English Premier League thread

matherto said:
Bundesliga showing the way forward yet again.

Best league in the world.
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Totally agree.

The Bundesliga reflects Germany as a country, which has always been fiscally responsible. I like how the fans are at the centre of the clubs and foreign owners are kept at bay. They have the best stadia in Europe, with safe standing sections and beer on the terraces. Ticket prices are cheaper, attendances higher, and the league is more competitive and unpredictable.

I really admire the Bundesliga financial model, even if it has limited the league in terms of the players it can attract and competitiveness in Europe.
 
It's a bit of a shame to see Blackburn finally relegated tonight, even though it has been on the cards all season. They are a club that I have always respected and were the last small town 'provincial' club to win the league, and one of the few to win the Premier League. Yes, they did it with strong financial backing, but it's still a massive achievement nonetheless. I wonder when the league title will be won by a team outside the big cities again? Or even by a team outside of London or Manchester?

I guess the Venkys takeover shows that having a rich foreign owner can go disastrously wrong as well as lead to success.
 
Having said that, I think the Blackburn fans need to take a look at themselves after the way they've tried to hound Kean out of a job. Some of the chanting tonight and the threatening pitch invasion at the end of the game was a disgrace. I feel Venkys have hidden behind Kean and allowed him to be the public face of ridicule when it's really them that the fans should be angry with.

Say what you want about Kean but he's carried himself with the utmost respect and has always had a positive attitude in exceptionally testing circumstances. I don't expect him to be at Ewood Park next season but I hope he finds another job soon enough.
 
having a rich foreign owner normally goes well unless they are totally useless like venkys, sacking sam allardyce was a massive mistake. and going after players like beckham, ronaldinho etc.. lol. i mean venkys cant even keep their chickens off the pitch.. blackburn have shit fans and shit owners. they deserve to be relegated.
 
Dazzlà said:
blackburn have shit fans and shit owners. they deserve to be relegated.
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After reading that, i hope Blackburn win the championship and win the EPL for 25 seasons in a row...
Have you talked to all Blackburn fans, did an enquiry, read a scientific rapport about football fans in general or Blackburn fans in particular?
Have you any reasonable explanation or argument why Blackburn have "shit fans". What are your objective criteria to determine a club has "shit fans".

I actually think Blackburn have a pretty decent squad of players and i think their fans have all the right to be mad at Kean because he looked absolutely clueless throughout the season. If you look at the players they have, this is not a team that should relegate. On top of that their are the constant allegations that somehow Kean stole Allardyce's job (which of course might not be true). I think it is pretty save to say that although Kean comported himself with some dignity, he has done an awfull job.

I also absolutely agree that this is a club who has overachieved for a long time and i think in the long term this club does not deserve to go down. If you look at one season, almost every relegated club deserves to go down after 38 matches, just like the champions deserve to be champions whoever they are.

I also agree with Matherto that the Bundesliga is (everything considered) the best league in the world. In a football world where there is financial fair-play, German clubs would absolutely dominate the CL.
 
I'm glad to see Blackburn a club I also have always respected relegated.

It will set a nice precedent on how BAD management from the very top can not only NOT get you success despite $$$ but make you go backward.

Blackburn were a SOLID, stable, fully established mid-table club in NO DANGER Whatsoever and regularly finishing 8-13th with Sam Allardyce and Mark Hughes before that and were today's Stoke! A team nobody likes to face because they gave their all against everyone and were a physical team taht while doesn't play 'good attractive' football, they were a HARD game for anyone! They had a GREAT home record and were doing pretty well.

Then what happened, useless Venky's took over. Sacked the manager who'd made great work, put in Steve Kean who is a bad manager and by no means deserved the job, and then hid behind him as you said.

HORRIBLE management at the top by Venky's as well as by Kean on the pitch led to a huge downfall of a true EPL club that was firmly established and has a loyal following.

It's sad and strange to see Blackburn out of EPL but for the sake of Venky's getting crucified and Steve Kean stealing Fat Sam's job for no apparent reason, I'm glad it's happened and they'll come back where they belong in the top flight but they'll come back stronger.

F*** Venky's and F*** Steve Kean! Both are HUGELY to blame.

The fans were against Kean's appointment since Day 1 as he had no right getting that job and nowhere near the credentials. It's like he went and performed an ORAL favour to one of the Venky's who swings that way and ended up with the job when Fat Sam who was doing a very solid job was let go of.
 
Chelsea is playing their reserve squad. It's clear to see that BPL is their lowest priority at the moment.
 
Clearly Chelsea have decided they will win the CL - because a season without the CL is a pretty big deal for that squad, surely?

Also love that this is going to give Liverpool some real hope that next year is their year ;)
 
It's becoming a shooting practice for Liverpool.

Edit: It's clearly not our day. Both Torres and Ivanovic hit the bar.
 
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This is amazing entertainment. So amusing.

Carroll gets hit in the chest, the big man holds his face - nice to see Suarez bringing his influence to the club. Defo penalty of course.

And then Downing - who has less assists and goals this year than Tim Howard - hits the post?! You can't make it up.

Lukaku on please.
 
Surely the worst performance on BPL this season so far. Embarrassing to be a Chelsea fan. Why did they have to come to the pitch?
 
Jamezinho said:
It's a bit of a shame to see Blackburn finally relegated tonight, even though it has been on the cards all season. They are a club that I have always respected and were the last small town 'provincial' club to win the league, and one of the few to win the Premier League. Yes, they did it with strong financial backing, but it's still a massive achievement nonetheless. I wonder when the league title will be won by a team outside the big cities again? Or even by a team outside of London or Manchester?

I guess the Venkys takeover shows that having a rich foreign owner can go disastrously wrong as well as lead to success.
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PLF said:
I'm glad to see Blackburn a club I also have always respected relegated.

It will set a nice precedent on how BAD management from the very top can not only NOT get you success despite $$$ but make you go backward.

Blackburn were a SOLID, stable, fully established mid-table club in NO DANGER Whatsoever and regularly finishing 8-13th with Sam Allardyce and Mark Hughes before that and were today's Stoke! A team nobody likes to face because they gave their all against everyone and were a physical team taht while doesn't play 'good attractive' football, they were a HARD game for anyone! They had a GREAT home record and were doing pretty well.

Then what happened, useless Venky's took over. Sacked the manager who'd made great work, put in Steve Kean who is a bad manager and by no means deserved the job, and then hid behind him as you said.

HORRIBLE management at the top by Venky's as well as by Kean on the pitch led to a huge downfall of a true EPL club that was firmly established and has a loyal following.

It's sad and strange to see Blackburn out of EPL but for the sake of Venky's getting crucified and Steve Kean stealing Fat Sam's job for no apparent reason, I'm glad it's happened and they'll come back where they belong in the top flight but they'll come back stronger.

F*** Venky's and F*** Steve Kean! Both are HUGELY to blame.

The fans were against Kean's appointment since Day 1 as he had no right getting that job and nowhere near the credentials. It's like he went and performed an ORAL favour to one of the Venky's who swings that way and ended up with the job when Fat Sam who was doing a very solid job was let go of.
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The role of the agent Jerome Anderson is very fishy in this whole sorry saga. He advised Venky's on buying Rovers, as well as the decision to sack Allardyce and replace him with Kean, who is represented by Anderson.

Only he and Kean have benefitted from this farce.
 
Yeah lot of fishy things behind the scenes and you could always tell things are strange at Blackburn since John Williams sold to Venky's. More on this whole Blackburn fiasco below.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11676/7740889/Kean-under-fire-from-Rovers-CEO

So now this was leaked? After relegation confirmed?

Anyway, like I said, I have personally NO sympathy for Steve Kean or The Venky's. Together, they ruined a great club. And Blackburn will never be the same again until BOTH leave and then they have a chance at least...
 
I'm still not sure what to make of this rumour that Venky's thought they were buying a US-style franchise and that Blackburn couldn't get relegated.

Could they be THAT incompetent?
 
I've read that article. If it is true that Kean lost the dressing room in december, then it's a miracle Blackburn's downfall didn't start earlier.

A couple of weeks ago, they seemed save and then it all went downhill again.

I agree with PLF that the only thing that will help Blackburn is the departure of both Venky and Kean. All considered this is a very sad story. It could happen at any club.

Edit: good article about Blackburn, Kean, Venky's and Hunt:

Blackburn Rovers facing their nightmare scenarioRelegation from the Premier League is the result of 18 months under the puzzling and bizarre ownership of Venky's

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David Conn
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 May 2012 22.35 BST Article history
Venky's chairman and Blackburn Rovers' owner, Anuradha Desai, makes her first Ewood Park visit during the match against Tottenham in February 2011. Photograph: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
No football club executive writes to his paymasters warning of relegation and financial collapse unless he is driven to feel desperate and Paul Hunt's letter to Anuradha Desai of Venky's, the owners of Blackburn Rovers, drips, almost weeps, with desperation. Urging Desai to sack Steve Kean as manager because Kean had "lost the crowd … and the dressing room", Hunt, the deputy chief executive, argued a 10-point action plan was necessary "to save the club" and for the owners not to "allow this club to go into ruin".

Hunt's long letter could not have sounded the alarm more directly about the seriousness of Rovers' dysfunction: "I feel I must now write to you to ask you to make some significant changes to save the club," he wrote, "perhaps from relegation but also perhaps from administration."

That was on 21 December, five months ago, and the first dire scenario, relegation, has now befallen Rovers. The second, administration, looks less likely, however. The club's loyal supporters in a poor Lancashire town are in uproar, with clearly very little of Hunt's advice having been taken. Most notable was the continuing presence of Kean, over-promoted to the manager's shell-suit, an increasingly forlorn and haunted figure as his team sank.

This was the nightmare scenario when the trustees of the estate of Jack Walker, the Blackburn-born tax exile who funded Rovers to the Premier League title in 1995 and died in 2000, chose to sell to Desai's Indian poultry company in November 2010.

Kept stable and in the Premier League for 10 years after Walker's death, Rovers have been a chronicle of astounding episodes under Venky's and relegated in 18 months. Yet the puzzling paradox in this implosion is that financial meltdown, as far as one can see, does not look imminent because Venky's, founded by Desai's father, Padmashree Dr Banda Vasudev Rao, in 1971, has put significant money in. Hunt, writing his letter with the club being pressed by its bankers, Barclays, to put another £10m in, told Desai: "Auditors KPMG have put as many obstacles as they can in the way of signing off the accounts due to their concerns. We continue to try and work with Barclays but they are very quickly losing patience."

Barclays, though, has told the Guardian that Rovers' overdraft and loans have been fully paid off, suggesting strongly that the club's owners put at least the £10m in.

The accounts, for the year to 30 June 2011, were signed off by KPMG on 20 December, in fact the day before Hunt's letter. They show that Venky's had injected real money into Rovers, much more than the Walker trustees had annually in their latter ownership. On top of the £23m paid to the Walker trustees to buy the club, Venky's paid off £10m of club debt when it took over. In the year to 30 June 2011 a further £5m interest‑free loan was paid in. Assuming Venky's then paid off the £10m, at least, which Barclays was chasing, the Indian poultry company has pumped at least £25m into Rovers.

With increased parachute payments of £48m over four years, clauses which reduce players' wages on relegation, and some coveted performers, notably Junior Hoilett, who could be sold, Rovers look financially quite able to withstand relegation and, even if crowds plummet, very unlikely to fall into administration. Hunt's warning, that "the Blackburn Rovers and Venky's brands are both suffering terribly", is self-evidently true, however, and that crystallises the puzzle, for a company which bought an English football club, as Desai said then, to promote its own business around the world. While investing many millions it has displayed bizarre mismanagement, increasingly remotely as the Ewood Park protests meant they stayed away.

The appointment of Kean, of course, stands out like bad eggs. He was the first team coach, third in command behind Sam Allardyce and the assistant manager, Neil McDonald, but Venky's, who had no football experience, decided Kean was the man who shared its "vision" for the club to be the "Arsenal of the north". Kean's agent was Jerome Anderson, who had advised Venky's to buy Blackburn, then played a large role in signing players in January 2011. Yet Anderson has always denied he had a central hand in Kean's immediate promotion, arguing that the owners must take responsibility for their decisions.

They must and one of the many mysteries is why a poultry company in Pune, India, spent £23m buying an English football club, invested millions more, then sidelined the club's own executives from decision-making. Exclusion is at the heart of Hunt's cry, a plea for him and the senior staff to be listened to and be given authority to run the club. It is an eerie near-replica of a letter written several months earlier and signed by John Williams, the then chairman, Tom Finn, the managing director, and Martin Goodman, the finance director, lamenting they had not been even consulted on the sacking of Allardyce, appointment of Kean or transfer policy. All three resigned soon after.

Following the player signings of January 2011 Anderson, an experienced agent, fell out of favour but, with Williams, Finn and Goodman gone, business at the club was handled by Hunt, whose plea to be promoted to full chief executive was evidently unheeded, and Vineeth Rao, trusted by the family.

Hunt's assessment of Rao seems to damn him with faint praise: "I am enjoying working with Vineeth and, although he has little experience in football, he is quickly learning."

Hunt begged for Kean to be sacked and a new manager to report through the board, who he argued have "vast" experience, over 60 years in football, yet were not being consulted at all. As with Hunt's predecessors in the frozen-out boardroom, he was not listened to, and Kean remained in place. Kean publicly discussed his own monthly trips to India to meet the owners; the previous board had complained that transfer policy was done in that direct reporting line, between the manager and owners. Hunt begged for him and the two other senior executives at Blackburn, Simon Hunt and Karen Silk, to be allowed similar access in India, with at least one visit every two months.

"I am very concerned that I have not met with you properly during the six months I have worked at the club," Paul Hunt told them.

He argued they should come regularly to Rovers, a founder member of the Football League in 1888, while accepting they did not want to after the fans' protests targeted exasperatedly at Kean: "It is clearly evident that neither yourself, [family members] Bala or Venky currently feel comfortable coming to Ewood Park."

At a deeply uncomfortable Ewood Park on Monday Rovers were relegated, losing 1-0 to well-organised, well-run, united Lancashire rivals, Wigan Athletic, who secured their own survival with the win. Dave Whelan, Wigan's locally based owner, who is pondering how to pass on his own club, said at the time of Blackburn's sale to Venky's: "It doesn't sound right and it doesn't look right."

And sadly it has not turned out right.


From the website of the Guardian (an article by David Conn).
 
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Thanks for posting. :SAL:

What a joke! No wonder this team went down. They looked horrible for the last 18 months but no one did ANYTHING about it. The coach was kept the same, the owners continued to be negligent and some great players jumped ship realizing what the hell was going on behind the scenes, it's all a BIG MESS!
 
Steve Kean: "I'm here to stay! The Venky's and I are here for long-term!"

Every Blackburn supporter's worst nightmare! :LOL:

This guy is unbelievable! Two horrible seasons, a stabilized mid table club relegated, fans protesting him for 18 long months and he still thinks he should be the boss. Something very fishy going on....

And in a day and age where far too many managers are sacked way too quickly without ever being given a real chance, this one is the other extreme! What else does he have to do to get sacked? Get them to 3rd division!? lol
 
ollie has got blackpool in the play off final again, its amazing considering they lost about half their team. and compare their budget to someone like west ham.. they deserve another chance in the premier league.
 
Yep and it's always good to have an attacking newly promoted team in Prem not to mention all his antics and press conferences and his sense of humour! :LOL:

Blackpool is a REALLY Small club! It's smaller than most 2nd division ones, but I for one would be glad to see them back in Prem again. They're a breath of fresh air.

It would be horrible for West Ham not to make it back though! With the manager they have, the players they have, their budget and size. It really would be a kick in the teeth and a disappointing campaign.
 
I love Blackpool. Get em back in.

The final is a one-off right? It's not too legged? If so it's possible. West Ham obviously will have way more support at Wembley, and have, on paper, a vastly superior team. But hey, miracles and all that.
 
Also, I know most people don't care about the financial side of the English game - if you don't just ignore this - but this is an awesome tool by the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...l-health-of-the-Premier-League-laid-bare.html

Gives the ability to see clubs ranked by a series of metrics, including debt and cash flow.

Two highlights for me - only 7 clubs had positive cash flow (brought in more £££ than they spent that year) and if United didn't have the Glazer's LBO debt, they'd be able to spent about £80m a season on transfers, and still post a profit.
 
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great link mate. thanks for posting it. :))
it's unbelievable how much money premier league clubs generate. the worst club in the league incomes-wise is wigan with 50 million pounds. that's 5 millions more than napoli's annual incomes (56 million euros) and 5 times more than palermo's annual incomes (10 millions euros). when u consider that incomes-wise napoli is among serie a's top 5 and that palermo is in top 10, it really puts things into perspective. :SHOCK:

give napoli west ham's annual incomes (80 million pounds) and they'll build a champion league winning team! :P
 
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