Guardiola's Opinions on the Premier League

[6666]

1 minute ago, Danny said:

Your basic logic suggests the Championship is tougher than La Liga.

Is it tougher for Real Madrid to win The Championship than La Liga? No. But Real Madrid aren't in The Championship. Moving teams from other leagues into different leagues to say "look, now it's not competitive anymore" to somehow suggest you have a point is seriously strange.

5 minutes ago, Danny said:

Spoken like someone that's never been to a football match before.

You were talking about how stadiums look on tele... Either way, Griffin Park looks like shit unless the toilets are unimaginably aesthetically pleasing.

[Danny]

5 minutes ago, 6666 said:

Is it tougher for Real Madrid to win The Championship than La Liga? No. But Real Madrid aren't in The Championship. Moving teams from other leagues into different leagues to say "look, now it's not competitive anymore" to somehow suggest you have a point is seriously strange.

You were talking about how stadiums look on tele... Either way, Griffin Park looks like shit unless the toilets are unimaginably aesthetically pleasing.

I didn't move any teams, you did.

Trying to get a rise out of me but instead making yourself out to be an even bigger armchair fan 

[SirBalon]

30 minutes ago, LFCMadLad said:

You can't really take Pep seriously though after he's won the Spanish and German Leagues at a canter yet comes over here and scrapes top four by the skin of his teeth. 

Lets see how he does this season after spending a hundred gazillion quid. 

What part of what Pep said do you think can't be taken seriously?

Tell me the quotes from what he said that's incorrect.

[6666]

13 minutes ago, Danny said:

I didn't move any teams, you did.

Trying to get a rise out of me but instead making yourself out to be an even bigger armchair fan 

From trying to argue against how tough it is to win a domestic league by talking about European performances to trying to talk down about Arsenal while being a Brentford fan, you've had a nightmare in this thread.

[SirBalon]

With what I'm about to say, I maintain that it's impossible to state which league is tougher or better.  But I love the ignorance that is being spoken in certain posts where understanding other leagues is in question.  Things are different everywhere and there are football culture reasons for this that don't belong here and now and I won't go into.

Atlético Madrid were relegated after more than 70 years permanent in La Liga.  Four years previous they had won the double (1995/1996)...  That falls in the years after football became professional in 1992.  In Spain's second division where they remained for 3 years because it's a hell hole and I don't know anything more "competitive" than that personally (I'm not even going to go into the lower divisions), they almost got relegated in their first season in Spain's second division into the third tier.

Real Zaragoza have been relegated countless times and in between have had tremendous seasons and years back even won the Cup Winner's Cup against Arsenal in the Final (Nayim and all that).  They're a massive club in Spain and languishing in Spain's second division flirting with being relegated from that one many times.

Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are anomalies...  They're genuine super clubs that build off their own backs using their name.  They are run by the fans (bare with me moment, I'm not wanting to hit at any club with that, there's a reason), which means that everything generated isn't to earn money for anyone (baring corruption), but to make them competitive on all fronts including foremost European competition.  They are above most things anywhere and would dominate most leagues including the Premier League.

Let's add Real, Barça, Bayern and Juve (I'm not adding PSG because they're the epitome of a Premier League club playing in France) to the Premier League with the format these clubs run, how often would you think they's be split up consistently?

[Danny]

20 minutes ago, 6666 said:

From trying to argue against how tough it is to win a domestic league by talking about European performances to trying to talk down about Arsenal while being a Brentford fan, you've had a nightmare in this thread.

I mean consistently having 7-8 sides in the QFs and SFs of the CL and EL as well as winning both over a number of years is a sign of higher quality.

Had a mare because your mate reckons a top 4 finish equates success and you've never been to a game before 

[Honey Honey]

1 hour ago, Danny said:

Not really a strange example, Van Persie's goals set United up to win the league. I didn't agree with it but they were being compared to their 99 side that season so they weren't that bad.

Liverpool had a season of Suarez being world class and they nearly won the league because of it, had they of kept him they'd not of flopped as badly as they did. That's my point. Spurs sold Bale and struggled to replace him, prior to the last two seasons they were hardly setting the league on fire since selling him.

These are minor internal fluctuations that are inevitable at every club and every level. A 1-2 year dip isn't a big deal. Only 1 or 2 teams need to be great at a given time to match historical norms. Not all 6. 

I dont believe that it is just a coincidence caused by player and manager changes that they all turn to below par shit for a long period at the same time. No true domestic great in 8 or 9 years. That is not normal behaviour. 

Any and every healthy league environment should produce a great by its own standards. A couple of years without one is no big deal. Several years is alarm bells. That is not normal. Something is absolutely up beyond the realm of basic manager and player changes. Something is inhibiting the creation of quality. You don't need Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo to be a great team in your own league. Unless of course the league is so competitive that they are the only level left you can have that would create an advantage to enable a team to properly flourish. Which is one of the reasons why to never have a European super league.

[6666]

14 minutes ago, Danny said:

I mean consistently having 7-8 sides in the QFs and SFs of the CL and EL as well as winning both over a number of years is a sign of higher quality.

Had a mare because your mate reckons a top 4 finish equates success and you've never been to a game before 

He didn't claim it's a success. He merely informed you that a lot of teams competing for something equates to something being competitive. Not understanding this is genuinely moronic.

You're yet to make a sensible point in this discussion and it's obvious you've become slightly desperate. Sad.

[Danny]

11 minutes ago, HoneyNUFC said:

These are minor internal fluctuations that are inevitable at every club and every level. A 1-2 year dip isn't a big deal. Only 1 or 2 teams need to be great at a given time to match historical norms. Not all 6. 

I dont believe that it is just a coincidence caused by player and manager changes that they all turn to below par shit for a long period at the same time. No true domestic great in 8 or 9 years. That is not normal behaviour. 

Any and every healthy league environment should produce a great by its own standards. A couple of years without one is no big deal. Several years is alarm bells. That is not normal. Something is absolutely up beyond the realm of basic manager and player changes. Something is inhibiting the creation of quality. You don't need Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo to be a great team in your own league. Unless of course the league is so competitive that they are the only level left you can have that would create an advantage to enable a team to properly flourish. Which is one of the reasons why to never have a European super league.

It's not a matter of all 6, Arsenal are not going to win the league or "be great". That goes down to five, Spurs are punching above their weight and as expected haven't won the league because they've not had it in them but they have improved the quality of the league. That number goes down to four. United have spent 3-4 years recovering from losing Ferguson, I mentioned Van Persie because before last season they were reliant on who, Rooney, Martial and Fellaini up front? They haven't replaced that quality until last season and this season.

Then you've got Chelsea won have won the league either side of Mourinho leaving, but before him they were messing around with Rafa Benitez and Roberto Di Matteo. Then you had Liverpool lose a world class striker in Suarez and they failed to replace him. City have been naturally declining. All of that has contributed to their poor performances, their lack of quality on the pitch, it hasn't been caused by Stoke signing Bojan or Watford having Ighalo.

Not everyone will have a Ronaldo but you 100% need world class players to consistently win top silverware and that's something top English clubs have lacked.

[RandoEFC+]

I can't believe how much irrelevant nonsense has been dragged into this debate.

If you're managing Liverpool or Tottenham then yeah, the Premier League is not as tough to win as La Liga where those two sides wouldn't be within sight of the title.

However, these are comments from Guardiola about how tough the Premier League is from his perspective. Again, if you took Man City and plopped them in La Liga, they'd have a tougher time winning the title because Barcelona and Real Madrid are better than Chelsea and Manchester United.

I think it's a bit rich looking at it that way though. Because it's Guardiola making these comments, and his experiences come from being Barcelona manager in Spain, and Man City manager in England, both scenarios where he is in charge of one of the top two clubs in terms of resources in that league, so most people will naturally compare, is it harder to win La Liga with Barcelona or to win the Premier League with Man City? We all know the answer to that question and it doesn't need debating. Most of the reason this thread has gotten so fat is that most people are having this debate about how tough it is to win the league while a few are having a debate about the quality at the top end of each league, which to be fair Guardiola aludes to as well with referring to success in Europe.

[Danny]

8 minutes ago, 6666 said:

He didn't claim it's a success. He merely informed you that a lot of teams competing for something equates to something being competitive. Not understanding this is genuinely moronic.

You're yet to make a sensible point in this discussion and it's obvious you've become slightly desperate. Sad.

I mean Man Utd and Chelsea for example finishing outside of the top 4 wasn't because of how competitive the league was, they had just fallen back into a lower bracket of clubs. That wasn't due to the league being overly competitive, that was due to them performing extremely badly, one losing a long term manager and replacing him with a midtable manager and the other having a manager blame everyone from the team to the medical staff for his failings. Obviously the Premier League like any league is a competition so there will be a basic level of competitiveness, but United and Chelsea didn't fall out of the top 4 because it was competitive, they fell out because they massively underperformed. Their finances are well above the likes of Arsenal, Spurs and City which means they have the ability to consistently win the league, but they have massively underperformed at differing times throughout the last however many years.

Had they of played as expected or even punched above their weight and still not finished in the top 4 then that would be because of how competitive the league is, if we had 6 clubs that were amongst the best in the world with the finances to match then that would be competitive. But that wasn't the case. There is a difference between having underperformers and having a competitive division. The natural competitive state of a competition means that people will win and lose and finish above others and below others, but that is the same for every league. But we're not talking about the term competitive being used to describe a league format, we're using it to describe the nature of the league and the quality of it. And if you're going to describe it currently you wouldn't say it's competitive, if anything it's saturated.

[Happy Blue]

Pep's a bit bias, the Premier League is the most watched in the world for one reason, it's the best  ..you are not just up against 2 teams to win it but 5 or 6 so it's the hardest to win

[The Artful Dodger]

7 hours ago, 6666 said:

From trying to argue against how tough it is to win a domestic league by talking about European performances to trying to talk down about Arsenal while being a Brentford fan, you've had a nightmare in this thread.

Why do you think being he can't talk you down because he supports Brentford? 

I agree with Pep in the point he's talking about; even if he's not expressed it perfectly. The championship is 'competitive' but a poor standard, the premier league is the same, at the moment, by comparison with other leagues in Europe

[Happy Blue]

12 hours ago, HoneyNUFC said:

Winning the Champions League is more prestigious as it creates a greater memory in history but it has been downgraded since Chelsea won by accident

 

Spot on, a team that couldn't even get into the top 5 in England won the Champions League  

[Honey Honey]

10 hours ago, Danny said:

It's not a matter of all 6, Arsenal are not going to win the league or "be great". That goes down to five, Spurs are punching above their weight and as expected haven't won the league because they've not had it in them but they have improved the quality of the league. That number goes down to four. United have spent 3-4 years recovering from losing Ferguson, I mentioned Van Persie because before last season they were reliant on who, Rooney, Martial and Fellaini up front? They haven't replaced that quality until last season and this season.

Then you've got Chelsea won have won the league either side of Mourinho leaving, but before him they were messing around with Rafa Benitez and Roberto Di Matteo. Then you had Liverpool lose a world class striker in Suarez and they failed to replace him. City have been naturally declining. All of that has contributed to their poor performances, their lack of quality on the pitch, it hasn't been caused by Stoke signing Bojan or Watford having Ighalo.

Not everyone will have a Ronaldo but you 100% need world class players to consistently win top silverware and that's something top English clubs have lacked.

Those things are diagnosing managerial changes and player turnover as the disease and I am saying they are the symptom of the disease not the disease itself.

Premier League clubs have never bought world class players in its history. No English side has ever been at the top end of the food chain, Man Utd are not a giant of football and never have been. The perceived calibre of player that makes a team great was always something that emerged within this league, not taken off the shelf like at Real Madrid.

The enviornment has stifled that emergence, that is the disease I believe. People look at Real Madrid and think that what is missing in England, the off shelf world class players. That didn't used to be necessary to be a great so the environmental change is obviously a factor.

[LFCMadLad]

Fourth place England just took fourth place Germany to school. 

Just saying 

[Danny]

1 hour ago, HoneyNUFC said:

Those things are diagnosing managerial changes and player turnover as the disease and I am saying they are the symptom of the disease not the disease itself.

Premier League clubs have never bought world class players in its history. No English side has ever been at the top end of the food chain, Man Utd are not a giant of football and never have been. The perceived calibre of player that makes a team great was always something that emerged within this league, not taken off the shelf like at Real Madrid.

The enviornment has stifled that emergence, that is the disease I believe. People look at Real Madrid and think that what is missing in England, the off shelf world class players. That didn't used to be necessary to be a great so the environmental change is obviously a factor.

I know they've never signed off the shelf talent but they've still not grown any world class players for a number of years.

I don't think anyone's being stifled, Harry Kane and Romelu Lukaku for starters. Marcus Rashford is progressing well, Coutinho had a good season last season. There will be more but I don't believe the league is stifling quality players.

For three to four years Uniteds problem has been replacing Ferguson and they're finally getting over it. It took Spurs a couple of years to get over Bale and it's taken Liverpool until last season to finish in the top 4 again, let alone challenge for silverware. There has been a lack of direction at the top clubs in England and really only last season and this season are they getting their acts together.

[Honey Honey]

4 hours ago, Danny said:

I know they've never signed off the shelf talent but they've still not grown any world class players for a number of years.

I don't think anyone's being stifled, Harry Kane and Romelu Lukaku for starters. Marcus Rashford is progressing well, Coutinho had a good season last season. There will be more but I don't believe the league is stifling quality players.

For three to four years Uniteds problem has been replacing Ferguson and they're finally getting over it. It took Spurs a couple of years to get over Bale and it's taken Liverpool until last season to finish in the top 4 again, let alone challenge for silverware. There has been a lack of direction at the top clubs in England and really only last season and this season are they getting their acts together.

I'm not sure it took Tottenham a couple of years to get over losing Bale. He had 1 truly great season and they finished 5th  The next season they finished 6th  Then they got lucky with the arrival of Harry Kane on the scene and they finished 5th again  Let's not overrate Gareth Bale and the Spurs he played in. 

Excluding that Manchester United have just spent £166m in this transfer window. Across the 4 years prior to that since Ferguson retired they spent over half a billion pounds sterling. Fuck me. How do you spend half a billion pounds and have nothing of great superiority to show for it? Never mind finishing 6th.

History suggests you don't need to be Alex Ferguson when spending that kind of money. Kenny Dalglish at Blackburn, Roberto Mancini at Man City, even runners up like Kevin Keegan at Newcastle, Claudio Ranieri at Chelsea (but note, these are all prior to the last several year drought of anything good happening in England). None of these are the great managers of the game.

Man Utd have now spent three quarters of a billion pounds since Ferguson. Manchester City have just spent £219m in this transfer window. In the 3 years prior to that which they never won the league and never really got flying they spent half a billion pounds. 

There is a £1bn elephant in the room between these two alone, never mind adding up Liverpool and Chelsea. It is the evidence for an unprecedented stifling of player growth and performance that has been going on in England across the board for years, it doesn't stop at the actual results failures either. Chelsea are the only group who have seemingly found a mentality in which to win the league title in this environment but it is nothing to write home about, it is not some superiority to be in awe of. History will not remember them. The players actual individual talent is not worse than the teams before this several year collapse. Weaken the bottom half teams back to what they were in the early 00's or even late 90's and we will start to see these players break out into teams of domestic superiority again. From that, some will become true greats and better players that can show it on the european stage. Half a billion pounds will return more than just a Champions League spot. They will develop a momentum, cohesion and pattern of play that matches the 125 years prior.

The reality is Patrick Vieira for example was a great because he played in an environment that enabled him to be perceived as such, not because there is no one who has the ability to go and be as good as him anymore.