9 sackings and counting - premier league must change

[Dr Zeuss 0]

This season has shown what has been coming for a long time. The top 7 or 8 are now so wealthy that they will never be in danger of relegation. This season no sides are so far adrift that relegation is a certainty. We do not yet know if that is a pattern that will prevail in coming seasons, but it may be.

If it is the way for the future then my point is that 3 sides that finish in the bottom 3 to definitely go down effectively means that 1 in 4 of the bottom 12 get relegated. That is a recipe for the kind of mayhem we are seeing this year where a few points are the difference between staying up and going down.

The premier league needs to debate this issue. Something less simplistic might be appropriate for the future. For example, the bottom side only goes down for sure if it is more than a defined number of points behind 1 from bottom, and combined with some sort of play off arrangement only 1 other club goes down. The league in its current format does not seem capable of surviving in its present form and a proper discussion needs to take place to thrash out a better way forward than the ridiculous short term thinking that is now all too prevalent.

[canarybubbles 1,915]

I agree with most of your diagnosis but I can''t agree with your suggested solutions. It seems to encourage the creation of a cartel who all look after each other and make sure everyone survives (like the Football League in the days of re-election, if you are old enough to remember that). Also, what happens to the team who wins the Championship? Why try to win it when you don''t even know if you will get promoted or not? Also, at the moment we would ''make the cut'', but by the time this happened maybe we wouldn''t. (We are likely to get relegated this season, for example.) Then what happens to us?I have no idea how to solve this, except perhaps hope the big boys go away and play in some kind of Euro league. But even that would reduce everyone else to second class status and could potentially destroy the football league.Does anyone have any ideas?

[Rock The Boat 1,324]

I agree with you that this may be the shape of things to come with at least ten clubs in with a chance of relegation. I thik this is because the money available to all clubs have levelled out the bottom half of the table so that newly promoted clubs can strengthen their squad straight away.

But is this such a bad thing that so many teams are in the relegation mix? Does it not make for interesting times?

I would prefer that these teams were all in with a chance on being champions and as you say that is not much of a reality these days. At least we can point to the PL having at least 7 clubs in with a shout compared to other European leagues which tend to be dominated by just one or two teams.

That nine managers have been sacked already is a throw back to times where clubs near to the reegation spots change their manager. Many on this forum are demanding the same for us.

If we do continue in future seasons with half the league in danger of relegation as we near the end perhaps clubs may adjust to the new paradigm and see changing the manager as not a solution to the problem.

I have a lot of symphathy with your suggestion of only one or maybe no clubs being relegated. It is easy to suggest when we are in the top flight and we would be dead against it if we were not. But there is merit in the suggestion as it does encourage financial stability and I think you would see more open. attacking football if there was less risk involved in losing, or at least not gaining any points.

Of course there is an obvious downside to no promotions but it is good that you bring the subject up for debate and see what might work without actually changing the fundamenta rules of the game.

[Dean Coneys boots 1,398]

I think it is great. There is fierce competition at the top and the bottom. Sure we think it sucks because we might go down... but it is competitive and it is entertaining. Super Sunday - for the neutral- will be a nail biter this year. Let us just hope the tears are not yellow and green. (though I fear they will be)

[pete_norw 0]

One thing comes to mind and that Is live tv football, has brought in mega bucks to the top clubs, they get more coverage world wide while the rest of us take the pickings from the basket, the only way I see it improving on an equal level is get rid of live football on the box, Hands up if you can remember standing outside the newsagent''s on a Saturday evening waiting for the delivery of the pinkun and only 2 foreign players in the team, which included welsh Scottish and Irish in that bracket, Ok people may say I''m talking out my back side, but back in those days ordinary people ran the game and ordinary people could go to see the game. TV has killed the game as we knew it

[BOO 0]

Rock The Boat wrote the following post at 15/02/2014 7:52 AM:

I agree with you that this may be the shape of things to come with at least ten clubs in with a chance of relegation. I thik this is because the money available to all clubs have levelled out the bottom half of the table so that newly promoted clubs can strengthen their squad straight away.

I agree, the extra money has created a large group of potential relegation candidates in the league and makes for a much more exciting season at both ends of the table.

We were all talking about the idea of mid table mediocrity a while ago,that tranch of mid table teams is much smaller this season, probably only 4 teams and one of them is Man U.

Will be interesting to see if the teams that manage to stay up start pulling more into mid table at the expense of newly promoted teams next season, as the benefit of 2 seasons of new higher payments sees improved squads.

[SwindonCanary 455]

Leave it as it is, football is for the fans and as a fan I''d rather have the journey we''ve been on over the last 30 years than that of Everton fans - same every year