle the notion that the Premier League is "the most exciting league in the world".

Is it?
Really?

There are exciting moments and ones that live long in the memory but when it comes down to it, we know roughly where everyone's going to finish before it starts. If we rock up to the Etihad, there's only one winner. The excitement is that we only conceded 2.

The Championship is a genuinely exciting league where it's a long slog and anyone who does go up certainly knows they've worked for it and you can get beat or give a good hiding to anybody.

It's the trepidation of knowing that even shit teams on the face of it like Fulham, Palace, Wolves, Everton and the likes still have financial power and players that Championship clubs could only dream of having.

We weren't especially excited about being promoted last time round and if we went up again next season, it'd just be a case of "here we go again" as we succumb to another Sunderland/Norwich style surrender, trying to swing our way across the growing void on our red and white, B&M washing line.

Pedantry Corner

In the spirit of St George and the Bard on this day, it’s “glisters”

Every days a school day. (With cheese pie and lumpy mash )

 

[Numpty's Dusty Ruts.]

This is the tragic future for the PL The Brand. Nailed it.

“You'll see the Premier League abolish promotion and relegation and become a franchise to keep out sides that'll not add anything to the brand, and less and less money will filter down to the grassroots”.

And I was thinking the weather is quite depressing too.

 

[Deaneandagana]

That is a great article.

The biggest learning I've taken from this season is how far removed the big clubs are nowadays from the likes of us nowadays (and similar sized clubs to us like the Sunderlands, Derby Countys and Middlesbroughs of this world.

The Prince hasn't got the money to invest in the club, like Tony Bloom has invested in Brighton, like Shahzad Khan has invested in Fulham, like Bill Foley has invested in Bournemouth, like John Textor has invested in Crystal Palace and like Matthew Benham has invested in Brentford. This season we are clearing debts and living to our means. Hence the lack of transfer money and wages being invested in the squad, which in term has led to a squad that is about as competitive of a clapped out Nissan Micra lining up on the starting grid at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

I've been to most of the away games this season. Generally they have been a mis-match, a team of honest (and in some cases less than honest) triers up against teams full of £40-£50m players, and when they get tired they get replaced my more of the same. Go to Arsenal or Tottenham and you won't be surrounded by North Londoners, you'll be surrounded by tourists from the Far-East, the US, and whoever is willing to stump up extortionate amounts for match tickets, and they'll all be decked out in hundreds pounds worth of polyester finery acquired on the trip in the club shop. The big six are beginning to bring in dynamic pricing for the big games too. At the big grounds I feel more and more like I don't belong. I've been a home and away Blade for the last 30 years. I'm a working bloke who works hard and going to the match is my ritual, yet going to these big games, apart from my fellow travelling Blades these aren't my people any more.

The game is slowly but surely shifting even further towards the big clubs, the billionaire investors and the nation state clubs. They want the product to become global, and now the Saudi oil money is getting involved, the Premier League is progessing further down the down track towards becoming a global entertainment corporation, whose purpose is to satisfy the stakeholders of the streaming companies, the investors and the television companies, and with it the game of football is less of a meritocracy, and the rewards of sporting excellent is secondary to the rewards and glory than is being bought by investing billions.

So this is where we are at. There isn't any light at the end of the tunnel. A football regulator won't change things, it'll just push the haves further away from the have nots. The culture is changing even more. Having already bought the game of golf, the Saudi Arabian public investment fund is shifting towards football. In the next few years you'll see regular Premier League games being played in New York, Qatar, and Riyadh. You'll see a World Club Championship where the games are played all across the world, and to accomodate this the Premier League will reduce in size. You'll see the Premier League abolish promotion and relegation and become a franchise to keep out sides that'll not add anything to the brand, and less and less money will filter down to the grassroots.

Well said Sir, excellent post.
The game is well & truly f@cked

 

[Mag-83]

In the Bramall Lane Upper Tier there have been a few parties of American fans on separate occasions. These tourists are not restricted to the bigger clubs in the PL. I have overheard belters such as “ooohh man is that Indian food in a pie crust?” (Balti pie). “Where is the rest room?”

 

[JohnDenver]

I’d argue that it didn’t, at least for me, and the fact that you’re the only person who picked up on it suggests that perhaps it didn’t for others either. Good writing shouldn’t have to be dumbed down.

Oof!

 

[Klaatu Barada Nikto]

I’d argue that it didn’t, at least for me, and the fact that you’re the only person who picked up on it suggests that perhaps it didn’t for others either. Good writing shouldn’t have to be dumbed down.

Well the fact is, he did explain it and his explanation of what it meant is different from yours. And I'd argue his explanation makes no sense at all. If no one else has picked it up, well, I'm used to operating at a higher plane

 

[metalblade]

Just have to say what a fantastic piece of journalism give the guy a medal. He says everything a lot of football fans know and what some are yet to learn (Ipswich maybe) the Premier League is not the be all and end all, golden ticket call it what you want it is a corrupt organisation where the rich get richer by pulling the ladder up so no one else can join them unless they have the wealth of a third world country behind them. I have lost interest in the pantomime and no I'm NOT renewing my Season Ticket.

 

[Guesty]

I’d argue that it didn’t, at least for me, and the fact that you’re the only person who picked up on it suggests that perhaps it didn’t for others either. Good writing shouldn’t have to be dumbed down.

I still don't think it quite works - the Rosetta Stone's value lies in it acting as translation, a cypher almost. It what way does Derby's terrible season help us to understand subsequent seasons? It doesn't, it's just a benchmark to be compared against.

 

[lepton blade]

I personally like the analogy of us being in an abusive relationship. That’s exactly how it has been, derided and ridiculed and routinely humiliated. I can’t wait for the misery to end if I’m honest.
Roll on Preston North End away next year where they give you the full away end allocation of about 6k. EPL can go to hell.

 

[Charlieblade]

The make up of a Super League is questionable at best.

Top six from EPL? Top two or three from Spain, France, Germany and Italy? A handful of Scandinavian clubs. Does that make 20 teams, the same as EPL now.

It’s interesting that countries outside the EPL are usually dominated by a couple of top club sides. The team management at EPL clubs is bristling with managers from outside the UK.

Remind me who are the to international sides of the past decade? Germany, Spain, France and Italy? Belgium might have done better if all their top players came from the same league.

The elite players all want to play in Europe’s top competition, so they all gravitate to top 20 sides in Europe!. Does anyone feel sorry for Harry Kane, who will probably finish top scorer for his club, but still be denied a league champions medal?

My major concern is that my lads should have the opportunity to pay prices suitable for working class supporters. History is unlikely to look kindly on them!

 

[Le Cynique]

I still don't think it quite works - the Rosetta Stone's value lies in it acting as translation, a cypher almost. It what way does Derby's terrible season help us to understand subsequent seasons? It doesn't, it's just a benchmark to be compared against.

Because it’s the ultimate in terrible seasons. Other poor campaigns can be understood through comparison to that. We’ve objectively had a dreadful season, and yet managed to overtake their record poor amount of points. It’s the archetype of the bad season. They’re the exemplar of an ill-prepared and underpowered team. Other teams have been bad, but they offer an example of what truly wretched is, and allow us to understand other examples more fully.

I don’t deny that their season is a benchmark, but for me it goes beyond that. It demonstrated that getting to the promised land of the Premier League didn’t necessarily come with the probability that you’d win a handful of games and stand a decent chance of staying up. It showed that it was bloody hard, and the impetus of winning promotion wouldn’t necessarily carry over into a respectable attempt at staying up. In some ways it was a bellwether of what would come as the disparity between the EPL and the EFL grew, but perhaps remarkably, there still hasn’t been a team perform quite as badly as they did, even with our two most recent seasons thrown into the mix, and the likes of Norwich stinking out the place too. Yes, we’re bad, but we’re not Derby County 2007/2008 bad.

In my opinion, anyway. I realise I might be talking bollocks

 

[Sean Thornton]

T

Because it’s the ultimate in terrible seasons. Other poor campaigns can be understood through comparison to that. We’ve objectively had a dreadful season, and yet managed to overtake their record poor amount of points. It’s the archetype of the bad season. They’re the exemplar of an ill-prepared and underpowered team. Other teams have been bad, but they offer an example of what truly wretched is, and allow us to understand other examples more fully.

I don’t deny that their season is a benchmark, but for me it goes beyond that. It demonstrated that getting to the promised land of the Premier League didn’t necessarily come with the probability that you’d win a handful of games and stand a decent chance of staying up. It showed that it was bloody hard, and the impetus of winning promotion wouldn’t necessarily carry over into a respectable attempt at staying up. In some ways it was a bellwether of what would come as the disparity between the EPL and the EFL grew, but perhaps remarkably, there still hasn’t been a team perform quite as badly as they did, even with our two most recent seasons thrown into the mix, and the likes of Norwich stinking out the place too. Yes, we’re bad, but we’re not Derby County 2007/2008 bad.

In my opinion, anyway. I realise I might be talking bollocks

Just be proud that you’ve been in a General Blades Chat thread that’s contained references to the Rosetta Stone, Shakespeare and some bollocks about Darwin…….

 

[Yellarbellyblade]

You would think that eventually The Premier League will eat itself but there is so much money involved it will take a long time. I think/hope we are at the beginning stages of it crumbling with the actual match going fans being unhappy with the "product" but it will continue to be this way until the tourist fans grow disinterested and maybe move on to a different league. The match going fans will continue to attend because the clubs mean so much to us but you hope that the league becomes so stale that the armchair ones start turning off. I really hope City win it again this season. Them totally dominating year after year will eventually cause people to turn off.

It’ll end up like F1 if it’s not careful where it’s so predictable only the real diehards still watch.

 

[Rodders]

If it were Man City or Liverpool they’d get the analogy right.

 

[Carlton Blade]

I read it and got exactly what he meant. The 'Rosetta Stone analogy' has taken on a meaning of it's own that doesn't exactly refer back to the item itself. It's 'something to be used as a commonly understood comparator' (at least to me)

 

[Klaatu Barada Nikto]

I read it and got exactly what he meant. The 'Rosetta Stone analogy' has taken on a meaning of it's own that doesn't exactly refer back to the item itself. It's 'something to be used as a commonly understood comparator' (at least to me)

The explanation he gives is that it's a foundational text, something that everything else is judged against. It's a benchmark.

Which only works if you don’t understand what the Rosetta Stone is, and you think it's some sort of seminal artistic work. It's not. It's a bit of stone, telling people what taxes they need to pay, in three languages

 

[Carlton Blade]

The explanation he gives is that it's a foundational text, something that everything else is judged against. It's a benchmark.

Which only works if you don’t understand what the Rosetta Stone is, and you think it's some sort of seminal artistic work.

I got what he meant pre-explanation. If anything his follow up clouds it

 

[Auld Reekie Blade]

Team is shit, league is shit, the season has been abysmal. Here we are arguing over an ancient stone we learnt about in primary school and its suitability as a metaphor!

FFS we argue over some bollox.

EDIT: forgot to say brilliant article, whether the metaphor works or not

 

[Maidenhead]

Spurs fans are probably the most despondent of all. It may seem insane to us but this is a genuinely big club who have no real chance of ever winning anything. Been doing the View Froms for years now and Premier League clubs are by far the most miserable and pessimistic. I recall Watford having a thread celebrating being relegated because they were so bored.

United are shit so obviously things are going to feel worse for us and we are an extreme case but the idea it's just a problem we have and not what the league has doesn't fit with comments from fans who are doing much better than us. Take a look at the Brentford fans a few weeks ago when some tourist went to their stadium dressed as a bee. Lots of "get us out of this league" stuff that developed into more serious conversations of how many of them would prefer to have stayed as a top Championship team.

I've said this before, but the Leeds fan and season ticket holder over the road from me said last summer "what I'd really like is for us to win the Championship, turn down promotion, and defend our title next year"

I think he's spot on for once in his life

 

[CyloCybin]

For the teams at the bottom of the food chain, England’s top flight has come to resemble an abusive relationship
Tue 23 Apr 2024 09.00 CEST


And you may ask yourself: how do I work this?
And you may ask yourself: what happened to that three-man midfield?
And you may tell yourself: this is not my beautiful club.
And you may tell yourself: this is not my beautiful league.
And you may find yourself: on 16 points.
And you may find yourself: getting triggered by assistant referees eating sandwiches.

Same as it ever was. Yes, it’s time for one of English football’s familiar springtime rituals: arguing whether [club bottom of the Premier League] is the “worst Premier League team of all time”. This season the torchlight has fallen on poor, brittle Sheffield United, who could be relegated as early as this weekend if results go against them. And if we have learned anything over the last eight months, it is that “results going against them” has been the one reliable defining note to United’s season, a rock to cling to in uncertain times.

Saturday’s 4-1 home defeat by Burnley felt like a watershed in this regard: not so much a downing of tools as a realisation that there are no tools, that the very existence of tools may have been a trick of the memory. Remarkably it was the first time Sheffield United had conceded four goals in a game all season; if, that is, you were prepared to disregard the 8-0, the 6-0 and the four 5-0s. The next goal they let in will bring them level with the infamous Derby County side of 2007-08, a team still regarded as the Rosetta Stone of Premier League awfulness, the foundational text by which all future pretenders are judged.

Even with the worst will in the world, Sheffield United are nowhere near as bad as that. Indeed for all their defensive infelicities, a curious preference for letting corners bounce first before clearing them – you know, just in case – they are actually a pretty capable side on the ball: full of craft and invention, quick flurries and late goals. Transpose this team into, say, the 1993-94 Carling Premiership and they would be greeted like some superior alien life form: relentlessly fit, technically on a different plane, probably winning the league by eight points. Ben Brereton Díaz would be a Golden Boot contender. Gustavo Hamer would be snapped up by a Serie A giant within months. Ivo Grbic, to be fair, might still struggle.

Not that this is really much consolation to fans of the 2023-24 iteration, still packing out Bramall Lane every week, steeling themselves for another afternoon of impotent rage. Doomed Premier League clubs seem to possess their own unique brew of misery, quite distinct from other forms of footballing bitterness: the condescension and the memes, the inevitability of that first goal, the faint souring of a once-fond dream.

Because this was supposed to be the promised land, right? From the foothills of the Championship, the Premier League looms like a kind of sporting Solaris: a tantalising glow in the sky made of weird textures and substances you long to touch. Riches beyond measure. The graveyard slot on Match of the Day. The world’s greatest agents beating a path to your sporting director. Mohamed Salah warming up on your turf, disrobing in your dressing room, wincing at your cold showers.

Of course when reality hits, it hits a little different to the brochures. Let’s take Nottingham Forest. How’s the promised land working out for them right now? Of all the recent promoted clubs, it is Forest who lived the Premier League dream most vicariously: loudly blazoning their ambitions, signing dozens of fun players, remaking themselves entirely. None of which, it turns out, seems to have made them remotely happy. While their fans fume at the latest tranche of ticket price rises, and Nuno Espírito Santo fumes at referees, official club statements fume at mysterious conspiracies, unspoken corruptions, a deep state that somehow includes Luton Town.

But then in the modern Premier League, it is not just the finances that are unevenly divided, but the happiness. Of course the Championship can also be soul-destroying in its own way. But it is at least more of a blank slate, where big teams can go down and small teams can still prosper. I know a few Ipswich fans and quite a lot of my time right now is being spent trying to convince them that this – right here – is the good bit. With a team they adore and a league they are tearing apart and a coach who is theirs and theirs alone.

View image in fullscreen
Sheffield United fans do their best in trying circumstances. Photograph: Lee Smith/Action Images/Reuters

Not the grim struggle that comes after: desperately begging big clubs for loan players, the sheer cliff face to 35 points, hours spent waiting for VAR decisions, 21% possession against Manchester City, elite tactical fouling. Getting bossed 2-0 at home and feeling weirdly grateful. Chris Sutton suddenly deciding to have an opinion about you. Getting rinsed by agents. Getting beaten by literal nation states. For the teams at the bottom of the food chain, the Premier League has come to resemble an abusive relationship.

In hindsight it is increasingly clear that the six Super League clubs should probably have been allowed to go: allowed to join their soiled, half-baked breakaway with its fantasy economics, leaving the rest of the pyramid in peace. The new regulator has the power to rebuild the finances of Championship football, to dissuade impatient owners from building entire business models out of debt and pipe dreams. In the meantime, perhaps fans need to stop conceiving of the Premier League as a form of salvation. For clubs like Sheffield United, grumbling and cursing, relegation need not feel like a trap door. Perhaps, in a certain light, it can even feel like an escape hatch to freedom.

Absolutely class article. So well written. Love the Grbic dig

 

[The Hobott]

It’ll end up like F1 if it’s not careful where it’s so predictable only the real diehards still watch.

That's not really how F1 is at the moment. It's on a massive worldwide popularity surge. Old timers like me are bored of the predictable winner as in any period of dominance but there is actually great racing if you just ignore Verstappen. The owners are an American media company who are happy as revenues are way up, the teams now make a profit and so many places want a GP event they are struggling to fit them in. Old fashioned European events in a field are being replaced by city "destination" events. Old diehards like me see the old sport vanishing and sort of wish it ill. Be interesting to see if it implodes but it's showing no signs.

 

[The Hobott]

Oh - decent article but that metaphor really stank the place out.

 

[Bookers Mullet]

The super league won't be a super league as such, it'll be something akin to the American football model where it's say 4 leagues (conferences) of teams where the conference teams play their fellow conference teams twice and then a handful of games against randomly ( or more accurately who is viewed the biggest draws) teams from other conferences

Then it'll be playoffs before the megabowl.

Welcome to the blue-moons Vs the super reds

 

[loveWalrusDaveTheBlade]

You would think that eventually The Premier League will eat itself but there is so much money involved it will take a long time. I think/hope we are at the beginning stages of it crumbling with the actual match going fans being unhappy with the "product" but it will continue to be this way until the tourist fans grow disinterested and maybe move on to a different league. The match going fans will continue to attend because the clubs mean so much to us but you hope that the league becomes so stale that the armchair ones start turning off. I really hope City win it again this season. Them totally dominating year after year will eventually cause people to turn off.

In my darker moments, I do worry that disenchantment of the fans in the grounds is a key part of the plan. I think that most future armchair viewers watch for the ‘skills’ in the game, and aren’t overly bothered by the atmosphere of the occasion. Covid showed us that the broadcasters can easily pipe crowd noise our way if they want to. We could even choose our favourite crowd soundtracks. I fear that some executives somewhere dream of an ‘F1’ style global competition, where top teams travel the world to play each other in large, impressive stadia which could even be ‘neutral’ , which they could probably fill with tourist fans. Liverpool vs Barcelona in India, China, Nigeria, USA etc. ‘Fans’ relevant to the business model would be almost exclusively TV based. As with F1, it would be broadcasting and advertising rights that would make megabucks, with funds from ticket sales being largely irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things. If you want to make real money out of football in the short to medium term, it would be the thing to do. Killing the existing game for ever isn’t on your worry list - you will have cashed in by then.
Let’s hope that I’m completely wrong, because for most if not all of us on here, it’s the antithesis of football.
Anyway, time to cheer up. Onwards and upwards to better things at Old Trafford.......

 

[Yellarbellyblade]

That's not really how F1 is at the moment. It's on a massive worldwide popularity surge. Old timers like me are bored of the predictable winner as in any period of dominance but there is actually great racing if you just ignore Verstappen. The owners are an American media company who are happy as revenues are way up, the teams now make a profit and so many places want a GP event they are struggling to fit them in. Old fashioned European events in a field are being replaced by city "destination" events. Old diehards like me see the old sport vanishing and sort of wish it ill. Be interesting to see if it implodes but it's showing no signs.

Some of that sounds very premier league doesn’t it? Don’t care about long term supporters as long as the audience everywhere else in the world holds up

 

[west_yorks_blade]

In my darker moments, I do worry that disenchantment of the fans in the grounds is a key part of the plan. I think that most future armchair viewers watch for the ‘skills’ in the game, and aren’t overly bothered by the atmosphere of the occasion. Covid showed us that the broadcasters can easily pipe crowd noise our way if they want to. We could even choose our favourite crowd soundtracks. I fear that some executives somewhere dream of an ‘F1’ style global competition, where top teams travel the world to play each other in large, impressive stadia which could even be ‘neutral’ , which they could probably fill with tourist fans. Liverpool vs Barcelona in India, China, Nigeria, USA etc. ‘Fans’ relevant to the business model would be almost exclusively TV based. As with F1, it would be broadcasting and advertising rights that would make megabucks, with funds from ticket sales being largely irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things. If you want to make real money out of football in the short to medium term, it would be the thing to do. Killing the existing game for ever isn’t on your worry list - you will have cashed in by then.
Let’s hope that I’m completely wrong, because for most if not all of us on here, it’s the antithesis of football.
Anyway, time to cheer up. Onwards and upwards to better things at Old Trafford.......

Speaking of piped music, how about the deafening shit music played pre kick off?
So loud that last game my son standing next to me gave up shouting a comment to me at the top of his lungs because I just couldn’t hear him. We stood in silence while artificial atmosphere swirled around us.

This followed by the obligatory contrived 20 seconds of John Denver belting out Annie’s song because we can’t be trusted to sing GCB spontaneously and in tandem, despite managing perfectly well at away games.

The plasticification of football as a slick package for armchair fans started quite a while ago.

 

[Agreasychipbutty]

In terms of solving the current issues of the Premier League, perhaps the answer is to split it into 2 mini leagues, Scottish style. Top 10 are Prem 1 and play 4 times. 2 relegated. The next 10 are Prem 2, they play 4 times also with 2 promoted & 2 relegated. This would mean that after having an amazing season like 19/20 we'd get promoted to Prem 1. Then if we get relegated as we did in 20/21 we'd be relegated to Prem 2 rather than the championship. You could probably do the same with the Championship splitting it two leagues of 12. Beyond that its business as usual.

There are a lot of fans watching their very expensive squads finish 11th,12th, 13th in the Prem quite often which must be a pretty dismal experience given that they're in the "promised land". Surely competing to top Prem 2 would be more fun for them? At the same time a promoted team from the championship won't feel as badly outgunned playing in Prem 2 compared to the situation promoted teams are facing now.

Bit boring playing the same teams 4 times I guess, but just seems a way to bridge the current insane gap between Prem & Championship.

I like that idea for championship clubs who get to be promoted into a league where they would have a decent chance in most games, but I think it just moves the issue. The Palaces of the league would be promoted from Prem 2 one year only to get spanked every week by the big 6 in Prem 1, only without the respite of winnable games against comparable teams in between. There's a growing gulf between the championship and the prem but there's an even bigger gulf in the middle of the prem, its just less apparent when comparing 2 prem seasons because it's a constant.

 

[Bell4]

Whilst I agree with the article at the moment, I'm sure Fulham fans, Brentford fans, and Bournemouth fans are enjoying life more than they were a couple of years ago, having established themselves. Other than VAR, I'm not sure many complaints we have at the moment applied to us in 2019-20.

If Luton stay up, I'm sure they'll say they've enjoyed this season. Heck, they'll probably say they enjoyed it even if they go down.

The PL is crap if you're crap. But if you can escape the black hole of crapness, then there's satisfaction there...even if you're Crystal Palace.

This

The article takes no consideration of the fk up caused by our owner

 

[Bladesman]

Spurs fans are probably the most despondent of all. It may seem insane to us but this is a genuinely big club who have no real chance of ever winning anything. Been doing the View Froms for years now and Premier League clubs are by far the most miserable and pessimistic. I recall Watford having a thread celebrating being relegated because they were so bored.

United are shit so obviously things are going to feel worse for us and we are an extreme case but the idea it's just a problem we have and not what the league has doesn't fit with comments from fans who are doing much better than us. Take a look at the Brentford fans a few weeks ago when some tourist went to their stadium dressed as a bee. Lots of "get us out of this league" stuff that developed into more serious conversations of how many of them would prefer to have stayed as a top Championship team.

Having listened to Talksport over the years, Spurs fans do seem to be the most upset. They all seem to see Levy as some sort of obstacle that needs removing and everything will be better if he goes.