MattVillan has submitted the following.
Good post Matt and cheers;
I’ve just watched the end of the Chelsea-Palace match and saw Chelsea lifting their fourth Premier League title under Abramovich and couldn’t help feeling somewhat melancholy- as a Villan born after 1981 I’ve never seen such scenes at Villa Park.
Thinking on, I wondered if I’ll ever see that in my life and came to a troubling realisation: in its current format, I almost certainly wont.
What with FFP and the vast commercial empires that have been grown like colossal fortifications around the chances of the “big clubs”, the likes of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and City, there is no way Villa could ever rise up and compete at that level regularly.
One only has to look as far as Liverpool to see this. They haven’t won a title 25 years now, and the few pops they have at it are irregular and based around fortune with lucky signings and tend to burn out as the going gets tough. They’ve missed the bus and it’ll only get harder to catch it now.
We’ve seen the might of United this year- out of the champions league and yet they sanction north of £100 million in transfer fees to make up for it, sourced from their vast coffers topped up by their global brand. It’s truly a closed shop up there, a different world we can see but could never make that leap and ascend into.
For as much as Fox’s rhetoric is captivating that we can grow to be a top 6 club again – hurray! – that is very much the glass ceiling; even in the excess of the MON days there was no real danger of us ever being a squad that could challenge for the title no matter how much Randy had poured into the squad, and now with the draconian “keep everything as they are” financial fair play rules not even the slim chance of a multi-billionaire investor coming and ploughing money into the club and buying us titles is possible.
With these depressing thoughts in mind my thoughts wandered to the FA Cup final at the end of the month. How massive is that game for us? This is essentially the highest peak we can ascend unless something drastic is done to rebalance the league, bar perhaps a fortunate run in the Europa League after years and years of building (bearing in mind the true prize for that competition is qualification for the Champions League).
This means our date with Arsenal at Wembley could well be the defining match for a generation of Villans- please Tim, don’t let them bottle it like we did in 2010!
Up the Villa!
Hull 3- 0 DOWN,
Good post. I am old enough to have been at VP when the ducks quacking on the pond in Yarm kept Bobby Robson’s Ipswich players awake all night so they lost to Boro and Villa won the league. Oh forgive me – didn’t you know that ducks decided the title? Also I was on the terrace in Rotterdam when Withe shinned the winner. So – can it happen again?
You have to believe in a monumental slice of good luck. Not for us, for Arsenal, Chelsea, Citeh and Manure. We have already seen Manure landing in the Moyes, and Chelsea will one day replace Mourinho, and Arsenal will see Wenger retire. It is not so easy to make a seamless change and maintain the standard.
The other part of the problem is not rolling over to have your tummy tickled while the big four steal the players that threaten their top four places – even if they buy them to stick them in the reserves. Just say no and hold the stars to their contracts. But no, I almost despair at Swansea and Saints selling their strikers – and the end of my belief that it is possible to displace the big four team in transition will happen if Spurs sell Kane.
Great article. It sums up my own thoughts on the subject perfectly. Vast commercial empires and colossal fortifications is a great way to describe the dominance the top four or five teams have on the PL. As things stand there is no way that the other fifteen teams in the PL can compete at the same level. The seemingly bottomless pits of money, the love in with the media and the uncanny rub of the green means that the rest of the league doesnt have a chance.
OLL mentioned above the despair at Swansea and Saints selling their strikers. I read earlier today that Bony is unhappy with the amount of playing time he is getting at Citeh. Really? What did he think was going to happen; he was going to replace Augero? Everybody and their dog could of told him he was going to be a bench warmer. But this annoys me too. The big teams cream the talent from the rest of the league and then stick it on the sidelines. Look at Zaha at Palace, bought by Man Utd and dumped in the who knows where. Yes, he’s back at Palace now but what a waste of good playing time. Same with Sinclair at Citeh. For a large extent it was the same with Young; although he is now getting good playing time. The list just goes on and on. Players get their heads turned, get their big move, and then to various extents disappear off the radar.
Contrast the PL with the Championship. I actually followed this league this season and it was mental. There were about 10 teams fighting it out over the season to get promotion and it went right down to the last few games to establish the top two and the four play off teams. I would never have thought that Bournemouth would be the champions and score close on 100 goals in the process, or that Brentford would make a surge to get in the play off spots denying Derby, who had looked nailed on promotion candidates at one point, in the process.
In my opinion the Championship looked to be a real battle open to all the teams there. On the other hand the PL is a battle that is only played out between the top four or five and feels very much a closed shop. I mean what have things come to when the relegation battle at the bottom is far more interesting and competitive than the battle for the title at the top?
I wonder if the football bubble will burst? Will we ever see proper competition in the PL again? We won’t as things stand and it is very sad.
UTV.
Good post in some ways our season would be more exciting in championship. At least we would be one of 10 teams that could get promoted and no top 4 teams dominating every game. Downside is we might get promoted and suffer all over again.