Re: c palace v everton fa cup

SEFTON Mon 21 Mar 2022, 11:59 am

Armchair wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:None of it matters anyway as far as the Cup is concerned. One of City, Chelsea and the Shite would have been waiting for us in the semi. What's the point anyway? Even when we were decent and respectable under Moyes, one of those would always be waiting for us in the semi or the final.

When I was coaching kids I had to put up with watching 9 and 10 year olds get recruited for their age group squads by the likes of the Dons and Luton, and seeing their gleaming faces and the pound signs in the eyes of their parents as they genuinely believed their kids had a chance of making it as pros. And I knew that virtually every single one of them had no chance - they were only being recruited so that those clubs' genuine star players had a team to play with.

This is the same feeling really, regardless of whether Everton are decent or shite - it's like we're watching a never-ending movie about the Super League 6, and the rest of us are just extras. Palace are in one of the final scenes but we know they'll die, the stars won't die early obviously. It's all Hollywood-style predictable.

The fact that we got battered 4-0 is no fun. Outside of that, given who's left in the semis, I'm glad we're out so we can now focus on the real battle ahead. But I'm even starting to consider the futility of that. So if we do survive, to what end? Another ten or fifteen years of hoping we can finish 6th without a pot in sight? It's all so boring that a relegation battle, horrible though it is, actually gives us something meaningful to fight for (not that the players are showing much fight) but look beyond this season and what does it even mean anyway?

Like, I'm not a regular match-goer; I know those of you who are will obviously think differently. To me, it's only the fear of our first game in our new stadium being at home to Barnsley that's actually giving me cause to give a stuff. At least a season or two (or ten) in the Championship will be something different, an alternative to being Sky Six cannon fodder. It's like a metaphor for laissez-faire capitalism - the rest of us grind so that the moneyed elites can have their fun. All the hope and romance has been drained out of football, and I'm starting to get really bored by it all. What makes it worse is that the relegation battle we're currently in actually makes us yearn for a boring mid-table season. Fuck it, I've had enough of those.

I've just read a book in which the author posits that "it's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament." Well I think this might be total bollocks as I can't see any hint of pleasure in Everton's predicament, regardless of how aware I am of how hopeless it all is. But fuck it, why not, I'll embrace the theory and give it a go. Lads, if I find any "intense pleasure" in getting smashed 5-0 by the Shite then I'll be sure to let you know.

Back when we were having our flirtations with relegation in the 1990s, the thought of relegation genuinely upset me. Now though, I feel distinctly less bothered. I think much of that is the futility of modern football. We've thrown £500m at the squad and acheived nothing from it, so what's the point? The gulf between rich clubs like ours and the super-rich is just so enormous. The European Super League would have gone a long way to resolving the problem, but football was too busy pretending that everything was ok to see the opportunity.

Absolutely dreading the thought of relegation, its heart-breaking trying to think or imagine this crop players getting us out of this huge sticky toffee pudding(one for Hairy)as they don't have the fight,
Its also hard to believe Michael Keane-Seamus Coleman-Masson Holgate-Jonjoe Kenny are our back four,after spending 500m and yet we have gone backwards ,For a few seasons every one raving about Richarlison who for me has not reached the level he played at Watford, We put all are eggs in one basket regards to Calvert Lewin who has become injury prone, still not bought an out and out striker since Lukaku.
we buy two much needed defenders in Winter window near on 30 million for both yet they are not regular because they are poor standard Manager Frank Lampard doesn't trust them.

So getting rid Marcel Brands allowing Farhad Moshiri to select who he wants at the club Elgazi and the likes, topped off by interference from Kenwright and Berty bassatts wife, we are F*cked.

Rotterdam 1985 Mon 21 Mar 2022, 12:17 pm

Armchair wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:None of it matters anyway as far as the Cup is concerned. One of City, Chelsea and the Shite would have been waiting for us in the semi. What's the point anyway? Even when we were decent and respectable under Moyes, one of those would always be waiting for us in the semi or the final.

When I was coaching kids I had to put up with watching 9 and 10 year olds get recruited for their age group squads by the likes of the Dons and Luton, and seeing their gleaming faces and the pound signs in the eyes of their parents as they genuinely believed their kids had a chance of making it as pros. And I knew that virtually every single one of them had no chance - they were only being recruited so that those clubs' genuine star players had a team to play with.

This is the same feeling really, regardless of whether Everton are decent or shite - it's like we're watching a never-ending movie about the Super League 6, and the rest of us are just extras. Palace are in one of the final scenes but we know they'll die, the stars won't die early obviously. It's all Hollywood-style predictable.

The fact that we got battered 4-0 is no fun. Outside of that, given who's left in the semis, I'm glad we're out so we can now focus on the real battle ahead. But I'm even starting to consider the futility of that. So if we do survive, to what end? Another ten or fifteen years of hoping we can finish 6th without a pot in sight? It's all so boring that a relegation battle, horrible though it is, actually gives us something meaningful to fight for (not that the players are showing much fight) but look beyond this season and what does it even mean anyway?

Like, I'm not a regular match-goer; I know those of you who are will obviously think differently. To me, it's only the fear of our first game in our new stadium being at home to Barnsley that's actually giving me cause to give a stuff. At least a season or two (or ten) in the Championship will be something different, an alternative to being Sky Six cannon fodder. It's like a metaphor for laissez-faire capitalism - the rest of us grind so that the moneyed elites can have their fun. All the hope and romance has been drained out of football, and I'm starting to get really bored by it all. What makes it worse is that the relegation battle we're currently in actually makes us yearn for a boring mid-table season. Fuck it, I've had enough of those.

I've just read a book in which the author posits that "it's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament." Well I think this might be total bollocks as I can't see any hint of pleasure in Everton's predicament, regardless of how aware I am of how hopeless it all is. But fuck it, why not, I'll embrace the theory and give it a go. Lads, if I find any "intense pleasure" in getting smashed 5-0 by the Shite then I'll be sure to let you know.

Back when we were having our flirtations with relegation in the 1990s, the thought of relegation genuinely upset me. Now though, I feel distinctly less bothered. I think much of that is the futility of modern football. We've thrown £500m at the squad and acheived nothing from it, so what's the point? The gulf between rich clubs like ours and the super-rich is just so enormous. The European Super League would have gone a long way to resolving the problem, but football was too busy pretending that everything was ok to see the opportunity.

Exactly my thoughts.

Seeing as I appear to be having my own personal existential Everton crisis at the moment, here's another literary quote reference - can't remember or find the exact quote, but George Orwell talks in The Road To Wigan Pier about a Fascist, totalitarian takeover of the world in which what he refers to as the "servant-class" doesn't do anything about it, given that the takeover would potentially be so complete and enriching that there is plenty of money to keep the "servant-class" content and well-fed.

OK so he was talking about Fascism. There is a parallel here though. Everton, and all the other clubs whose owners were simply content to have their place at the trough, have become that "servant-class" allowing the self-styled elites to push further and further for their own enrichment, because the rest of us were happy enough with our lot. We've enabled the Super League clubs to keep pushing further and further until, eventually the Super League clubs' greed went to extreme but inevitable lengths, and they pushed for the creation of that SL. Only then did they receive any push-back from the rest.

But by then it was way too late, and we now find ourselves in a state of stasis - the status of the financial elites has become enshrined (remember that it was Abramovich who was basically solely responsible for the introduction of FFP, which had the effect of pulling the drawbridge up and excluding all non-sugar daddy clubs from the party) to the degree that, even if we'd spent that £500m effectively, there is no guarantee that we'd have been able to make a dent in their dominance.

We're just there to make up the numbers. As I've said before, there is no longer any drama attached to City getting knocked out in the semi final of the CL, because they're basically guaranteed to get another go the following year. It's no longer a once-in-a-generation opportunity for clubs, as it used to be when, say, we got the ECWC final in '85. It's beyond boring. And the trouble is, those of us who would happily wave the six greedy fuckers bye-bye on their way to their Super League are outnumbered by those who still fall for the "Greatest League in the World" media spin, and of course our opinions have no impact on the owners who are simply there to enrich themselves regardless of how little success their teams actually have.

For me, the Super League can't happen quickly enough.

hairy cataract Mon 21 Mar 2022, 12:24 pm

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:None of it matters anyway as far as the Cup is concerned. One of City, Chelsea and the Shite would have been waiting for us in the semi. What's the point anyway? Even when we were decent and respectable under Moyes, one of those would always be waiting for us in the semi or the final.

When I was coaching kids I had to put up with watching 9 and 10 year olds get recruited for their age group squads by the likes of the Dons and Luton, and seeing their gleaming faces and the pound signs in the eyes of their parents as they genuinely believed their kids had a chance of making it as pros. And I knew that virtually every single one of them had no chance - they were only being recruited so that those clubs' genuine star players had a team to play with.

This is the same feeling really, regardless of whether Everton are decent or shite - it's like we're watching a never-ending movie about the Super League 6, and the rest of us are just extras. Palace are in one of the final scenes but we know they'll die, the stars won't die early obviously. It's all Hollywood-style predictable.

The fact that we got battered 4-0 is no fun. Outside of that, given who's left in the semis, I'm glad we're out so we can now focus on the real battle ahead. But I'm even starting to consider the futility of that. So if we do survive, to what end? Another ten or fifteen years of hoping we can finish 6th without a pot in sight? It's all so boring that a relegation battle, horrible though it is, actually gives us something meaningful to fight for (not that the players are showing much fight) but look beyond this season and what does it even mean anyway?

Like, I'm not a regular match-goer; I know those of you who are will obviously think differently. To me, it's only the fear of our first game in our new stadium being at home to Barnsley that's actually giving me cause to give a stuff. At least a season or two (or ten) in the Championship will be something different, an alternative to being Sky Six cannon fodder. It's like a metaphor for laissez-faire capitalism - the rest of us grind so that the moneyed elites can have their fun. All the hope and romance has been drained out of football, and I'm starting to get really bored by it all. What makes it worse is that the relegation battle we're currently in actually makes us yearn for a boring mid-table season. Fuck it, I've had enough of those.

I've just read a book in which the author posits that "it's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament." Well I think this might be total bollocks as I can't see any hint of pleasure in Everton's predicament, regardless of how aware I am of how hopeless it all is. But fuck it, why not, I'll embrace the theory and give it a go. Lads, if I find any "intense pleasure" in getting smashed 5-0 by the Shite then I'll be sure to let you know.

Sorry, I missed this post, so I have to return to it to commend it to the house. Obviously, you're a bellend and all that, but this is a great post. That quote (Enid Blyton? Barbara Cartland) totally nails the Newcastle game last week. The pleasure was ridiculously intense, and our predicament is indeed hopeless - consigned to mediocrity season after season, with this season being the exception because we are in a (kind of) existential struggle. And you're right about relegation at least being something different.

And yet, I also agree with Sef, relegation would be heartbreaking. I've only just gone back to being a regular match-goer and, to some extent, I'm not asking for anything beyond mediocrity. To be able to go up to Liverpool, see some old mates, chat shit to the regulars sitting around me at the match, occasionally cheer a goal, wonder who we might sign in the close season etc. So I'm torn.

Also, that's interesting about the youngsters being recruited simply to give the young stars a team to play in. Though, I would imagine, every now and then one of those less talented kids would become a Roy Keane - a player with so much desire that he surpasses the achievements of the kids who are talented but lazy.

Anyway, my ideal right now would be to turn the clock back a season and boot out the Super League traitors. A league without the likes of City and the Shite works for me. Us, Villa, Newcastle, West Ham, Wolves, Leicester battling it out for the title, with maybe Brighton and Palace being able to turn their best seasons into title-challenging ones would be fucking brilliant, compared to the reality of the Shite and City battling it out for every single title including the top European one, and us going down.

Made 4 Gwladys Mon 21 Mar 2022, 12:33 pm

delighted... we can concentrate on staying in the prem... we'd have only lost to the shite or city anyway somewhere along the line ...and probably much worse than 4-0

FA cup my fat rosy burnt arse c palace v everton fa cup - Page 2 298904

c palace v everton fa cup - Page 2 298904

hairy cataract Mon 21 Mar 2022, 12:43 pm

Just to add to the above. On a quick glance on Wiki, there has been just seven different teams taking a top three spot in the PL this century. In the equivalent number of seasons starting after the second world war finished, there were 18 different teams.

Of course the problem with the Super League breakaway is that, even if it happens, those fuckers will still want to play in the PL and will still probably dominate it even playing their squaddies.
It's fucked.

Goodison_Gringo Mon 21 Mar 2022, 2:57 pm

hairy cataract wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:None of it matters anyway as far as the Cup is concerned. One of City, Chelsea and the Shite would have been waiting for us in the semi. What's the point anyway? Even when we were decent and respectable under Moyes, one of those would always be waiting for us in the semi or the final.

When I was coaching kids I had to put up with watching 9 and 10 year olds get recruited for their age group squads by the likes of the Dons and Luton, and seeing their gleaming faces and the pound signs in the eyes of their parents as they genuinely believed their kids had a chance of making it as pros. And I knew that virtually every single one of them had no chance - they were only being recruited so that those clubs' genuine star players had a team to play with.

This is the same feeling really, regardless of whether Everton are decent or shite - it's like we're watching a never-ending movie about the Super League 6, and the rest of us are just extras. Palace are in one of the final scenes but we know they'll die, the stars won't die early obviously. It's all Hollywood-style predictable.

The fact that we got battered 4-0 is no fun. Outside of that, given who's left in the semis, I'm glad we're out so we can now focus on the real battle ahead. But I'm even starting to consider the futility of that. So if we do survive, to what end? Another ten or fifteen years of hoping we can finish 6th without a pot in sight? It's all so boring that a relegation battle, horrible though it is, actually gives us something meaningful to fight for (not that the players are showing much fight) but look beyond this season and what does it even mean anyway?

Like, I'm not a regular match-goer; I know those of you who are will obviously think differently. To me, it's only the fear of our first game in our new stadium being at home to Barnsley that's actually giving me cause to give a stuff. At least a season or two (or ten) in the Championship will be something different, an alternative to being Sky Six cannon fodder. It's like a metaphor for laissez-faire capitalism - the rest of us grind so that the moneyed elites can have their fun. All the hope and romance has been drained out of football, and I'm starting to get really bored by it all. What makes it worse is that the relegation battle we're currently in actually makes us yearn for a boring mid-table season. Fuck it, I've had enough of those.

I've just read a book in which the author posits that "it's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament." Well I think this might be total bollocks as I can't see any hint of pleasure in Everton's predicament, regardless of how aware I am of how hopeless it all is. But fuck it, why not, I'll embrace the theory and give it a go. Lads, if I find any "intense pleasure" in getting smashed 5-0 by the Shite then I'll be sure to let you know.

Sorry, I missed this post, so I have to return to it to commend it to the house. Obviously, you're a bellend and all that, but this is a great post. That quote (Enid Blyton? Barbara Cartland) totally nails the Newcastle game last week. The pleasure was ridiculously intense, and our predicament is indeed hopeless - consigned to mediocrity season after season, with this season being the exception because we are in a (kind of) existential struggle. And you're right about relegation at least being something different.

And yet, I also agree with Sef, relegation would be heartbreaking. I've only just gone back to being a regular match-goer and, to some extent, I'm not asking for anything beyond mediocrity. To be able to go up to Liverpool, see some old mates, chat shit to the regulars sitting around me at the match, occasionally cheer a goal, wonder who we might sign in the close season etc. So I'm torn.

Also, that's interesting about the youngsters being recruited simply to give the young stars a team to play in. Though, I would imagine, every now and then one of those less talented kids would become a Roy Keane - a player with so much desire that he surpasses the achievements of the kids who are talented but lazy.

Anyway, my ideal right now would be to turn the clock back a season and boot out the Super League traitors. A league without the likes of City and the Shite works for me. Us, Villa, Newcastle, West Ham, Wolves, Leicester battling it out for the title, with maybe Brighton and Palace being able to turn their best seasons into title-challenging ones would be fucking brilliant, compared to the reality of the Shite and City battling it out for every single title including the top European one, and us going down.

This is good but then what happens? We become part of a new Top 6 and Groundhog Day? Do we embrace the hypocracism or do we stop watching? I don't know the answer, although it doesn't really matter as it won't happen anyway.

hairy cataract Mon 21 Mar 2022, 3:56 pm

Goodison_Gringo wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:None of it matters anyway as far as the Cup is concerned. One of City, Chelsea and the Shite would have been waiting for us in the semi. What's the point anyway? Even when we were decent and respectable under Moyes, one of those would always be waiting for us in the semi or the final.

When I was coaching kids I had to put up with watching 9 and 10 year olds get recruited for their age group squads by the likes of the Dons and Luton, and seeing their gleaming faces and the pound signs in the eyes of their parents as they genuinely believed their kids had a chance of making it as pros. And I knew that virtually every single one of them had no chance - they were only being recruited so that those clubs' genuine star players had a team to play with.

This is the same feeling really, regardless of whether Everton are decent or shite - it's like we're watching a never-ending movie about the Super League 6, and the rest of us are just extras. Palace are in one of the final scenes but we know they'll die, the stars won't die early obviously. It's all Hollywood-style predictable.

The fact that we got battered 4-0 is no fun. Outside of that, given who's left in the semis, I'm glad we're out so we can now focus on the real battle ahead. But I'm even starting to consider the futility of that. So if we do survive, to what end? Another ten or fifteen years of hoping we can finish 6th without a pot in sight? It's all so boring that a relegation battle, horrible though it is, actually gives us something meaningful to fight for (not that the players are showing much fight) but look beyond this season and what does it even mean anyway?

Like, I'm not a regular match-goer; I know those of you who are will obviously think differently. To me, it's only the fear of our first game in our new stadium being at home to Barnsley that's actually giving me cause to give a stuff. At least a season or two (or ten) in the Championship will be something different, an alternative to being Sky Six cannon fodder. It's like a metaphor for laissez-faire capitalism - the rest of us grind so that the moneyed elites can have their fun. All the hope and romance has been drained out of football, and I'm starting to get really bored by it all. What makes it worse is that the relegation battle we're currently in actually makes us yearn for a boring mid-table season. Fuck it, I've had enough of those.

I've just read a book in which the author posits that "it's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament." Well I think this might be total bollocks as I can't see any hint of pleasure in Everton's predicament, regardless of how aware I am of how hopeless it all is. But fuck it, why not, I'll embrace the theory and give it a go. Lads, if I find any "intense pleasure" in getting smashed 5-0 by the Shite then I'll be sure to let you know.

Sorry, I missed this post, so I have to return to it to commend it to the house. Obviously, you're a bellend and all that, but this is a great post. That quote (Enid Blyton? Barbara Cartland) totally nails the Newcastle game last week. The pleasure was ridiculously intense, and our predicament is indeed hopeless - consigned to mediocrity season after season, with this season being the exception because we are in a (kind of) existential struggle. And you're right about relegation at least being something different.

And yet, I also agree with Sef, relegation would be heartbreaking. I've only just gone back to being a regular match-goer and, to some extent, I'm not asking for anything beyond mediocrity. To be able to go up to Liverpool, see some old mates, chat shit to the regulars sitting around me at the match, occasionally cheer a goal, wonder who we might sign in the close season etc. So I'm torn.

Also, that's interesting about the youngsters being recruited simply to give the young stars a team to play in. Though, I would imagine, every now and then one of those less talented kids would become a Roy Keane - a player with so much desire that he surpasses the achievements of the kids who are talented but lazy.

Anyway, my ideal right now would be to turn the clock back a season and boot out the Super League traitors. A league without the likes of City and the Shite works for me. Us, Villa, Newcastle, West Ham, Wolves, Leicester battling it out for the title, with maybe Brighton and Palace being able to turn their best seasons into title-challenging ones would be fucking brilliant, compared to the reality of the Shite and City battling it out for every single title including the top European one, and us going down.

This is good but then what happens? We become part of a new Top 6 and Groundhog Day? Do we embrace the hypocracism or do we stop watching? I don't know the answer, although it doesn't really matter as it won't happen anyway.

In my idealised world, there won't be a new Top 6. Look at the current positions 7 to 12. West Ham, Wolves, Villa, Leicester, Southampton, Palace. Is that the same as it was last year, or the year before, or the year before that? Take out the entrenched money clubs, who have since pulled up the ladder behind them with FFP, and you're left with a wide-open field. A team like Everton can spend £500m and still be flirting with relegation. A team can be promoted from the Championship and instantly be challenging for the title. Take away the Sky clubs, and Wolves would be second, pushing for the title. They were in the Championship in 2018.

Rotterdam 1985 Mon 21 Mar 2022, 4:01 pm

Goodison_Gringo wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:None of it matters anyway as far as the Cup is concerned. One of City, Chelsea and the Shite would have been waiting for us in the semi. What's the point anyway? Even when we were decent and respectable under Moyes, one of those would always be waiting for us in the semi or the final.

When I was coaching kids I had to put up with watching 9 and 10 year olds get recruited for their age group squads by the likes of the Dons and Luton, and seeing their gleaming faces and the pound signs in the eyes of their parents as they genuinely believed their kids had a chance of making it as pros. And I knew that virtually every single one of them had no chance - they were only being recruited so that those clubs' genuine star players had a team to play with.

This is the same feeling really, regardless of whether Everton are decent or shite - it's like we're watching a never-ending movie about the Super League 6, and the rest of us are just extras. Palace are in one of the final scenes but we know they'll die, the stars won't die early obviously. It's all Hollywood-style predictable.

The fact that we got battered 4-0 is no fun. Outside of that, given who's left in the semis, I'm glad we're out so we can now focus on the real battle ahead. But I'm even starting to consider the futility of that. So if we do survive, to what end? Another ten or fifteen years of hoping we can finish 6th without a pot in sight? It's all so boring that a relegation battle, horrible though it is, actually gives us something meaningful to fight for (not that the players are showing much fight) but look beyond this season and what does it even mean anyway?

Like, I'm not a regular match-goer; I know those of you who are will obviously think differently. To me, it's only the fear of our first game in our new stadium being at home to Barnsley that's actually giving me cause to give a stuff. At least a season or two (or ten) in the Championship will be something different, an alternative to being Sky Six cannon fodder. It's like a metaphor for laissez-faire capitalism - the rest of us grind so that the moneyed elites can have their fun. All the hope and romance has been drained out of football, and I'm starting to get really bored by it all. What makes it worse is that the relegation battle we're currently in actually makes us yearn for a boring mid-table season. Fuck it, I've had enough of those.

I've just read a book in which the author posits that "it's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament." Well I think this might be total bollocks as I can't see any hint of pleasure in Everton's predicament, regardless of how aware I am of how hopeless it all is. But fuck it, why not, I'll embrace the theory and give it a go. Lads, if I find any "intense pleasure" in getting smashed 5-0 by the Shite then I'll be sure to let you know.

Sorry, I missed this post, so I have to return to it to commend it to the house. Obviously, you're a bellend and all that, but this is a great post. That quote (Enid Blyton? Barbara Cartland) totally nails the Newcastle game last week. The pleasure was ridiculously intense, and our predicament is indeed hopeless - consigned to mediocrity season after season, with this season being the exception because we are in a (kind of) existential struggle. And you're right about relegation at least being something different.

And yet, I also agree with Sef, relegation would be heartbreaking. I've only just gone back to being a regular match-goer and, to some extent, I'm not asking for anything beyond mediocrity. To be able to go up to Liverpool, see some old mates, chat shit to the regulars sitting around me at the match, occasionally cheer a goal, wonder who we might sign in the close season etc. So I'm torn.

Also, that's interesting about the youngsters being recruited simply to give the young stars a team to play in. Though, I would imagine, every now and then one of those less talented kids would become a Roy Keane - a player with so much desire that he surpasses the achievements of the kids who are talented but lazy.

Anyway, my ideal right now would be to turn the clock back a season and boot out the Super League traitors. A league without the likes of City and the Shite works for me. Us, Villa, Newcastle, West Ham, Wolves, Leicester battling it out for the title, with maybe Brighton and Palace being able to turn their best seasons into title-challenging ones would be fucking brilliant, compared to the reality of the Shite and City battling it out for every single title including the top European one, and us going down.

This is good but then what happens? We become part of a new Top 6 and Groundhog Day? Do we embrace the hypocracism or do we stop watching? I don't know the answer, although it doesn't really matter as it won't happen anyway.

I'm going to have to dig out this fucking Orwell quote to give this full meaning, but I'm pretty sure he refers in the same passage to elites "rather selling their own grannies down the market than accept socialism" or something like that. I'm heavily paraphrasing there!

But that's what football needs! Very Happy

A degree of socialism, of fairness. Well, it does if it's going to retain my interest anyway. They can either have a sport based around relatively fair competition or they can continue with the existing, dirty money-grabbing exercise. Absolutely, football has always had a financial hierarchy, and Everton were long near the top of that hierarchy. It would be easy to say that Evertonians are being hypocritical by referring to this now that the boot is on the other foot but I, for one, was pretty disgusted by what the original Premier League formation was likely to do to lower league clubs, and all of those fears have been realised.

And what option do we, ordinary fans, have to change this anyway? We can only walk away from the game. The point is that the old imbalances were nowhere near as pronounced as they are now, where City could literally field a reserve side that would probably still finish top 6 if they were allowed to enter two teams. In the 70s/80s the big clubs had the wherewithal to splash out on one or two new players per summer, generally, as we did with Lineker, United with Bryan Robson etc. They weren't buying up entire teams of reserves for fees that most clubs couldn't dream of spending even for players who would become their stars. They weren't hoarding all the young talent the way Chelsea do, loaning out 30 - 40 players per season across Europe. Liverpool famously used a total of 14 players during one season, and won the league.

The commodification of football has happened at the expense of genuine competition. I think we can have one or the other but not both. It won't happen, because the vested interests won't allow it. But if football wanted to bring in a degree of fair, healthy competition then it has lots of options to do it. And don't forget, the US of all places, where socialism is a dirty word and money is undisputed king, has somehow created a professional sports system in which, to varying degrees per sport, every fan of every team can realistically dream of success. The structure of their sport is completely different to football but I'm just saying, if the will is there to change things, and if the Americans of all people can put an element fairness at the heart of their sporting enterprises, then football has no excuse for not trying to do the same.

Rotterdam 1985 Mon 21 Mar 2022, 4:06 pm

hairy cataract wrote:Just to add to the above. On a quick glance on Wiki, there has been just seven different teams taking a top three spot in the PL this century. In the equivalent number of seasons starting after the second world war finished, there were 18 different teams.

Of course the problem with the Super League breakaway is that, even if it happens, those fuckers will still want to play in the PL and will still probably dominate it even playing their squaddies.
It's fucked.

I suspect you're too well-read not to know where that despair/hopelessness quote comes from. You don't fool me with your faux philistinism. It is of course "My Hi-de-High Life", Su Pollard's seminal autobiography. And yeah, the Newcastle game was a perfect encapsulation of that.

(That could actually work as a Su Pollard quote, thinking on. The despair of never becoming a yellow coat, but then she sees Ruth Madoc tripping over a kerb and falling on her arse...it doesn't change her chances of becoming a yellow coat, her hopes remain futile, but at her lowest ebb she had the joy of seeing her nemesis making a twat of herself. Maybe I need to give Su Pollard more credit.)

Rotterdam 1985 Mon 21 Mar 2022, 4:08 pm

hairy cataract wrote:
Goodison_Gringo wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:None of it matters anyway as far as the Cup is concerned. One of City, Chelsea and the Shite would have been waiting for us in the semi. What's the point anyway? Even when we were decent and respectable under Moyes, one of those would always be waiting for us in the semi or the final.

When I was coaching kids I had to put up with watching 9 and 10 year olds get recruited for their age group squads by the likes of the Dons and Luton, and seeing their gleaming faces and the pound signs in the eyes of their parents as they genuinely believed their kids had a chance of making it as pros. And I knew that virtually every single one of them had no chance - they were only being recruited so that those clubs' genuine star players had a team to play with.

This is the same feeling really, regardless of whether Everton are decent or shite - it's like we're watching a never-ending movie about the Super League 6, and the rest of us are just extras. Palace are in one of the final scenes but we know they'll die, the stars won't die early obviously. It's all Hollywood-style predictable.

The fact that we got battered 4-0 is no fun. Outside of that, given who's left in the semis, I'm glad we're out so we can now focus on the real battle ahead. But I'm even starting to consider the futility of that. So if we do survive, to what end? Another ten or fifteen years of hoping we can finish 6th without a pot in sight? It's all so boring that a relegation battle, horrible though it is, actually gives us something meaningful to fight for (not that the players are showing much fight) but look beyond this season and what does it even mean anyway?

Like, I'm not a regular match-goer; I know those of you who are will obviously think differently. To me, it's only the fear of our first game in our new stadium being at home to Barnsley that's actually giving me cause to give a stuff. At least a season or two (or ten) in the Championship will be something different, an alternative to being Sky Six cannon fodder. It's like a metaphor for laissez-faire capitalism - the rest of us grind so that the moneyed elites can have their fun. All the hope and romance has been drained out of football, and I'm starting to get really bored by it all. What makes it worse is that the relegation battle we're currently in actually makes us yearn for a boring mid-table season. Fuck it, I've had enough of those.

I've just read a book in which the author posits that "it's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament." Well I think this might be total bollocks as I can't see any hint of pleasure in Everton's predicament, regardless of how aware I am of how hopeless it all is. But fuck it, why not, I'll embrace the theory and give it a go. Lads, if I find any "intense pleasure" in getting smashed 5-0 by the Shite then I'll be sure to let you know.

Sorry, I missed this post, so I have to return to it to commend it to the house. Obviously, you're a bellend and all that, but this is a great post. That quote (Enid Blyton? Barbara Cartland) totally nails the Newcastle game last week. The pleasure was ridiculously intense, and our predicament is indeed hopeless - consigned to mediocrity season after season, with this season being the exception because we are in a (kind of) existential struggle. And you're right about relegation at least being something different.

And yet, I also agree with Sef, relegation would be heartbreaking. I've only just gone back to being a regular match-goer and, to some extent, I'm not asking for anything beyond mediocrity. To be able to go up to Liverpool, see some old mates, chat shit to the regulars sitting around me at the match, occasionally cheer a goal, wonder who we might sign in the close season etc. So I'm torn.

Also, that's interesting about the youngsters being recruited simply to give the young stars a team to play in. Though, I would imagine, every now and then one of those less talented kids would become a Roy Keane - a player with so much desire that he surpasses the achievements of the kids who are talented but lazy.

Anyway, my ideal right now would be to turn the clock back a season and boot out the Super League traitors. A league without the likes of City and the Shite works for me. Us, Villa, Newcastle, West Ham, Wolves, Leicester battling it out for the title, with maybe Brighton and Palace being able to turn their best seasons into title-challenging ones would be fucking brilliant, compared to the reality of the Shite and City battling it out for every single title including the top European one, and us going down.

This is good but then what happens? We become part of a new Top 6 and Groundhog Day? Do we embrace the hypocracism or do we stop watching? I don't know the answer, although it doesn't really matter as it won't happen anyway.

In my idealised world, there won't be a new Top 6. Look at the current positions 7 to 12. West Ham, Wolves, Villa, Leicester, Southampton, Palace. Is that the same as it was last year, or the year before, or the year before that? Take out the entrenched money clubs, who have since pulled up the ladder behind them with FFP, and you're left with a wide-open field. A team like Everton can spend £500m and still be flirting with relegation. A team can be promoted from the Championship and instantly be challenging for the title. Take away the Sky clubs, and Wolves would be second, pushing for the title. They were in the Championship in 2018.

Bring it on. Have your Super League, but fuck off if you think you can stay in the Prem as well. The ultimate cake-and-eat-it exercise. They can fuck right off.

Rotterdam 1985 Mon 21 Mar 2022, 4:36 pm

hairy cataract wrote:

And yet, I also agree with Sef, relegation would be heartbreaking. I've only just gone back to being a regular match-goer and, to some extent, I'm not asking for anything beyond mediocrity. To be able to go up to Liverpool, see some old mates, chat shit to the regulars sitting around me at the match, occasionally cheer a goal, wonder who we might sign in the close season etc. So I'm torn.

I think I linked to the wrong post in my last reply to you. But this, yeah, I totally get this. My brother is the same, he's had a season ticket for three years now and for him it's a family thing - his two daughters are now both at Uni but they try to get together to go to Goodison as often as they can, just to have a family day out together, go for a beer after the game with cousins, that sort of thing.

Maybe I can be a little more dispassionate about it, except that my kids are all at Uni now so my brother's plan was also my plan for next season (not sure what the waiting list is looking like, but it might dwindle drastically if we go down.) Sometimes I think that the lure of driving 180 miles up the motorway to watch Luton isn't quite the same as watching the Shite or City, but at least we'd have a chance of winning and scoring the odd goal.

Made 4 Gwladys Mon 21 Mar 2022, 4:50 pm

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:Just to add to the above. On a quick glance on Wiki, there has been just seven different teams taking a top three spot in the PL this century. In the equivalent number of seasons starting after the second world war finished, there were 18 different teams.

Of course the problem with the Super League breakaway is that, even if it happens, those fuckers will still want to play in the PL and will still probably dominate it even playing their squaddies.
It's fucked.

I suspect you're too well-read not to know where that despair/hopelessness quote comes from. You don't fool me with your faux philistinism. It is of course "My Hi-de-High Life", Su Pollard's seminal autobiography. And yeah, the Newcastle game was a perfect encapsulation of that.

(That could actually work as a Su Pollard quote, thinking on. The despair of never becoming a yellow coat, but then she sees Ruth Madoc tripping over a kerb and falling on her arse...it doesn't change her chances of becoming a yellow coat, her hopes remain futile, but at her lowest ebb she had the joy of seeing her nemesis making a twat of herself. Maybe I need to give Su Pollard more credit.)

very interesting read... but it seems to take me to thinking would you bang Su Pollard as the core question... not now obviously that she's ancient & minging, but when she was on stage in HDH bobbing around

btw... if Barcodes are in the new mix they'll piss it after they buy Mbappe, Haaland, Salah, Suarez, VDV... and a few of our better players like Iwobi as bench fillers

fourdoors Mon 21 Mar 2022, 4:52 pm

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:
Goodison_Gringo wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:None of it matters anyway as far as the Cup is concerned. One of City, Chelsea and the Shite would have been waiting for us in the semi. What's the point anyway? Even when we were decent and respectable under Moyes, one of those would always be waiting for us in the semi or the final.

When I was coaching kids I had to put up with watching 9 and 10 year olds get recruited for their age group squads by the likes of the Dons and Luton, and seeing their gleaming faces and the pound signs in the eyes of their parents as they genuinely believed their kids had a chance of making it as pros. And I knew that virtually every single one of them had no chance - they were only being recruited so that those clubs' genuine star players had a team to play with.

This is the same feeling really, regardless of whether Everton are decent or shite - it's like we're watching a never-ending movie about the Super League 6, and the rest of us are just extras. Palace are in one of the final scenes but we know they'll die, the stars won't die early obviously. It's all Hollywood-style predictable.

The fact that we got battered 4-0 is no fun. Outside of that, given who's left in the semis, I'm glad we're out so we can now focus on the real battle ahead. But I'm even starting to consider the futility of that. So if we do survive, to what end? Another ten or fifteen years of hoping we can finish 6th without a pot in sight? It's all so boring that a relegation battle, horrible though it is, actually gives us something meaningful to fight for (not that the players are showing much fight) but look beyond this season and what does it even mean anyway?

Like, I'm not a regular match-goer; I know those of you who are will obviously think differently. To me, it's only the fear of our first game in our new stadium being at home to Barnsley that's actually giving me cause to give a stuff. At least a season or two (or ten) in the Championship will be something different, an alternative to being Sky Six cannon fodder. It's like a metaphor for laissez-faire capitalism - the rest of us grind so that the moneyed elites can have their fun. All the hope and romance has been drained out of football, and I'm starting to get really bored by it all. What makes it worse is that the relegation battle we're currently in actually makes us yearn for a boring mid-table season. Fuck it, I've had enough of those.

I've just read a book in which the author posits that "it's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament." Well I think this might be total bollocks as I can't see any hint of pleasure in Everton's predicament, regardless of how aware I am of how hopeless it all is. But fuck it, why not, I'll embrace the theory and give it a go. Lads, if I find any "intense pleasure" in getting smashed 5-0 by the Shite then I'll be sure to let you know.

Sorry, I missed this post, so I have to return to it to commend it to the house. Obviously, you're a bellend and all that, but this is a great post. That quote (Enid Blyton? Barbara Cartland) totally nails the Newcastle game last week. The pleasure was ridiculously intense, and our predicament is indeed hopeless - consigned to mediocrity season after season, with this season being the exception because we are in a (kind of) existential struggle. And you're right about relegation at least being something different.

And yet, I also agree with Sef, relegation would be heartbreaking. I've only just gone back to being a regular match-goer and, to some extent, I'm not asking for anything beyond mediocrity. To be able to go up to Liverpool, see some old mates, chat shit to the regulars sitting around me at the match, occasionally cheer a goal, wonder who we might sign in the close season etc. So I'm torn.

Also, that's interesting about the youngsters being recruited simply to give the young stars a team to play in. Though, I would imagine, every now and then one of those less talented kids would become a Roy Keane - a player with so much desire that he surpasses the achievements of the kids who are talented but lazy.

Anyway, my ideal right now would be to turn the clock back a season and boot out the Super League traitors. A league without the likes of City and the Shite works for me. Us, Villa, Newcastle, West Ham, Wolves, Leicester battling it out for the title, with maybe Brighton and Palace being able to turn their best seasons into title-challenging ones would be fucking brilliant, compared to the reality of the Shite and City battling it out for every single title including the top European one, and us going down.

This is good but then what happens? We become part of a new Top 6 and Groundhog Day? Do we embrace the hypocracism or do we stop watching? I don't know the answer, although it doesn't really matter as it won't happen anyway.

In my idealised world, there won't be a new Top 6. Look at the current positions 7 to 12. West Ham, Wolves, Villa, Leicester, Southampton, Palace. Is that the same as it was last year, or the year before, or the year before that? Take out the entrenched money clubs, who have since pulled up the ladder behind them with FFP, and you're left with a wide-open field. A team like Everton can spend £500m and still be flirting with relegation. A team can be promoted from the Championship and instantly be challenging for the title. Take away the Sky clubs, and Wolves would be second, pushing for the title. They were in the Championship in 2018.

Bring it on. Have your Super League, but fuck off if you think you can stay in the Prem as well. The ultimate cake-and-eat-it exercise. They can fuck right off.

Yes. That's one thing which was wrong with the European Super League, they wanted to be in both leagues.
I would create an ESL, but make it part of the European pyramid structure, with promotion and relegation.

Take the Superleague 6 out of the English Premier League and make them founding members of the ESL. Then add:
Spain: Barce, Real, Atlethi, Sevilla
Germland: Bayern, Dortmund, Leipzig
Italy: Juve, both Milans, Roma and Lazio
France: PSG

That's 19 teams.

Then throw in a few of the grand old clubs from elsewhere in Europe, so that most countries have at least one representative, e.g. Porto and Benfica, Ajax and PSV, Rangers, Red Star Belgrade, Dynamo Kiev, Rapid Vienna, etc. to bring it up to 32 teams, and put them into 2 leagues of 16.

At the end of the season, the top 4 from each league go into a knock-out competition (like the Champions League Quarter Finals we have currently.)
These knock-out matches are played outside Europe, so that no team has home advantage. China, America, UAE, India - whoever is willing to pay.

Prize money and TV money are split equally among the 32 clubs, but of that 1/32, only 10% goes to the club. 30% goes to the national FA of that team, 40% goes to the national league, 10% goes to a charity like Unicef (a different charity every year), and 10% goes into my pocket (a different pocket every year). That should spread the wealth around a bit.

I haven't decided about relegation yet.
Either: the lowest-placed team from each country gets relegated back to its national league. So even if Spurs finish in the top half, if the other 5 English clubs are ahead of them, then Spurs get relegated to the Premier League, while the winner of the PL gets promoted and takes their place. That way, there are always the same number of clubs from each country. But then there needs to be at least 2 teams from each country, which increases the size of the league.
The drawback here is that the ESL might end up having an established group of ever-presents, while teams like Rangers/Celtic are both permanently yo-yoing between Europe and their Domestic league: too good for back home, not good enough for the ESL.

Or: the bottom 4 teams from each league are relegated back to their national leagues, to be replaced by the winners of the domestic leagues. But if the 4 Spanish teams avoid relegation, what do you do with the winner of La Liga? So there might need to be some kind of relegation play-off (e.g. the team finishing 4th from bottom plays the winner of La Liga; or maybe the lowest-placed Spanish team plays the winner of La Liga).
Also, with so many domestic leagues, there would need to be some kind of promotion play-off, e.g. the winner of the Estonian league plays the winner of the Croatian league to see who gets promoted to the ESL.
That all seems a bit messy, so maybe I stick with the 'one in, one out' for each country, and let some clubs yo-yo their way into the future. I don't pretend to have the answers, but give me enough money, and I'll make a decision.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can get back to enjoying our domestic football.

hairy cataract Mon 21 Mar 2022, 4:53 pm

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:

And yet, I also agree with Sef, relegation would be heartbreaking. I've only just gone back to being a regular match-goer and, to some extent, I'm not asking for anything beyond mediocrity. To be able to go up to Liverpool, see some old mates, chat shit to the regulars sitting around me at the match, occasionally cheer a goal, wonder who we might sign in the close season etc. So I'm torn.

I think I linked to the wrong post in my last reply to you. But this, yeah, I totally get this. My brother is the same, he's had a season ticket for three years now and for him it's a family thing - his two daughters are now both at Uni but they try to get together to go to Goodison as often as they can, just to have a family day out together, go for a beer after the game with cousins, that sort of thing.

Maybe I can be a little more dispassionate about it, except that my kids are all at Uni now so my brother's plan was also my plan for next season (not sure what the waiting list is looking like, but it might dwindle drastically if we go down.) Sometimes I think that the lure of driving 180 miles up the motorway to watch Luton isn't quite the same as watching the Shite or City, but at least we'd have a chance of winning and scoring the odd goal.

I forced one of my daughters to go to Liverpool Uni, so that helped in the cunning plan. Told her it was "the Oxford of the north". Little did I know that I'd soon be able to apply that epithet to Everton.

hairy cataract Mon 21 Mar 2022, 5:01 pm

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:Just to add to the above. On a quick glance on Wiki, there has been just seven different teams taking a top three spot in the PL this century. In the equivalent number of seasons starting after the second world war finished, there were 18 different teams.

Of course the problem with the Super League breakaway is that, even if it happens, those fuckers will still want to play in the PL and will still probably dominate it even playing their squaddies.
It's fucked.

I suspect you're too well-read not to know where that despair/hopelessness quote comes from. You don't fool me with your faux philistinism. It is of course "My Hi-de-High Life", Su Pollard's seminal autobiography. And yeah, the Newcastle game was a perfect encapsulation of that.

(That could actually work as a Su Pollard quote, thinking on. The despair of never becoming a yellow coat, but then she sees Ruth Madoc tripping over a kerb and falling on her arse...it doesn't change her chances of becoming a yellow coat, her hopes remain futile, but at her lowest ebb she had the joy of seeing her nemesis making a twat of herself. Maybe I need to give Su Pollard more credit.)

I did love the way you said you'd read this quote somewhere, like it might have been in a Jeffrey Archer novel, because you didn't want to say "yeah, so thinking about all this Ukrainian business got me re-reading Dostoyevsky in the original Russian..."

Rotterdam 1985 Mon 21 Mar 2022, 6:32 pm

hairy cataract wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:Just to add to the above. On a quick glance on Wiki, there has been just seven different teams taking a top three spot in the PL this century. In the equivalent number of seasons starting after the second world war finished, there were 18 different teams.

Of course the problem with the Super League breakaway is that, even if it happens, those fuckers will still want to play in the PL and will still probably dominate it even playing their squaddies.
It's fucked.

I suspect you're too well-read not to know where that despair/hopelessness quote comes from. You don't fool me with your faux philistinism. It is of course "My Hi-de-High Life", Su Pollard's seminal autobiography. And yeah, the Newcastle game was a perfect encapsulation of that.

(That could actually work as a Su Pollard quote, thinking on. The despair of never becoming a yellow coat, but then she sees Ruth Madoc tripping over a kerb and falling on her arse...it doesn't change her chances of becoming a yellow coat, her hopes remain futile, but at her lowest ebb she had the joy of seeing her nemesis making a twat of herself. Maybe I need to give Su Pollard more credit.)

I did love the way you said you'd read this quote somewhere, like it might have been in a Jeffrey Archer novel, because you didn't want to say "yeah, so thinking about all this Ukrainian business got me re-reading Dostoyevsky in the original Russian..."

I blame my lads. One of them is studying English Lit, the other one did Philosophy A Level and then went to study it at Uni until he realised it bored the tits off of him, so he bailed out and started again with History. So there have been books by Camus, Sartre etc lying around the house for the last few years. Also Philip K Dick, Ballard etc.

Before that, I was happy to relax with Wordsearches and Puzzler magazines in the evening while the missus sat there watching her gritty dramas, but instead I've recently found myself reading a load of stuff I was into when I was younger. And look, this is exactly why I didn't source the quote earlier, because it makes me sound like a pretentious cock. The fact that I am a pretentious cock really isn't the point.

Maybe we need a separate "What Are You Reading Today?" thread. I'd like to know what Thorg's literary equivalents are to all that Norse Pillage and Murder music.

Rotterdam 1985 Mon 21 Mar 2022, 6:35 pm

Made 4 Gwladys wrote:
Rotterdam 1985 wrote:
hairy cataract wrote:Just to add to the above. On a quick glance on Wiki, there has been just seven different teams taking a top three spot in the PL this century. In the equivalent number of seasons starting after the second world war finished, there were 18 different teams.

Of course the problem with the Super League breakaway is that, even if it happens, those fuckers will still want to play in the PL and will still probably dominate it even playing their squaddies.
It's fucked.

I suspect you're too well-read not to know where that despair/hopelessness quote comes from. You don't fool me with your faux philistinism. It is of course "My Hi-de-High Life", Su Pollard's seminal autobiography. And yeah, the Newcastle game was a perfect encapsulation of that.

(That could actually work as a Su Pollard quote, thinking on. The despair of never becoming a yellow coat, but then she sees Ruth Madoc tripping over a kerb and falling on her arse...it doesn't change her chances of becoming a yellow coat, her hopes remain futile, but at her lowest ebb she had the joy of seeing her nemesis making a twat of herself. Maybe I need to give Su Pollard more credit.)
very interesting read... but it seems to take me to thinking would you bang Su Pollard as the core question... not now obviously that she's ancient & minging, but when she was on stage in HDH bobbing around

btw... if Barcodes are in the new mix they'll piss it after they buy Mbappe, Haaland, Salah, Suarez, VDV... and a few of our better players like Iwobi as bench fillers

This sounds like a familiar debate, but my memory is awful. Maybe it was one night in the pub. It wasn't the subject of a debate on the old BBC board, was it?

I have definitely been involved in a detailed debate at some point in my life about the pros and cons of shagging Su Pollard.

Rotterdam 1985 Mon 21 Mar 2022, 11:57 pm

fourdoors wrote:

Yes. That's one thing which was wrong with the European Super League, they wanted to be in both leagues.
I would create an ESL, but make it part of the European pyramid structure, with promotion and relegation.

Take the Superleague 6 out of the English Premier League and make them founding members of the ESL. Then add:
Spain: Barce, Real, Atlethi, Sevilla
Germland: Bayern, Dortmund, Leipzig
Italy: Juve, both Milans, Roma and Lazio
France: PSG

That's 19 teams.

Then throw in a few of the grand old clubs from elsewhere in Europe, so that most countries have at least one representative, e.g. Porto and Benfica, Ajax and PSV, Rangers, Red Star Belgrade, Dynamo Kiev, Rapid Vienna, etc. to bring it up to 32 teams, and put them into 2 leagues of 16.

At the end of the season, the top 4 from each league go into a knock-out competition (like the Champions League Quarter Finals we have currently.)
These knock-out matches are played outside Europe, so that no team has home advantage. China, America, UAE, India - whoever is willing to pay.

Prize money and TV money are split equally among the 32 clubs, but of that 1/32, only 10% goes to the club. 30% goes to the national FA of that team, 40% goes to the national league, 10% goes to a charity like Unicef (a different charity every year), and 10% goes into my pocket (a different pocket every year). That should spread the wealth around a bit.

I haven't decided about relegation yet.
Either: the lowest-placed team from each country gets relegated back to its national league. So even if Spurs finish in the top half, if the other 5 English clubs are ahead of them, then Spurs get relegated to the Premier League, while the winner of the PL gets promoted and takes their place. That way, there are always the same number of clubs from each country. But then there needs to be at least 2 teams from each country, which increases the size of the league.
The drawback here is that the ESL might end up having an established group of ever-presents, while teams like Rangers/Celtic are both permanently yo-yoing between Europe and their Domestic league: too good for back home, not good enough for the ESL.

Or: the bottom 4 teams from each league are relegated back to their national leagues, to be replaced by the winners of the domestic leagues. But if the 4 Spanish teams avoid relegation, what do you do with the winner of La Liga? So there might need to be some kind of relegation play-off (e.g. the team finishing 4th from bottom plays the winner of La Liga; or maybe the lowest-placed Spanish team plays the winner of La Liga).
Also, with so many domestic leagues, there would need to be some kind of promotion play-off, e.g. the winner of the Estonian league plays the winner of the Croatian league to see who gets promoted to the ESL.
That all seems a bit messy, so maybe I stick with the 'one in, one out' for each country, and let some clubs yo-yo their way into the future. I don't pretend to have the answers, but give me enough money, and I'll make a decision.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can get back to enjoying our domestic football.

I don't think promotion and relegation to a Super League can be a thing. First of all those clubs wouldn't want any risk to their place in it. Second, it would merely retain the status of clubs like us as wannabies. Whereas I would prefer for "English League Champions" to be the pinnacle in our brave new world of Proper Footy Like Wot It Was In The 70's. With mandatory muddy pitches and photographers sat literally 6 inches behind each goal-line.

The only way the existing 12 would tolerate that is if they were given their places in perpetuity, and they were inviting 6-8 other clubs to join in. Or, if they decreed that only those 6-8 clubs would be eligible for relegation. That would just be a farce.

So if a Super League were to happen then I think they need to be on their own, doing their own thing, and leave the rest of football alone. I like the idea of an 18 team league in which only the top four or five clubs have anything to play for from March onwards, and the rest are stuck with an endless list of exhibition games against the same foreign teams they play every year. It will be lucrative, for a handful of suits, but it will be dead boring.

They could mitigate this somewhat by considering the division/conference system as used in the NFL etc. Regional divisions with playoffs at the end of the season. Playoffs keep more teams interested for longer. This would also give them a lot of fixture list flexibility - they could play everyone at least once but maybe play the other teams in their division twice, to retain some semblance of normality via local rivalries.

Doing this would allow them to expand to 24, even 32 teams, if they were prepared to split their windfall further (which they won't.) But this would bring into play certain clubs that have the potential to compete regardless of recent European performance records, if only the leagues they played in were more lucrative. Rangers and Celtic, obviously, but also some of the other clubs that you name like Kiev, PSV, Ajax etc.

Sponsored content