That’s a good point, not sure if the new structure will change that or not. It would be stupid if not as for teams playing in the UEL and UECL the opportunity to qualify for the next tournament up is a bigger prize than the actual trophy or prize money awarded.

VAR has never been the problem.

The problem is that referees are not consistent enough with decisions, in part due to bodies like UEFA, the FA, IFAB, etc constantly tinkering with the guidelines of what is/isn’t offside, handball, etc

Especially when winning the Europa League could well be Newcastle’s best chance to get back into the Champions League next season. They are far from guaranteed another top 4 spot but realistically could beat pretty much anyone in the EL in knockout football.

Chelsea
United
Newcastle
Tottenham.

The reasons are obvious

The entire field of sports science is basically geared to minimising how long athletes take to recover from injuries and fatigue and keeping keeping them competing as the highest possible level for the longest possible time.

The result of that is more players players spending more time on the pitch and playing at their peak for longer than their predecessors did. On average players are playing more games and having longer careers.

Kompany signed a new 5 year contract in May so would presumably be very expensive to sack.

Heckinbottom is contract until 25/26 but clearly knows how to get out of the Championship. It wouldn’t surprise me if they are banking on going back down this season and taking the parachute payments and then him getting them promoted again right away by which point he will be back in the Prem with 1 year left on his contract so they can sack him cheaply if they are struggling again back in the Premi.

For a long time long ball tactics were the baseline coaching model for up and coming British coaches and managers getting their coaching badges. It made sense given that the majority of coaches were never going to coach at a level higher than sunday league so they were taught to set up their teams in a way that wasn’t reliant on high technical skill from the players. Essentially just teach players how to play a long pass and put a couple of big strong players up front to pressure the defenders.

However, even the top level managers all started their coaching badges at the same point so this style of football filtered right through to the top levels in Britain. It’s been said that had Messi been born in England he probably would never have made it as a top level player due to his size. As a small player he likely would have flown under the radar (no pun intended) in his youth academy days and not been given the opportunities and game time to develop that a bigger player would have. He didn’t fit the mould of what English coaches were trained to look out for at the time and therefore would probably have been ignored until it was too late to turn him into the player he had the potential to become.

Hard to look past the hype early years Michael Owen. 2nd youngest ever winner of a Ballon D’or is an incredible achievement and the hype around him at the time from legends of the game was ridiculous. The drop off after his injuries is insane, 75% of his career goals by the age of 25.

Arguably they have been massively underperforming for almost 20 years now. They should probably have cemented themselves as a top 6 club in the early Randy Lerner days