Football 2013-2014

[ThomThomDrum]

You deliberately making an arse of yourself?

[Wooderson]

How rich are Liverpool compared to those other teams?

[The Nal]

Liverpool fans getting very defensive. Shame their team couldn't employ similar tactics.

[zahidf]

Moyes has reduced the value of Man utd by 11% in one year

http://www.football365.com/news/21554/9302154/United-Value-Plummets

[Badlands]

If I was a fan of a lower league club I'd be miffed with this B team talk. Very miffed.

[Man drew]

Not sure what planet the F.A live on? Absolute Clowns

[pink_triangle]

If I was a fan of a lower league club I'd be miffed with this B team talk. Very miffed.

[mrtourette]

What would this B team idea bring that the reserve league doesn't? Are they concerned that young English players at Premier League teams don't have a high enough playing standard in the reserve league to develop properly so want them to be playing against lower league teams?

I also find it bloody annoying when they talk about lack of grassroots coaching and facilities given the amount of cuts they have made to grassroots and lower league funding over the last several years.

Edited May 8, 2014 by mrtourette

[pink_triangle]

What would this B team idea bring that the reserve league doesn't? Are they concerned that young English players at Premier League teams don't have a high enough playing standard in the reserve league to develop properly so want them to be playing against lower league teams?

[mrtourette]

If that is the case they can build links with lower league teams, share coaching/equipment and loan them out. I would have no problem with this.

[LondonTom]

8 loan players to lower league sides while retaining control?!

The whole proposal reads like an idea of how to ensure the top sides can have their pick of the talent. (They already can, but at least the smaller teams get a money windfull out of it) and then a bit UKIPish with the "non eu players", its actually fairly hard already to have non EU players due to visa requirements and such!

As usual ill thought out and trying to protect the FA and the big clubs.

[pink_triangle]

England underperform so they want to rip up the tradition of our football. If its all about opportunity, I would be interested to see their evidence showing England performing better when their was a higher proportion of English players.

[strummer77]

England underperform so they want to rip up the tradition of our football. If its all about opportunity, I would be interested to see their evidence showing England performing better when their was a higher proportion of English players.

[pink_triangle]

Quote from Dyke "Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City are among clubs that have already shown a lot of interest and enthusiasm for a new league for B teams". In other words forget about what the other 95% of teams think. The elite have already screwed the lower leagues through EPP and seem to want to continue this trend.

To add insult to injury if they get their way they will probably be stuck in the same league as wrexham. I think out of principle I would not go to these games. Watching conference football on a semi regular basis I suspect initially (until they start moving up) the players will learn nothing at this level. Next weekend the fans of Cambridge and Gateshead will go to Wembley to see their teams fight for a position in the football league, what kind of atmosphere will there be when you swap those teams with everton and spurs reserves.

Luckily there has been an almost consistent negative reaction to this stupid idea, I hope it will be consigned to footballs dustbin along with the 39th game.

[strummer77]

Quote from Dyke "Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City are among clubs that have already shown a lot of interest and enthusiasm for a new league for B teams". In other words forget about what the other 95% of teams think. The elite have already screwed the lower leagues through EPP and seem to want to continue this trend.

[pink_triangle]

If all 20 clubs are supporting it they should hang their heads I'm shame for putting their selfishness ahead of clubs/ communities throughout the country. I hope most of their fans will look beyond self interest and fight this move.

A few people on the wrexham site are wondering if the b team idea is a smokescreen to deflect attention from the equally abhorrent feeder club idea. I have seen enough crap players from the likes of Liverpool, city and united to know the negative effect this would have. I have no problem with premiership clubs sending young players, but I don't want premiership teams telling lower league managers who to pick. Once on loan players should be picked on merit like the rest of the squad.

[pink_triangle]

Just another nail in the coffin for lower league football...

I think the whole suggestion the nations footballers will be better for playing lower league football is laughable in itself. The only way to improve Englands stock is for the top teams to stop buying foreign players and invest into home grown players.

You also know that Liverpool B and Chelsea B is going to be full of foreigners anyway which will total remove the proposed benefit.

[LondonTom]

If all 20 clubs are supporting it they should hang their heads I'm shame for putting their selfishness ahead of clubs/ communities throughout the country. I hope most of their fans will look beyond self interest and fight this move.

[Dead throne]

Can't wait for the World Cup

Me being in Belgium (Graspop) at the time of the Belgium-South-Korea match makes it even more exciting

[mrtourette]

I don't think the Belgium-South Korea match can get any more exciting.

[mrtourette]

Rather than re-type them and try to pass them off as my own, here are some excellent points from a letter at F365:

Some thoughts on Grey Dyke and friends' horrible idea.

1) Excellent English players are already playing for professional first-teams by their late teens.

2) So are lots of mediocre ones, outside of the top flight. Playing first-team football each week doesn't automatically turn these medicare teens into world beaters, they overwhelmingly remain mediocre.

3) If you do want young English players to play more, then limit the size of Premier League squads. This would force a lot of these young players out, to be signed permanently by other professional clubs, who might actually be able to reap some real benefits from developing these players, instead of temporarily farming them for Premier League sharks.

3) Even if we accept (for argument's sake) the proposal that this would help England win the World Cup, permanently running the day-to-day experience of football for the a huge swathe of the population that actually supports it financially by going along on a match-day would not be a price worth paying for a one-off event.

5) England is not a huge country in a global context. Pound-for-pound, in terms of population, its football team is already disproportionately good. Expecting it to be the best is not actually realistic.

6) The one outstanding thing at which English football currently excels head and shoulders above the rest of Europe is the strength, depth, vibrancy and support of its professional and semi-professional pyramid. If the FA had a clue, they would realise this and work to conserve it, not keep making proposals to destroy it by shovelling even more money and power to a small, disinterested elite, who couldn't give a shit about the state of the national team.

7) As F365 often points out, in the 70s, the top flight was full of English players, and the national team was a lot worse than it is now, in a much less competitive global environment. Simply "having lots of English people playing first team football" is not an automatic guarantee of success...

...you need to actually coach them properly at a young age. This is where the FA should be looking to improve standards.

9) Because of points 1) and 2), in practice this idea is basically to rip up 125 years of history and competition in the world's oldest and deepest league structure, in order to give nurture to the next generation of Wes Browns, Carl Jenkinsons and Neil Mellors.

10) Bastards.

[eFestivals]

Some ending in La Liga coming up!

Is Ronaldo a doubt for the World Cup now?

Great ending in the Prem too. City haven't won it yet. I can't help but feel Liverpool thought they'd won it after the City game. The celebrations were way OTT and this "We go again" nonsense and a few other catchphrases became a big thing. The players lack of experience at the business end of the season showed I think. Gerrards slip was a massive massive mistake.

City on the other hand didn't flinch. Or haven't yet!

looks like it's city's, but then again maybe they'll get stuffed at the last moment much like they stuffed Utd a few years ago.

I doubt it, but you never know. It's not over until it's over.

[The Nal]

looks like it's city's, but then again maybe they'll get stuffed at the last moment much like they stuffed Utd a few years ago.

I doubt it, but you never know. It's not over until it's over.

[strummer77]

Agree yeah. Early Hammers goal from Big Andy and they may panic. Stranger things have happened.

[pink_triangle]

Have found a great letter online which articulates what I think in a much better way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Open letter to Dyke from Chairman of Sutton United -

Dear Mr Dyke,

I read about your proposals to insert B teams of Premiership clubs into the Football Conference with interest. With interest and horror !

I started watching Sutton United when I was nine. For almost a quarter of a century I went to just about every game, home and away, with my dad. I watched them at Wembley, followed them in Italy and have trekked from Spennymoor to Truro and from Barrow to Dover, and a multitude of places in between. The club’s star centre-forward has become a good friend for thirty years and my boyhood hero was a guest at my wedding. I have sold programmes, been a steward, painted railings and pulled down an old wooden terrace. I have done just about every job at the club you can think of. Why? Because I had dreams. And I’m not alone, there are many like me at Sutton and the same picture is repeated at non-League clubs up and down the country. Oh, by the way, I am now chairman of the board and that’s something my dad and I couldn’t have dreamt about when I was nine years old.

But football is all about dreaming. It’s about cold, wet nights in the middle of Essex or the prospect of a six hour journey home after being thrashed somewhere in Yorkshire, It’s about the days when those memories become all the more special because your team has just won the league or, dare I say it, knocked a top flight club out of the FA Cup. As the great Danny Blanchflower famously said “The game is about glory.”

Your proposal gnaws away at that glory. It makes it all the harder for the smaller clubs to have those special, unforgettable days. Sutton United has just missed out on promotion to the Football Conference but we will go again next season, and the season after that until, one day, we get there again. And when we do get there we want to take our chances against all the other clubs who share the same dreams. Not Everton B.

Injecting B teams from Premiership clubs into the Conference, or creating a new division between us and the Football League would make it harder for the multitude of non-League clubs to realise their dreams. As Chairman of the FA you represent every one of these clubs just as much as you represent the giants of the Premiership or the national team but your plan betrays them. We can’t compete with Arsenal B in terms of the quality of player, their wages, their coaching or their fitness levels. These teams will dominate at this level. Will they be promoted if they win the league ? Surely yes, because the alternative is worse. That takes away the promotion dreams from the clubs who aspire to reach as high as they can. And, although it’s almost unimaginable, if Chelsea B finished bottom of the Conference would they really want to play in Conference South, or even the Ryman League? What happens to the pyramid system when this experiment eventually runs its course ?

I beg you Mr Dyke, kill this ill-conceived plan now or be remembered as the man who killed the dreams.

Yours Faithfully,

Dave Farebrother

Chairman, Board of Directors