Topic: The Push Square Football (Soccer) Thread

@BAMozzy True, but PSG have been dominating the French League for quite sometime now. If I remember correctly, they won the league by 31 points - 1st place was 96 points and 2nd place Lyon only got 65 points. Not to mention they scored more than 100 goals and only allowed less than 20 goals conceded. The rest of the clubs didn't come anywhere close to PSG's stats. Monaco was third place, with around 50+ goals forwarded and 50 goals conceded.

@WanderingBullet Its true they had dominated the French league for a few seasons - but PSG were only founded in 'recent' years - I say recent but they are a few years away from celebrating their half century - but considering some teams - like Liverpool are celebrating their 125th year, PSG are relatively new. I know they have had some success before they were bought out, but domestically they have dominated in the past few seasons thanks to huge investment - they have become the Chelski of France except I think the Qatari group that owns PSG has more money than Abramovic but that investment was only in 2011 - before that, PSG had moderate success - but the majority of have only been since the QSi group took them over. However, when up against the best in Europe, they have fallen short - even throwing away a 4-0 lead to Barca - mind you. the way Neymar played in that 6-1 score, maybe that's why PSG paid that much for him.

Anyway, the reason PSG have dominated in their domestic League is down to the massive investment only 6 or so years ago but that would be like Chelsea or one of the Manchester clubs winning the Championship every year because the majority of the French Ligue 1 sides are not that strong. I wouldn't be Surprised if PSG run away with the league again with maybe Monaco (if they can keep hold of their stars) coming in 2nd. Its not like the English league where any one of 4-5 teams could win and rest are quite strong - enough to take points against those top teams if they are not at 100%. PSG could play at 80% and still walk over the majority of teams easily. Maybe its that lack of competition that hurts them in the CL?

@BAMozzy Yeah, the French League is probably the weakest among the six major leagues. That said, I feel like if they don't win the Champions League it wouldn't be money well spent.

@WanderingBullet That's ultimately why they were willing, and have been willing in the past, to spend that money. They paid stupid money for Luiz, Cavani, Ibrahimovic, Moura, Verrati, Thiago etc etc in the hope that it brings them CL success. To the QSi owners, that's more important than domestic honours - although that's still nice. The fact that Neymar is in France may well increase revenue for TV rights around the world - much like the Spanish League and Premier League has done.

Even with the likes of Neymar, Messi and Suarez, that still doesn't always guarantee success in the CL. Even if PSG don't win in the next 5yrs, they could still make their money back from purchasing Neymar - all those Shirt sales, filling the stadium every week, Global TV rights and extra attention they may get by owning the most expensive footballer in the world. As we know, the 'best' footballers can have 'off days' and even having 80% possession can still result in a 'loss' (Liverpool away at Burnley last season for example). Injuries, complacency, just one of those days etc can all affect the result.

Ultimately though, PSG, or more the owners, are buying the best in the hopes of winning the CL and therefore being seen as the 'best' in Europe, which can then give them the shot at being the best club side in the World. Neymar, I think, will still struggle to win the Ballon D'Or at PSG because the standard of opposition mean he has to outscore the likes of Messi and Ronaldo by a significant margin - as well as probably be instrumental in winning the CL.

I think a lot of people forget just how crazy the Barca comeback was last year to overturn a huge deficit to PSG in the round of 16. And this year's PSG team includes Neymar and Dani Alves. I worry a little about the Keeper (Trapp is shaky, Areola started today), but this team isn't far off those top 3 teams mentioned above. I think they're good enough to contend for the Champions League title this season, but we'll see. I feel Juventus is another team capable of making another deep run.

As far as Ligue 1 goes, it's definitely top heavy. There's no reason PSG shouldn't win the league by 8-10 points, but Monaco isn't done making moves in my opinion. If they keep Mbappe and Lemar and add a piece or two, they're still just fine. And I think Marseille will be really tough this season too. Lyon and Nice will be formidable at the very least. Between the Winter transfer window and this summer so far, Ligue 1 has improved a little talent wise.

Football, soccer, whatever it's called, is the most boring sport in the world to watch or play. But they definately have some stamina for handling balls.....

@WanderingBullet but it's more competetive than the most top leagues could ever hope to be. Which sadly does make for a lack of quality.

@Fight_Teza_Fight United got absolutely shafted by Real over Ronaldo. £80 was a painfully low price for a player who when he's in your team you basically start one nil up.

@booshy89 It really was a great weekend for football - speaking as a Liverpool fan who was pretty disappointed with the result against Watford, I can't deny that it was a great match objectively. This weekend had everything - giant-killings against Chelsea (and Liverpool to a lesser extent) as well as some high-scoring matches (Arsenal-Leicester especially) and a big win for Huddersfield.

Generally speaking, we could always get a fantasy league set up, but I know that they're time consuming, plus the season's already started.

@Kyroki Coutinho might as well just leave to be honest. If he'd handed in a transfer request last month, we'd be in a much better situation and the fans would respect him more, but the fact that he handed in his request a day before the season started is stupid. I don't know if we'd be able to replace him in time, but I think getting rid of him would end a lot of the ongoing transfer drama that probably isn't good for team spirit.

@booshy89 That's a weird transfer by Barca to say the least. Out of everyone they could have they chose Paulinho? I also don't think we're out of the woods yet on Coutinho - Paulinho's more of a defensive midfielder, plus apparently Klopp's left him out of the squad in tomorrow's Champions League playoff against Hoffenheim. Whether that's due to his apparent injury or something else I don't know, but my money's on the latter.

About Robertson, I was quite confused too. I thought that Klopp would at least play Milner at LB, or even have Robertson on the bench to replace Moreno, but for some reason he left him out of the squad completely! Maybe Klopp had seen an improvement in Moreno's training - after all, he didn't make any big mistakes on Saturday, which is more than the central defenders can say - but I hope Robertson gets a chance on Tuesday. It'd be good to see a young left-back like him actually succeed in displacing Moreno seeing as we've gone through countless academy fullbacks already.

Man Utd smashed it, more importantly though they were watchable.

as a man utd fan, as good as we played, got to recognise that west ham were pretty woeful. good of them to let us get a bit of the swagger back though and get OT buzzing for a change.

re: neymar.. allegedly the PSG match was broadcast in 183 countries.. how much interest was there in french domestic football, really, before that move?.

@leucocyte Neymar's signing has definitely helped Ligue 1 in terms of publicity. In all honesty, I could see it overtaking La Liga in terms of popularity and competitiveness in the next few years or so. The Spanish League is getting a bit stale, with only Barcelona and Real Madrid (and occassionally Atletico Madrid) challenging for the title, and while the situation is pretty much the same in France, with only PSG and Monaco really competing, there are a lot of signs that things are looking up there.

Last season's title race was quite good compared to the season before: Monaco snatched it from PSG in the end (as well as making it to the Champions League semis, which is more than PSG can say) while Lyon made the Europa League semi-finals and Nice managed to get top of the table by Christmas. Marseille have managed to buy big players like Rami, Payet, Evra, and Luiz Gustavo, Nantes now have Claudio Ranieri as manager, and Lille have a new investor and Marcelo Bielsa as manager.

No chance.

Let's see how PSG do in the Champions League.

@get2sammyb That's the major thing - how well PSG and other French teams do in Europe. Even though Monaco and Lyon made the semis of the CL and EL respectively, a French team winning either competition would really help the league grow.

@booshy89 Yeah, Messi and Ronaldo are both getting on a bit and if they can't find any younger talent that are as good as either of them, La Liga might suffer for it. Ligue 1 has quite a few promising talents, Kylian Mbappe especially.

I don't reckon Coutinho will go on strike, that seems a bit too much as I'm sure the number 1 thing he wants to do is keep playing football, but the main thing I'm wondering is why has his attitude towards Liverpool changed so dramatically in so short a time? In January he signed a new contract, said that he wanted to play for the club for a very long time, and is now getting paid more than Suarez did, so money can't be an issue. We qualified for the Champions League play-offs, so Europe can't be an issue. I just don't understand why he's all of a sudden so desperate to get out of the club after seeming so happy there this year.

@Anchorsam_9 I think it's just the name, Barcelona. It's the team any kid growing up would wish to play for so when they come in for you it would be like a dream come true. Coutinho is probably thinking he wouldn't get another chance like this so it's now or never. The thing is, they don't look as good a team as in previous years, Real Madrid easily battered them in both legs of the Spanish Super Cup and I honestly think we would beat them easily nowadays, too.

@ApostateMage That's true, but then again Barca have consistently shown interest in Coutinho and he's stayed committed to Liverpool, yet now we've finally (almost) reached Champions League level and he wants to leave? It's a bit confusing. Maybe, with Neymar out of the picture, Coutinho reckons he could be a consistent player there rather than run the risk of being on the bench.

@booshy89 Contracts in football are a weird one - they never seem to be used to extend a player's stay and commitment to the club, but rather hike up the player's transfer value. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in other sports (Baseball is the main one) contracts are binding, as in the player who signs it has to spend the duration of the contract at their club. I wonder if a system like that would work in football? It'd certainly make the transfer market less murky

I can see it from a Players perspective too. You can sign a 5yr contract, happy to play for a manager that signed you, happy to play with the team and hoping that the clubs owners are showing the 'ambition' and looking to move the club forward. A year later, the manager that made promises, reassurances etc, has gone, the clubs 'ambition' differs from the 'promise' they made etc. That player may feel that the 'club' is very different from the one they signed up to just a year before. This may well be the case with VVD but Coutinho is 'different' in that the club as a whole hasn't changed from the one he signed an extension to just a few months prior. Same manager for example and little change in the staffing. It looks like the club has 'ambition', wanting the big European nights, wanting to make 'big' signings, wanting to build a squad around players like Coutinho and keep hold of its stars and compete at the top.