- How can we tell which are the big clubs in the Premier League? (You might be surprised!)
- Corruption news: Fifa to face trial on grounds of holding an unreasonable monpoly
By Sir Hardly Anyone
In football we make assumptions. Such as the notion that sacking a failing manager is a good idea. Apparently, the figures show that as often as not the difference is marginal and that clubs that don’t sack the top man eventually bounce back from their bad run.
What’s more “sacking of managers in football appears to be much more important to people than the sacking of managers in any other industrial sector.” In one survey it was found that half the Premier and Football League clubs changed their manager during a season.
Rather fortunately Arsenal directors can be slow off the mark (or else know their onions) as when they refused to bow to “Arteta Out” pressure on 15 December 2020 when the top and bottom of the league read
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tottenham Hotspur | 12 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 24 | 10 | 14 | 25 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 12 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 27 | 18 | 9 | 25 |
| 13 | Newcastle United | 11 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 14 | 16 | -2 | 17 |
| 14 | Leeds United | 12 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 17 | 22 | -5 | 14 |
| 15 | Arsenal | 12 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 10 | 15 | -5 | 13 |
| 16 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 12 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 15 | 21 | -6 | 10 |
| 17 | Burnley | 11 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 18 | -12 | 9 |
That was just on two years three months ago. Most recent research shows that sacking a manager is as likely to be no more helpful than keeping the manager in the long run. Except it just costs a lot of money. But clubs keep doing it.
Just like the keep supporting Uefa and Fifa despite one of its central operators (Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi) having been implicated in a ‘kidnapping and torture’ investigation”. We now have detailed reports from CNN on the issue – which still doesn’t seem to have got much coverage in the English media because Nasser Al-Khelaifi is leading the fight against Super League.
And it can’t be that we don’t want Super League because Super League is foreign. After all just five of the 20 Premier League clubs are owned by UK citizens.
Plus we might note, only 36.1% of players in the Premier League are English. This is a lower number that in the other big five leagues. In a recent count Series A had 39.3% of Italian players, while in the Bundesliga it is 45.2%, and in Ligue 1 it is 47%. But Super League is bad, because… well, I forget but because of something.
And it is ok for a country to buy a Premier League club (see “Newcastle’s £305m Saudi takeover) , even though the rules say that is not on and Sheikh Mansour’s ownership of Manchester City is not actually in the English tradition.
Actually the defence that the Saudi state does not own Newcastle is a little amusing since in a court case in the USA it has been declared that their chairman Yasir Al Rumayyan is ‘a sitting minister of the Saudi government’.
To be precise and quoting from the documents filed in the USA enquiry. “The PIF and His Excellency Yasir Othman Al Rumayyan are not ordinary third parties subject to basic discovery relevance standards. They are a sovereign instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a sitting minister of the Saudi government, and they cannot be compelled to provide testimony and documents…”
So we muddle on through. Maybe it is the Saudi state that owns Newcastle, maybe not, but oh, its all a bit of a technicality isn’t it [actually not really as we can’t hold the Saudi state to account.]
Anyway, I a sure the Uefa will sort this out when the time comes just as they are sorting out the mess they created with the Champions League final, now that Real Madrid has said that the refunds offered to their supporters are ‘insufficient’In fact Real Madrid, a leading light in Super League, are offering support to their fans who are looking for compensation, which notes that their supporters needed hospital treatment, Real Madrid (a Super League proponent) has demanded that Uefa sort the matter now, calling the offer that has been made, unacceptable. As they say, supporters of both teams suffered.
So here, as almost everywhere we are seeing corruption and incompetence at every level from Uefa, and indeed from Fifa in another corruption case involving the world body, which we’ll come onto as soon as we can. (Sorry but when it comes to Fifa and Uefa corruption, it is really hard to keep up).
And yet the FA and seemingly the fans and the newspapers and other media all love Fifa and Uefa so much they want to stay with them, rather than be part of running their own Super League. Why is that? Especially when it was the clubs that broke with the Football League to create the Premier League under their own control.
Coming out with a belittling falsehood that fans love EUGA and FIFA really is a new low. You are displaying obsessive traits and contempt for your readers. What a shame. This was a great blog when it wasn’t preaching
Seeing “seemingly the fans” as a “belittling falsehood” is an interesting point, and not one I can really agree with. “Seemingly” means, for me (and in my dictionary), “apparently” and I write that because I have not seen any of the fans’ groups mounting a campaign for the overthrow of Uefa, which was something that was offered via the setting up a club-run Super League. Indeed the supporters’ groups whose messaging I read when Super League was announced, were all against it. Hence my comment.
But I am really pleased to see you still reading Silentstan, and indeed, despite the name “silent” commenting with Untold so regularly.
Silentstan,
“And yet the FA and seemingly the fans and the newspapers and other media all love Fifa and Uefa so much they want to stay with them, rather than be part of running their own Super League.”
Well if they don’t actively and publicly denounce them one could make the conclusion that they love them.
Also, the author is “Sir Hardly” and he used “seemingly”. His tongue is firmly planted in cheek. I suspect I know where yours is.
Outspokenstan
Off topic:
Ref the BBC:
,
Congratulations to Ian Wright, Alan Shearer, Micah Richards, Alex Scott, Gary Neville (I never thought I would say this).
Well, with all that hoopla at BBC and the way I see it, the Arsenal owners ought to hire as president some conservative big head. And let him tweet regularly, like a few days before a home game :
“Hope PGMOL will make sure a home game referee will be appointed. UA is publishing all you need ! CAN YOU READ!!!!”
After the Arsenal game before the talk show, he could tweet :
“What a game!!!! Don’t you just love it !!!! Arsenal are really the best team of the world. Hope all pundits will share the truth on the show : NORTH LONDON IS RED !!!!”
After a wrongly made VAR decision against Arsenal :
“VAR needs to get it’s personnel re-trained. BACK TO 5TH LEAGUE !!!!”
Match of the Day will aired with no presenter or pundits this week. I’m really looking forward to it.
Although Lineker seems to delight in airing his non-work-related grievances on social media, he (and his media buddies) have been conspicuously silent when it comes to important football-related issues.
I find it quite strange that he is so reticent regarding his so-called area of expertise.
Seismic: but it does fit in with the media standard, that there are some things you don’t talk about in football, such as patterns of odd refereeing, the way some clubs are targetted by foulers when others aren’t and so on.
I watched Match of the day tonight. It was 20 minutes long. No commentary, no co-commentary, no punditry.
Some observations.
I think I don’t mind the commentators too much. They’re generally not bad, although I find that some of them are unable to make a point without shouting.
Does Match of the Day usually feature co-commentary? Maybe it’s only on the live matches. The thing I dislike about the co-commentators (on any channel), is their support and encouragement of cheating (“he’s been clever there”, “he took one for the team there”, “No, not enough for me”, etc.). If these ex-players actually took a stand against the cheating, the current players would eventually realise that they don’t need to play to the gallery of their “peers”.
The punditry was not missed at all. Not one bit.
An interesting question arises. If Match of the Day’s football action only fills 20 minutes of “screen-time”, does it represent good value for the license-payer? 6 games were played today. 20 minutes divided by 6 gives us less than 4 minutes’ coverage per game. Do the pundits’ salaries represent good value for the license-payer?
My feeling is that viewers are being short-changed, both by the lack of coverage, and by the appalling punditry.