Topic: Sportsbet.io's English Premier League Football Pool Discussion Thread - page 166. (Read 140643 times)

On the contrary, I think Chelsea might actually finish season more stronger except of course if they have many injury set backs, Chelsea looked quite better today even tough the result doesn't suggest that. I think they now have quite the right quality of team to compete against any team in the league, the combination of Joao Felix and Mykhailo Mudryk looks very dreadful for any defense if they're put to proper usage, and in the midfield Enzo indeed makes them better, I'm not justifying the prize being paid for him though

It seems that what you said about not believing in the Chelsea team has been proven because in today's match Chelsea vs Wets Ham ended with a draw 1-1 and surely many bettors have lost their money in this match.
The result of the match was actually very embarrassing because Chelsea, who was ranked 9th in the standings, could not win against West Ham who was ranked 16th.
From this match, Chelsea must train even harder in the future so that when they face a much stronger team they can survive or even win. If Chelsea's game continues to decline and there are no good developments then I believe it will be very impossible for Chelsea to survive in the English premier league this time.

I am not sure about this Chelsea side, just look at their line up. 3 attacking mids behind Havertz are Mudryk, Felix and Madueke, all three new to the club and all three untested in PL. Then you also have Fernadez and Badiashile in first 11 with same problems and on top of that their best player James is just coming back from injury. This Chelsea side has a lot of potential but I don't think they can gel together that quickly. Half of the first 11 has only know each other for 2 weeks. You can do something on individual quality but that is usually not enough in PL.

I am expecting Chelsea to struggle for a couple more weeks and than to have very strong finish to the season.

We have the opening match of this round that will pit West Ham against Chelsea.it promises to be an intriguing game, with both sides desperate for the three points. Chelsea will be hoping to take advantage of West Ham's recent defensive frailties, while the Hammers will be looking to continue their recent good form and leapfrog their London rivals.
The Blues will be boosted by the return of influential midfielder N'Golo Kante, who has been out with a hamstring injury since December. He is expected to start in midfield alongside Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic, with Mason Mount and Timo Werner providing attacking threat.
West Ham manager David Moyes will be without suspended Tomas Soucek, while Michail Antonio is doubtful due to a hamstring injury. Midfielders Declan Rice and Mark Noble are expected to start, with Jarrod Bowen and Pablo Fornals providing the attacking threat.I expect Chelsea to win this match, which starts shortly

Anyone else falling for Chelsea? I thought would start them on my acca so I either start well or try to find something else to bet on after the match.

All the other ties look tricky. I am perhaps most confident of Newcastle.

And yes, to echo Welsh. FSG being in on Super League was a disgrace. That reminded me, lest I ever come close to forgetting, our American owners will never understand the supporter or the soul of the club.

Have you tried to understand what armmortizing is before throwing stones at a club? Manchester City has been presenting false club revenue to the FA, and it took the FA four years to track down their fraudulent records and bring 100 charges with evidence. Not long ago, UEFA found them guilty of violating FFP rules, and they paid their way out.

If Chelsea ever violated the FFP, the FA will come after them. FIFA banned Chelsea from buying players for two seasons three years ago when we violated the rules and signed a 15-year-old Bertrand Traore. Nobody is above the law; Liverpool, Barcelona, and Real Madrid all received the same penalty years ago.

Superleague would be the last nail in the coffin of small teams. It is already very difficult to rise trough the leagues to the top levels and even to compete with best clubs. If they make superleague all local leagues will crumble and we will just have the same top clubs competing season after season.

It already looks like that in final stages of Champions league but at least we get one surprise per year and some Ajax or Benfica make it up and break the pattern a little. We would also lose the magic of cup competitions when Manchester united comes to play let's say Exeter City. Those kids on Exeter City stands will remember that for life.

That's a strange one, I'm still absolutely against a super league or any format of it. I don't care about lining the pockets of the rich, I care about football. That's literally what every fan wants, and of course they'll sell the idea by having the best play the best every week. However, that's what a league structure with promotion, and relegation is for. The original proposal they had where the founding clubs had special privileges, was absolutely disgraceful. Honestly, it should be illegal to be that money grabbing, and Liverpool was one of them. It's one of the reasons I'll never trust FSG again, despite them being pretty good for the club overall.

What was also annoying was these clubs laid off staff during Covid, and then was talking about a super bloody league to make more money, it was incredibly insensitive. The only saving grace for me is they changed their decision based on the backlash. If fans are now warming up to the idea, then that'll be the day that football dies, at least for me. I'll go back to rugby which has its own set of problems .

Yes, I remember the reaction of a significant part of the fans who came out strongly against the Super League and I was extremely surprised by this. But only a little time has passed and I see from the sports forums that the mood has changed and many fans are now at least neutral about the Super League and extremely negative about bureaucratic rubbish from FIFA and UEFA.
As for the Premier League clubs, yes, many are against it, since the Premier League is already a kind of Super League, but now the financial crisis is coming in the Premier League and they will have to solve it either within their organization or within the Super League. I don't see a normal solution within UEFA.

Was there some mid week games I forgot to put down a prediction? Honestly, this season I'm absolutely all over the place . This is probably the least amount of football I've watch in the last five years. Liverpool going through a rough time has probably contributed to that.

Most of the teams invest pretty smartly I think. Newcastle have invested alright so far, but I don't think they've had much chance to splurge yet. I'm sure that's coming in the summer though. Liverpool's transfer strategy has worked pretty well for them, I mean just look at the Coutinho situation, him being sold probably led to us winning our first Premier League title in twenty years. Even though, he was my favourite player at that time, in hindsight I'm glad he went, but it's a shame that his career has somewhat stagnated as a result.

Chelsea also have a pretty decent strategy. I mean most of their signings are youth players that they put out on loan as you probably know, but they get some pretty decent talent when they fully mature, and if they don't they sell on for a profit.

Yeah pretty insane that Chelsea is pushing this and they are responsoble aswell for breaking the rules this season. I think they broke a record in spending the most money on transfer in one of the transfer windows. I dont think city should be punished but if they do chelsea also has to be punished

Todd Boehly is not guilty of anything; he is a businessman who took advantage of a loophole in the FFP rules to build his team; there is no rule that says amortizing is not allowed in football, and that's exactly what Todd did; he took players worth £300m from different clubs and paid less than £60m upfront in the entire deal, with the rest to be paid in 7-8 years to comply with the FFP rules. Now I'd like to ask you why you believe Todd Boehly, who spent only £60m in January, should be charged. If you believe that the £500m you quoted was spent all at once, you are mistaken.

Chelsea, like Liverpool and 80% of English clubs, is owned by Americans. Btw, not all Saudis waste their money, and Newcastle united is a prime example.

If I've learned anything in life, as soon as you start replacing locally owned businesses with foreign buyers, simply because of money you start losing the culture. Now, I'm not saying this hasn't happened, because it clearly has. I mean, Liverpool have been owned by FSG who are from the US for a while now. I believe the United's board is also Americans. So, don't get me wrong it has already happened, but the further you go down the table the more locally owned clubs there's.

One of the disappointing things recently was that Wrexham got bought out by Ryan Reynolds, which Wrexham was a historically owned club. Now, the results on the pitch have been better, and the investment has definitely been better, but that doesn't take away that we're losing the culture of these teams everywhere. There was a big fuss in recent years with Cardiff, because the owner changed their bluebird crest to a dragon. Now, you might argue the dragons part of Welsh history, but at the end of the day people supported Cardiff, and used that Blue Bird nickname, and crest for a long time.

I'd like to see some rules put in place that foreign buyers will have to have the involvement of the local communities. Whether that be something like the Spirit of Shankly which acts as a unofficial sort of spokesman for the club or advisory board. I think that's how we combat losing that culture, because the English leagues are steeped in history, and tradition.

It'll also hurt the betting odds. We've seen it with the bigger clubs, they rarely have even odds. I'm going to ignore this season, but this season has been ridiculous for a number of reasons, and it seems most of the league can't string wins together.

They are right to have an urgent meeting and to push for a quick judgement of the matter.If Manchester is found guilty then most likely it is game over for them in terms of fighting for the Premier League for this season and many more to come depending on how grave is the matter.

I personally am against such big punishment as I don't like to remove a team that always fights for the title in these last years and also does great performance in most of their Champions League games,it would be a loss for football in general if City is punished hard.

It is good to see that Boehly, who spent 500 million pounds since he took over less than a year ago, is pushing for sustainability in football.
I hope he goes down with City as well. Either make it an open field for all clubs and let's have 30 Saudi owners in England or let's find a way to stop cheap tricks altogether - and Boehly is as guilty as the City guys.

As far as I know most Premier League teams are against it, especially since the backlash. Liverpool fans basically got the board to apoligise, and I know several other clubs made a fuss about it, since it would absolutely kill football for me. I believe in grass roots football, and it's one of the things that makes it something to be passionate about. Theoretically, you can have teams make their way from the bottom of the pyramid, right up to the top. Now, these days we're seeing less of that due to the finances involved at the top, but like I said Leicester managed it recently, alright they did have quite a significant amount of money behind them, but nowhere near the likes of Man City.

I'm hoping the league becomes more strict on money being spent, but I'm not going to hold my breath that's for sure.

Football is changing, that's a fact. And in the coming years, it will change radically because the old model just goes bankrupt/went bankrupt. Today there was new news about the launch of the Super League in a new format (which is vaguely similar to the new format of the Champions League). In the coming years, I think we will see fierce competition between three projects: the Super League, the UEFA Champions League and the Premier League. I hope that the Superleague and the Premier League will find common ground and the UEFA garbage will be finally thrown into the dump.

To be honest, our attack isn't a problem right now; we've fixed it with some of the world's best young players; our main concern now is keeping Kante and Kovasic fit enough to partner with Enzo in the midfield. West Ham are not in good form right now, and this is another opportunity for Potter to show us why he deserves our patience. With 98% of the squads available for the game, there is no excuse for him not to get a three-pointer against West Ham.

ETH has only been here for six months and has transformed Manchester United into a title contender; what else is Potter's excuse?

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The FA had an urgent meeting with club owners concerning Manchester city scandal. Todd Boehly and co are pushing for quick judgement.

Well I was not even in the mood to response after losing a $100 bet. After the second goal I did not even watch the match. Turned off the Tele. Kept myself busy with some other things and wanted to forget about it. Checked the result on the phone 10 minutes after the match ended. Did not expect anything so it did not hurt a lot too. 😏

If I was gambling in live match then I would go with Utd to draw or win double chance. Hope you managed to win some.

That's means I am still on the 12th place 😂

Manchester midfield was a disaster yesterday defending the fast transition made by Leeds.

They really miss Casemiro, Sabitzer plays good considering its his first match but they lack somethings. Leeds still the same team like ever, a disaster in defense and a bold fast attack.

I was put a 3-0 for Man utd and was rapidly destroy by a goal in the first minute of the game. The only good think was nobody score a point.