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Villa Should Reject Promotion Because The Premier League Is Boring


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Superstar violinist Nigel Kennedy wants Aston Villa to REJECT promotion to the Premier League – as part of a bold stance to challenge the FA to make the game more exciting.

“I am so glad now to see a lot of players who are real triers committed to doing something for the club,” says Kennedy. “I think that’s great.

“The Championship has ‘blood and guts’ football. I want the club to make a stand with the FA and ask to stay in the Championship, not to make up the numbers in the Premiership and become fodder for Manchester United.

“No disrespect to clubs like Watford and Bournemouth, but there are many bigger clubs in the Championship – Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Derby County, Nottingham Forest, Leeds United and so on.

“The bottom half of the Premier League is not as important, and I really don’t like it.

“It’s full of mercenary poseurs just looking for even more money when they are already paid so well they’ve got enough for all of their great-grandchildren.

“Even if Villa win the play-off final at Wembley, I’d like to see them abdicate their place in the Premier League and say whatever you’re not allowed to say, like ‘Stuff it!’

“Of course, it would be fantastic if the Baggies, Wolves, Villa and Birmingham City could all be in the top flight but in football now there is such a lack of continuity with clubs always sacking their managers.

“The big clubs are trying to keep everything for themselves and they don’t want to share football with the rest of the game.

“When Villa won the European Cup, every team they played were champions. Now, the Champions League is the also-rans league – even Arsenal could get in – and it’s all a bit cynical.

“When you watch England’s women footballers, they are so much more adventurous than the men’s team.”

 

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-should-tell-premier-13999290

 

xD rather you than me

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Ultimately, he’s saying it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond. 

In some respects, I make him right. The majority of the Premier League is filled with pretty dire, umabitious and dull sides.

We’ve seen it this season with the appointments of the likes of Sam Allardyce, Alan Pardew and Roy Hodgson that Premier League owners are now only interested in the safety first approach of retaining their status as a Premier League club every season.

I mean look at your Bournemouth’s, West Ham’s and Stoke City’s. They’ve finished fairly comfortably in mid-table the last couple of years and rather than target a cup run, they tend to field weaker teams. Why? They’re not in any danger of relegation, they’re not going to qualify for Europe based on their league position, why not target a run in the FA Cup?

There are about ten teams just happy to tread water in the Premier League every single season and a promotion for Villa will see them become one of those clubs and as a fan, I get why this bloke doesn’t really want to see that. He’s probably quite happy with seeing Villa win games semi-regularly and seeing them finish fairly high up the table for once instead of a 14th place finish and an FA Cup defeat by Ipswich Town. 

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He's right that the Championship contains more prestigious clubs than say at least 10 clubs in the PL currently but he's bat shit crazy if he thinks he'd rather them stay here.

You tell me that when you've been out the PL for nearly 13 years and you still lose a game of Football to Burton fucking Albion.

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Prestige is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately for a lot of clubs prestige doesn't write cheques or win trophies. There is only so much room for growth in the Championship, and only so much in the Premier League without taking huge financial gambles. 

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He’s not a bit right, he’s totally right and it’s the inbetweens that count. His argument isn’t just what’s there.

Football is nonsense these days and much of the “fanbase” of so many clubs in the Premier League don’t even know football pre-Premier League. 

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My two Championship experiences were dull, routine and repetitive and we won the league both times lol. It makes me wonder how someone from a similar club to mine in my life time has ended up liking it. I think the answer is that he has completely downgraded his expectations through Villa being shite last year and slow starters this. Now being top 6 seems relatively enjoyable perhaps. When you drop into the Championship, expect to win the league and do, it isn't enjoyable, it is like a feeling of get it over with then, get out of here.

Calling Derby County a big game is odd, no disrespect. In fact the likes of Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday are big away days out but as home games they're very meh if nothing is at stake in them.

 

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Utter nonsense.

The only thing I would say is slightly better is more matches and there's some decent away days in Championship with much cheaper ticket prices. Other than that, there's fuck all and a lot of dull teams that nobody gives a fuck about.

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1 hour ago, Toony said:

Utter nonsense.

The only thing I would say is slightly better is more matches and there's some decent away days in Championship with much cheaper ticket prices. Other than that, there's fuck all and a lot of dull teams that nobody gives a fuck about.

And there’s probably a similar percentage of clubs in the Premier League nobody gives a fuck about. Stoke, Swansea, Bournemouth, West Brom, West Ham, Watford, Palace and even to an extent, Newcastle are pretty dull clubs (though Newcastle’s problems are largely owner based). 

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Premier League away days are getting cheaper than the Championship now.

If I remember correctly I paid £42 for Ipswich away last year. Think it was £30 for Chelsea at the weekend. A couple of years ago Chelsea would have been £55 and Ipswich a fiver :ph34r:

 

There are some big away ends in the Championship though, Barnsley is 7,000 lovely.

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32 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

And there’s probably a similar percentage of clubs in the Premier League nobody gives a fuck about. Stoke, Swansea, Bournemouth, West Brom, West Ham, Watford, Palace and even to an extent, Newcastle are pretty dull clubs (though Newcastle’s problems are largely owner based). 

Thing is the door is shut now, how do you expect clubs to become 'interesting'? Size is largely down to past success, which is off the cards for clubs now.

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8 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Thing is the door is shut now, how do you expect clubs to become 'interesting'? Size is largely down to past success, which is off the cards for clubs now.

It's not necessarily a size matter. The money in the Premier League now has meant that the perceived smaller teams can now attract a better standard of player and can reject offers they a) wouldn't have received a few years ago and b) wouldn't have rejected a few years ago. Teams treading water in the Premier League is born from the owner's lack of ambition. Trophies are useless to teams these days and staying in the Premier League is the trophy teams now crave. 

It's become pretty boring and as a result, there's a lot of dross in the Premier League. 

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I preferred the team we had in The Championship to the one we have now. We regularly had a team of likeable characters the fans could relate too who would give 100% most games. To think an uninterested lethargic gimp like Christian Benteke is getting paid roughly as much a week as the whole of our first team did ten years ago did does rather annoy me. Players like Clinton Morrison, Danny Butterfield, Ali Riihilahti and even Sean Derry make my heart go warm.

But at the same time I wouldn't want to go back. I'd rather us get our own house in order whilst were in The Premiership. Keep creating ambitons for a new stadium, investing in the academy, scouting young English talent and giving opportunities to players like Reuben Loftus-Cheek. Keep thinking of the future, a long term goal, and aiming for another cup moment. We don't need to be relegated to do that. To credit Dougie Greedman we seem to be doing that since his return.

The Violinist who would turn down Premier League football is bloody mental. As much as I enjoyed the team of old it was annoying serif any good player we had get linked to the likes of QPR and Wigan. What's the point of it all if you win the league and your reward is seeing your top scorer join Bournemouth?

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I can see his point and I do think the whole talking up of the league is just one big self-fulfilling prophecy half the time, it's magical when you arrive in it after years out of it but it isn't all it's cracked up to be. There's nothing magical about playing half the sides in the league because a lot of them are so unbelievably unambitious. If I owned a Premier League club there's absolutely no way I'd appoint a Pardew or a Hodgson. Surviving in the Premier League is only really an achievement in extraordinary cases (I'd say Huddersfield if they do this year for example is a great effort) but the fact clubs will neglect potential silverware for it is beyond belief.

What is this Villa fan enjoying? It's very simple - they're winning games. Drawing Hereford in the cup on Monday was a throwback to League One for me, it brought back a lot of memories, how our only ever season at that level of football was so memorable for that same reason - after getting relegated from the Premier League and witnessing four years of progressive decline as a cash-strapped bottom half Championship side who eventually fell through the trap door, winning games week in, week out, taking thousands of fans to places like Oldham, Swindon, Scunthorpe was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than you'd think.

Aston Villa are going through a period similar. They spent years treading water in the Premier League, surviving by default - nothing to do with them being any good, just less shit than three others year in, year out (see Sunderland, to a lesser degree Newcastle, to maybe what West Ham and Stoke are now) before eventually succumbing to one of the most pitiful Premier League seasons a side has ever had. Even last year in the Championship was rubbish for them. Now they've started winning games, are on a roll with a very realistic chance of promotion, things are very enjoyable again.

I got told years ago that the ride to the Premier League is far more enjoyable than actually being in it. I think it's hard to disagree.

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It's all well and good wanting the "big" clubs up but they're all once upon a timers. Leeds, Wednesday, Forest, Sheff Utd etc, they're in the Championship because theyve not been good enough to get out.

Maybe I'm too young to remember football before the 90s but the clubs mentioned inspire as much excitement in me as your Stokes, West Brom's and Everton's.

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Obviously we need to get back to the PL to re-establish ourselves as a “big club” (needs more than just getting in the PL granted) but I must admit I find the championship refreshing. The PL had gone very stale from Villa’s perspective, I enjoy the competitive nature of this league even if sometimes it lacks quality. 

Hes also wrong Villa have some Workers now but not all, I’m still waiting for a Villa player to press the opposition at Villa Park, it’s been 15 years now. We just have lesser cunts than we had 3 years ago. 

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