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A few thoughts.
How bad is the problem of diving in the grand scheme of things in the PL now? Had the recent incidents with high profile players like Salah and Kane not happened how many other incidents can people think of? I think because it’s an emotive subject for some fans, there is a huge reaction whenever it happens which magnifies a problem that perhaps isn’t as bad as it is made out to be.
Secondly, what to do about the actual incidents of diving? Well if you start becoming too stern you will inevitably create other injustices – i.e. when a person was genuinely fouled but was deemed to have dived because of another opinion. Objectively it can be a difficult call. If a player has a lot of momentum it won’t take much to bring them down. VAR is not a silver bullet. Even though more time may be given to make a decision, the pressure will be on to get the game back moving as quickly as possible. You could start to get confirmation bias whereby if the ref already thinks it’s a dive they may look for something small which will tip the decision that way in their mind. I may partly be playing devils advocate here, but I’m just pointing out the alternative consequences. I think unless the dive is extremely theatrical whilst stood still (like Salah’s the other day) there’s not really much you can do if you don’t want to risk other injustices alluded to above.
Thirdly, it’s said all fans hate diving. I don’t doubt many do hate diving. But if you followed up a poll to fans with the follow up question “if your player cheated but it meant you won a cup should the match be replayed?” How many fans would think it should in that case? If it wasn’t a majority, then they couldn’t really hate diving that much. If you are an absolute purist about hating diving, you’d want the game replayed no matter if other teams were doing it.
Finally, what you will find with VAR will be more penalties given for defenders pulling the attacker’s shirts or fouling when the striker *did* stay on their feet. So, in this regard, VAR may help promote more of a culture for attackers to stay on their feet *if* they know an attempted foul will get punished on appeal – I think that will certainly apply to shirt pullers anyway. But for more general attempted fouls, you would still be making a subjective call that a foul *had* been committed.
Remember with these things that whilst you may solve some problems, you may simply create others.
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Liverpool fans are going to age about 20 years this season if this is how it’s goung to play out.
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Nine, the 700 million estimate is the global fan base figure for Man Utd, not us, but I take the point about the black market.
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Brian, would I right in saying it’s a relatively new thing to make money from shirt sales? In decades gone by was there even such a thing as the club shop??
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A super league wouldn’t happen over night, but as Brian said above, more room would have to be made to start to accommodate it, and you could see the premier league therefore getting trimmed down to fewer clubs. I think when things like that start happening as well as the domestic cups getting weaker and weaker, these will be the signs that it’ll just be around the corner.
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Sean, was just thinking the same thing, it just shows, commercially speaking, how vital league titles are to Liverpool. Whilst it’s a very difficult thing to do to measure the total global fan base of each club, the figures above at least indicate the present and future trends and thus we are struggling to add to our fan base from the younger audiences. This is why Man Utd are so big because they were successful for such a long period they both held on to their base and constantly added to it with the younger audiences and probably peaked and reached their maximum attainable fan base. One estimate is that their global fan base is 700 million which would be a tenth of the world population which is incredible if true.
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Nine, from a skysports article (survey published by sporting intelligence) of global shirt sales a few years ago:
Man Utd: 1.75 million
Chelsea: 899,000
Liverpool: 852,000
Arsenal: 835,000
Man City: 342,000
Spurs: 268,000So, it pretty much mirrors the social media following.
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If you are going to measure how big a club is for me it has to primarily be based on the size of their global fan base. A very crude measure/guide one might say but current Twitter followers of the top 6:
Man Utd: 18.7 million
Arsenal: 14 million
Chelsea: 12.4 million
Liverpool: 10.9 million
Man City: 6.6 million
Spurs: 3.2 millionFacebook likes:
Man Utd: 73 million
Chelsea: 47 million
Arsenal: 37 million
Man City: 36 million
Liverpool: 32 million
Spurs: 10 million_____________________________
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I think the real question of this thread is “Was FFP1 ever alive?”. If it was the case that the rules were broken so easily with little consequence from UEFA, then the rules were only ever “rules”.
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I think with John Henry it’s a mix between enjoying the rich man’s challenge of repeating his Boston strategy with Liverpool, making money, having fun, and soaking up the glory and good global PR it would give him with one of those big cigars.
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Nine, I think City’s owners are actually there for the money, but they are understandably investing in longer term projects for when the oil runs out.
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Nine, I’d say the league is now 50/50. I still rue that loss to City. Although I actually still think City will lose or draw a game they won’t be expected to, I think Liverpool will also drop points. And if the gap drops to just 1 or 2 points, then you’d probably favour City, psychologically speaking. Therefore I just don’t think Liverpool can afford to let the gap drop to below 4 points.
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For the moment, clubs are just about straddling the line between community clubs and the global market. There may be some who say that a super league is inevitable and always was inevitable. I’m not sure I’d agree with that. I think sadly that greed has won and that has changed our game for the worse from the costs now involved to the way the players now rule the dressing room. Were fans ever asked or consulted about whether they wanted this? The people that did thrust this upon us knew ultimately that because football is so tribal that fans would still come out and support their teams, so the fans were therefore there to be exploited, which is what they now are. But instead we get caught up in the “we have the best players and managers in the world” arguments and therefore “it’s worth it”. But given the constant dismay at the rising costs, the outrageous cheating that now affects our game (that many rightly bemoan on here on a regular basis) and the same 5/6 clubs competing year in year out, at some point a decision needs to be made, ideally by the fans, of which direction we should go in.
I think quotas have been raised by some as a way to return to some kind of community football again. And I very much sympathise with this position, though I concede it would have its drawbacks and is quite stern, perhaps too stern a move. Perhaps a better alternative would be to simply make contracts harder to get out of so that if another club came sniffing, they couldn’t prize them away as so often happens so easily which further widens the gap between the top 6 and everybody else. That in turn might make the top clubs invest more in their own city and community and give those players a chance and opportunity for once. This would therefore push clubs more gently in that community direction as opposed to forcing them with a cruder measure like quotas. To some degree FFP and the new restrictions on the loan system that are coming may also help. It might not suit the top clubs to push this but it is in all our interests that’s it’s done, or else we will completely lose control of the game that we all love and we’ll simply be cogs in a machine that are supporting the rich and powerful, somethings that’s already effectively happening.
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A lot of clubs are now effectively foreign investments. But we pretend they’re still community clubs when in fact they’re somewhere inbetween the two.
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That’s it Ed, it’s a bit like the Arsenal situation. On the surface you’d think Arsenal are now doing vastly better under Emery…but they’re only 2 points better off this season than they were at this stage under Wenger last season. And he hasn’t solved the form of Ozil. Now things may still improve for Arsenal in the longer term, and the change in manager was needed, but clearly there’s a lot more work to be done (particularly in terms of recruitment) to really start kicking on and moving upwards.
As for the likes of Everton & Leicester underperforming this season to put pressure on the top six, that may be partly the case, and I certainly think there is a dearth of good managers. But sadly wage bill increasingly dictates on where a club now finishes.
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Whilst everyone is focussed on the top 6, the gap between the top 6 and the rest has now grown to 9 points. In 2017/18, the gap was also 9 points, in 2016/17 it was 8 points. This trend is showing no signs of reversing which is not surprising but still disheartening.
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I see Pochettino has used the “this is football” excuse today adding that sometimes football is unfair. The facts say that Man Utd scored a goal and Spurs didn’t. Ok De Gea had a great game but some of Spurs’ finishing was still poor. But apparently football is unfair sometimes. Amazed how this excuse continually gets used unchallenged.
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Agree Sean. Spurs have had lots of possession, but Utd have looked the more dangerous side. Spurs are a very good side and there’s a lot of hard work there, but they seem to lack a je ne sais quoi in the bigger games.
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Nine, I think it’s a very difficult one for Liverpool now, but they may now have to go for it tonight to regain momentum and a belief in themselves. If people disagree and think that the cup could harm our league chances then the biggest thing that has harmed our league chances is the recent loss to City. I think that result has been underestimated by many in the media, and whilst it still looks like a different more title winning Liverpool this season, it has still failed to be ruthless in many of the big games this season – particularly the away games in both the league and CL (i.e. away to Napoli, PSG, Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal). And against this City team, it just can’t afford to do that. This lower energy football may be working for Klopp against the lesser sides, but it ain’t working against the better sides. We have lost our frightening edge. The one key area in which we beat City several times last year was our momentum and fight – we can’t lose that this season in the trade off vs lower energy football and there are times as I say where we have lost it and the results have unsurprisingly followed suit.
Also in the 2011/2012 season, City were just 3 points clear of Man Utd at this stage and we all know how that season ended.
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Nil, I can only think Klopp still doesn’t completely trust Fabinho. I think in a recent game Fabinho put in a loose pass on the edge of our box which nearly put the opposition in. Henderson is unspectacular but probably more reliable in Klopp’s head so that’s why I think he plumped for him for trust reasons. Fabinho clearly offers more, gets struck in, and offers a forward outlet too. I’m sure it was a very marginal decision mind and he was obviously forced to bring him on anyway. The sooner he trusts both him and Keita, the better.
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