Other club football

Jim's point is valid though. If we accept that watching football is more fun when your team is winning, then when you most enjoy the Championship you'll get promoted out of it.

We didn’t do much team building in the championship, we turned over most of our team most seasons.

Put me in not 'ship. The whole thing is bent as fuck. 3 bad results is a crisis. If they deem you worthy of a ticket it costs zillions. If you get anywhere near rattling the top six they get to pick off all your best players. You shout tits or fanny there is a moral outcry but Ballybet can advertise as much as they fucking like. They keep a bloke from Nottingham on the cusp of the squad in the style of the token black guy in an 80s film. Cups are considered an inconvenience even though it's the only thing we have any chance of winning. Every other week at not 3pm some twat in shit trainers tells us what we should be thinking. I'm done, it's wank. Yes, I like shit football.

Yep. Solely watching the end of this game to see if T can get a goal.

Sympathy for most of your points but this is bullshit. When we were in the championship, what happened to Jenas, Dawson, Reid, Cash, Antonio, etc? The premier league picked off all our best players then.

Despite everything thinking they'll leave every summer, Morgan is in his 5th season, Murillo his 4th.

Fair, but we've also lost three of our best players so far at the end of PL seasons one, three and four. All signed by supposedly 'bigger' clubs off the back of good spells with Forest.

I agree that this less to do with the PL and more where we sit in the pecking order. Richest and biggest clubs will still cherry-pick your best players in the top flight but they're obviously of a much higher calibre, so the fee sweetens the blow a bit.

Do Prem clubs still sign good Championship players? Seems like they look overseas more now.

Think it's mostly newly relegated teams selling players back to the premier league (which doesn't really count) or newly promoted teams - Sorba Thomas springs to mind. There's probably a few others - Hayden Hackney, Harwood-Bellis and Palace have often bought from the championship.

Omari Hutchinson

Covered by my newly relegated selling back to the Premier League caveat.

Linked to all of the above, there is a little snippet in the latest WSC about Burnley. They were bought by their current owner through a leveraged buyout, the same method as Man Utd were done with by the Glazers, and went immediately from being debt free to having one of the largest debts in the league. Their owners have now also bought Espanyol but Burnley have been assured that their superiority in the multi club structure is assured, for as long as they retain the huge TV rights of the PL. Oh dear. How amongst all the financial arguments leveraged buyouts are allowed is beyond me. Multi club ownership groups are just crap.

Yes, I was supporting your point not disputing it.

The Premier league is not only bent, it doesn't even hide it. Big six bias. Terrible VAR decisions. Ref's who don't seem to give each team a fair shake. The only financial power is of the established sides who got there by having petro state or Oligarghy money. And cheating a lot. Sky bias. No punishments.. (at least not yet..)

It's boring because it's predictable. If a smaller club does well then their best players get poached or the manager gets plucked. The only club who seems immune to this is Brentford and possibly Brighton but there really aren't going to win anything unless it's a cup.

PSG, Madrid and Barcelona seem to be the Champions league perennials and again they have leveraged the shit out of banks and Petro states and basically used financial power to win everything. I think Barca might still be at least a billion euros in debt but to big to fail. Then because of this EUFA introduce a form of FFP that fucks Villa who have scrapped up to make the Champions league and then forcing them to sell. Chelsea seem to get away with everything too as they somehow make up financials that somehow seem worse than Citeh.

There is no joy in the current state of football because it's dominated by the large money trees at the top. If they fucked off to the Euro league then the Prem would be more interesting as there would be a re-balance of power but would the world wide interest be there?

I don't know. I don't mind the relegation scraps if there was parity, but there just isn't. It's boring. If you start a season knowing that your team really doesn't have a hope of winning or doing rather stellar what's the point of the league. It is so sanitized for international audiences and betting companies.

The footballers in the prem are fantastic but because of the way it is set up, only certain clubs have certainty. Forest fall in the middle to bottom of preferencial treatment (we got. big club bias in the Championship final no doubt), but are written off before a ball is kicked.

The atmosphere is flat, because the prices are high. The game is unlikely to break your way and like Ingo said, "you cannot even sing about tits and fanny anymore". As an aside, banter is fun. My wife sings that song. It's all a bit depressing.

Isn't football meant to be fun? Having said all that, the championship isn't particulary fun to watch either as the football is a bit meat and potatoes and if your team isn't involved as the casual observer would say, it's a bit rudimentary with a bit of Julien Bennett thrown in.

The Prem is a no fun league. Wishing the new boys nothing but being crapper than us isn't much fun either. I wish Coventry all the best. Ipswich are at least trying.

If Spuds had actually got relegated last season rather than being saved by Villa then at least it would have been something worth cheering for.

Having said all that, I like watching football. Just nowadays it's just not as fun. I am going to say it when I thought i would never.... maybe just maybe we need a salary cap where parity is king and we actually have some excitement. Of course Citeh (please please fuck off to League 2), Utd , Scouse, Arsenal and Spuds would never allow it. The premier league members are just deluded that they can dine with the big boys and stay there. Blah.

Chicago: Going full Ingo

The most sensible Chicago post ever. I may print it out and frame it, it's spot on.

MGW hasn't left because the chairman wouldn't let him.

Anyway, Anderson being a done deal despite Man City's rampant cheating and without any irony FFP, or whatever it is called this week, dictating the transfer market is bent.

Players leaving for bigger things is fine, but these days it's engineered by the authorities to keep the TV companies happy and maintain the EPLs global position. Bent as fuck.

Basically football was better when you were younger, it was much fresher and you were less aware of the workings. It's the same for everyone. Your golden age will be later than mine by about the same number of years as I'm older than you. That's just how the world works.

I think we all know football achieved perfection in 1979, which was 3 years before I was born.

In my time you've had:

Blackburn - the last of the local boy done good stories

and

Leicester - a 5000/1 fluke

Not looking to rediscover any lost youth here.