What in the everloving fuck

It is not a Premier League thing. It’s a Messi/Ronaldo thing. Messi has won it in years where arguably someone else deserved it more. I know he won the world cup, but I personally don’t care about trophies. Someone either was the best footballer on the pitch or not. By this logic Haaland will never win anything because he plays for Norway. People who focus too much on prices basically someone like Erling Haaland is never the best footballer because he didn’t win a worldcup.

Messi didn’t play that well for PSG. Argentina didn’t play the prettiest football during the world cup either. And now he plays for Inter Miami. The man gets the Ballon D’Or just because of his name and legacy.

The Premier League is so determined to become a joke.

I would not mind ‘toe-nail offside’ calls if I knew they were objectively correct, like goal line technology. If a computer says it is so, then it is so. It removes the human element and makes decisions immune to discussion. Of course someone is always going to say they were only offside by a few milimeters, but that is utterly irrelevant to me. My library closes at 18.00. If I arrive at 18.02 they are closed. If I then cry that I was only marginally late and it is not fair, nobody will give a shit, lol. There’s always someone who is going to be marginally offside. Loosen the offside rules and even within those rules someone is going to be marginally offside. This is something you just have to accept.

I actually think United’s navel cord to Ferguson needs to be properly cut. The death rattle of his era keeps prolonging and prevents United from properly reinventing itself. Though I do understand fans are happy about this, because can things honestly get worse?

And now Manchester City and Chelsea will be given equal treatment, right?

Netflix narrator voice: “But u/Swamppotato was wrong. Neither of these clubs were ever penalized for breaching the rules, and would in fact go on to breach many more”.

I agree the Super League is not the answer. But you cannot just address the shortcomings of a league to be competitive with the PL. It’s not that only the PL is making smart decisions.

No, it’s just the richest league where most money is thrown around. Give that money to the Eredivisie and within a decade it will be a much much stronger league as well.

VAR works fine in plenty of other competitions. I’m Dutch and VAR works fine here. How embarassing would it be if the wealthiest league in the world could not make this work, and would yeet an innovation because of incompetent referees?

Dutchman here.

People go crazy over the national team. Most football supporters, aside from ultras who live for their clubs, are also supporters of the national team. For the average Dutch football team the question “who would you rather win a price, Oranje or [implement favourite club]” is legitimately a hard question.

I miss Liverpool during international breaks, but I always love watching Oranje. It unites everybody I know, regardless of club, and brings even rival fans together. We watch Oranje with the entire family.

I am actually curious why the English, despite living in such a massive football country, are so indifferent to their national team?

Klopp of course does a lot of railing, which results in instinctive eye-rolling from opposition fans whenever it happens. But he is onto something here. This is a noteworthy disadvantage, it does happen to Liverpool a lot, and from an entertainment perspective it doesn’t make sense to host one of the two biggest clashes this season at 12 fucking 30, lmao.

To be fair, I do ‘drool’ over him. But many rival fans won’t because his goal scoring simply means other teams aren’t winning. Not everyone can distance themselves enough emotionally to appreciate a player who, for the sake of your team, you should hope plays like shit. I mean, Mo Salah is one of the best players in the league and I don’t think Manchester United fans are watching compilations of him in their spare time.

Another factor is that Haaland is playing for City, a team that is already a footballing machine. Though he is undoubtedly their best player he is kind of seen as another cog in the machine, like every other City player. It is not like Barcelona in the Messi days, or Real Madrid in the Ronaldo days. Those clubs were Messi FC and Ronaldo FC. Manchester City is not Haaland FC. He is not their face in the way that other players have been a club’s face, because football has kind of outgrown that. We don’t get flyers with ‘Mohammed Salah versus Erling Haaland’ when Liverpool plays Manchester City. I feel like football has kind of moved away from the super star and closer to the super team.

So, I am Dutch and I would say this is absolutely not necessary. I live in a country of 18 million and we field better referees than you. Why? I have no clue. It’s certainly not like they’re paid better.

What I’m getting at, is that England should have the capacity to fix this themselves. Any of the proposed solutions, from getting rid of VAR to importing referees, is kind of an embarrassment to a league as big as the Premier League. There are SO many things that can still be tried before just giving up on your own referees.

For starters, you could pay these guys enough for it to be an attractive fulltime job. They could train weekly, the way players do. There could be more uniformity in the application of rules, like that’s just a matter of agreeing together on how we’re going to officiate the game. VAR could definitely be finetuned, because the way it’s used now doesn’t always make sense.

I honestly don’t even feel like any attempts have been made to fix what’s broken. So let’s try that first before importing referees.

I think a captain should inspire, and should lead by example when the going gets tough. It may sound sentimental, but I also think a captain should be a model prof, because he is the face of the club.

Bruno only inspires when things are going well and he gets to play football. In bad games he is not positively jumping out because of his work rate or effort. He whines and cries and bothers the referee like a school child throwing a tantrum. And with his behaviour (diving, bothering officials) he is not exactly being the poster boy for good sportsmanship either.

He is the best player, sure. But I do not find him a leader.