The Difference between Football now and before the Premier League

[rbm]

I don't even pay attention to the league. If we win one week I'm happy, if we don't it's redemption the next. The table is really a lie because there are really only four teams that will regularly make the top 4. Occasionally us, Liverpool, Spurs, or any of the others with the new money might make break it.
Cups on the other hand rely on miracles. You don't need to be consistent. All you have to do is approach it one game at a time and win. We can win a cup, but we will probably never win the league.

I'm the same as you. Big games against the likes of Man. Utd and the RS get my attention but I rarely bother with knowing exactly where we stand in the league because we will never win it and any run for the top 4 will almost certainly see us fall into the dreadful Europa league
.

Essentially real success in the PL is bought and we can't afford it.

 

[COYBL25]

No, of course not. FWIW, I have a long held theory.

And it is quite straight forward. Take away the exceptional players, the Giggs, the Rooneys, and with the number of bang average, non british players in the PL, those brits who were good as a 16 year old, are still playing football, but in lesser sides.

They are there, but in a poor team/enviroment, and I honesty think most PL sides are basically too lazy to scout the lower leagues, and prefer to bring in foreign players cos they are probably cheap, might have a better sell on value, or are just seduced by some "director of football"

Spurs recently? Liverpool? Newcastle?

Spot on, however there's been an unforeseen consequence of this in the lower leagues. As large numbers of young lads are being let go by premier league academies in favour of cheaper foreign players, a lot are ending up in the lower leagues. As a result lower league football has improved measurably due to the availability of talented young players who have had the chop and are desperate to play anywhere. So in effect the academy system at premier league level is feeding the lower leagues. I go and watch league 2 games and there's kids playing who really standout and when you google them, sure enough they've been let go by a prem team.

 

[James Patrick]

The main difference between then and now is that kids that show promise are signed by premier league clubs at the age of 10. Back in the 80s you could find quality players in lower division that hadn't been spotted by bigger clubs, a good example being trevor Steven signed from 3rd division burnley.

And we sold Steve McMahon to fund his purchase.

 

[summerisle]

I think Everton have done this a lot but the likes of Chelsea don't seem to be interested in doing it. Its the one thing i would always give Moyes credit for, going and finding them type of players that came within our budget, while money clubs spunked big £££ on name players that turned out to be rubbish in reality.

Necessity is the mother of invention

 

[WA Toffee]

However, we all know that if we don't get Top 4 this season we will lose Lukaku and Stones as well. Once that happens, it can well be a downward spiral.

I think when players talk about playing for a CL team, they really mean they want the wages that CL teams pay.
If we offer Lukaku/Stones etc 100k but no CL, and Chelsea only offer 80k and CL, they will stay with us.

 

[degsy]

The big difference these days is the size of a squad that clubs are able to keep together. It wasn't so long ago that very good players would move to a different club (even what would be called a "smaller" club these days) just to get a regular game. Things could change very quickly. Now players sit tight and take the money. It's as if they take the view that if they don't play then they won't get injured. Keep raking it in for as long as they get away with it. Can't say I blame them really.

Players who could do a real job for another club just aren't bothered.......

we've sort of come full circle, back in the day with the maximum wage there was no real incentive for say Ray Wilson to move from Huddersfield to anywhere else.
You might be able to pick the 'better' teams from the 'poorer' but you couldn't pick the top 4 finishers with the certainty you can now so why bother to move.
Now there is as you say not much incentive for players not to sit on the bench or even in the stand on 60+K per week...yeah you could go, if poached somewhere else for even more money...if it didn't mess you about too much...the wife's happy, the kids are just going to start school, these sort of things, would I be able to take my gold Bentley. they all tip the balance to apathy

 

[degsy]

I think when players talk about playing for a CL team, they really mean they want the wages that CL teams pay.
If we offer Lukaku/Stones etc 100k but no CL, and Chelsea only offer 80k and CL, they will stay with us.

this could well be true

 

[Aar_the_Toffees]

I think to essentially build a top 4 side, the School of Science has to reopen. Lukaku, Stones, Mirallas will leave if we don't make CL this year. Barkley will not. We need more of us. More Evertonians who understand what it means.

 

[Eggs]

We know this?

.......RM actually said a few weeks ago that if we failed to get top4 it would be difficult to keep hold of his brightest young players. I thought at the time it was a strange comment but you don't know what is being said behind the scenes.

 

[rbm]

I think to essentially build a top 4 side, the School of Science has to reopen. Lukaku, Stones, Mirallas will leave if we don't make CL this year. Barkley will not. We need more of us. More Evertonians who understand what it means.

Spot on. We'll be accused of romanticism but since we are never going to win the League in the current circumstances we should concentrate of getting a core of committed players who want to be here. They don't have to be born and bred though of course that is ideal but they do have to want it....

The players wnat the money and I don't blame them. If I was on say 30 thou a week at Everton and City offered me 100 thou I'll be honest. I'd take it. However if they offered me 40 thou I would not.

We need a core which won't be tempted unless by mega bucks....in which case no club can stop it. EG if Real madrid came in for Stones with a big fat tax paid salary and all the trimmings he would go but I would hope we woudl have a core which would only be tempted by such offers and not just incremental increase elsewhere.

 

[Arteta2391]

It's always talking about next year then years turning into a decade.

 

[chicoazul]

.......RM actually said a few weeks ago that if we failed to get top4 it would be difficult to keep hold of his brightest young players. I thought at the time it was a strange comment but you don't know what is being said behind the scenes.

Fair point.

 

[Brendan Janus]

There was no football before 1992/1993 !!

 

[chrismpw]

.if it didn't mess you about too much...the wife's happy, the kids are just going to start school, these sort of things, would I be able to take my gold Bentley. they all tip the balance to apathy

You're absolutely right. This mentality chuffs me off ... 'clubs and players keeping the wife happy.' If you're a footballer's wife you enjoy the benefits of a very good income. You and your husband can be retired in his mid 30s and set up for life. You could afford the top schools for your kids and the best world wide holidays. You will have chosen a husband who was in all probability a pro footballer before you met them, and their wealth very probably has increased your tolerance to their foibles, which without it would probably have meant they'd have been dumped long ago.

So if you're going to take the hump when you can't live in glitzy London, or you end up living somewhere unfashionable, or cold and wet, or your husband has to go off for a month in a tournament, or you can't enjoy Christmas as much because of the Boxing day fixture .... then you don't deserve anybody's time.

 

[BoysInBlue]

If we had this team when I was 18 (1988) I would have been annoyed but in some ways I would have said yesterday would do us some good. We are a young developing team, and events like this can only help our education as a team.

However, we all know that if we don't get Top 4 this season we will lose Lukaku and Stones as well. Once that happens, it can well be a downward spiral.

Our team now reminds me of West Ham under Harry Redknapp. They had Joe Cole, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Paolo Di Canio. They played good football and I honestly thought they could challenge for the league.

They were relegated within 3 years. As soon as the board sold Rio Ferdinand to Leeds the whole club knew that they didn't have the money or ambition to build on the 1 golden chance (before being handed the Olympic Stadium for free) they had to build a team that could really challenge.

It makes me sick, not just for Everton, but for any team that isn't rich. When I was growing up, teams like Notts Forest, Ipswich, Villa, Norwich City were challenging for the league and sometimes winning it. They built good teams, and those teams stayed together for long enough to achieve something. Don't get me wrong they still lost their best players, but not after 1 good season.

The only chance we have is to be an English version of Villareal or Athletico Madrid. Constantly developing young players to replace the ones you will inevitably lose. No team in England has ever managed this, so excuse me if I doubt our ability to be the first.

Every summer we get told we will lose all our best players.

Except - with exception with 1 or 2 very notable exceptions - WE NEVER DO.

Players like it at Everton, regardless of what the London-biased media would have you believe.

Reading the Bournemouth programme from Saturday - Distin was interviewed, said we were the best club he has ever played for, and he had success at Portsmouth, and played for City and Newcastle.

It really isn't all doom and gloom. It's the end of November, not May. Anything can happen in the next 6 months.

I don't think it's a certainty that Lukaku or Stones get sold in the summer. The massive influx of cash this summer will mean we can continue to snub any advances as we hold all the cards.