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Gary Neville: The north is being cut adrift in English football


Paully

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For London, read Paris, Barcelona, Madrid & Munich.

 

Football is becoming a closed shop very, very quickly. While the standard at the top has never been better and more concentrated it will be interesting to see how it plays out for the hoardes of once great alsorans and their millions of fans.

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Worth its own thread, because what is the answer? Just been reading RTG's thread about it and a couple of people have suggested it may only be a matter of time before clubs have facilities in London and simply fly their players up for matches. :anguish:

 

Not going to happen but things like changes to the loan system, wage caps and caps on foreign players would all help make the league more competitive IMO.

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I'll just requote this here:

 

 

:thup: Although I agree with the sentiment and the "bright lights" of London argument (see Remy) I also believe that another London factor has caused our demise, Ashley. Neville touched on it briefly by talking about the disconnect between owner, manager and fans, but I believe with an ambitious Owner in the mould of Hall when he first took over would see us still fighting near the top.

 

The main trouble is the money and never has it been truer than today that you speculate to accumulate and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. There's so much money sloshing round at the top that makes it nay on impossible to challenge without finding the perfect chemistry between manager and players at a lower budget.

 

With Ashley in charge and his two-bit football-retarded MD we have absolutely no chance of stumbling across the perfect formula. Our mighty messiah will turn us into that which "he saved us from" the next Leeds or even Hull, we should be so lucky to be as good as Wednesday.

 

With Hall and Keegan we had vision and ambition and yes maybe some delusions of grandeur but we gave it a shot, we defied all the odds and we stood toe to toe with the best the country had to offer, that's why we could entice the players away from London. Who wants to play for "let's aim for 8th but top 10 would be awesome"? Who wants to play for the mighty McClaren?

 

London didn't take it away from us Ashley did.

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Worth its own thread, because what is the answer? Just been reading RTG's thread about it and a couple of people have suggested it may only be a matter of time before clubs have facilities in London and simply fly their players up for matches. :anguish:

 

Not going to happen but things like changes to the loan system, wage caps and caps on foreign players would all help make the league more competitive IMO.

 

As long as those running football are getting richer, be they the PL or the clubs, does anyone care about it being a question that needs an answer? I suspect not.

 

Think the London thing is maybe a little far fetched but if someone did it I'd not be surprised.

 

The fact you could in theory be a relatively successful PL team without having a single paying fan is pretty scary.

 

The big are so big now it's hard to see it changing (both here and abroad).

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There is no reason that the club could not succeed if it was well run, no we could never compete for the league without oil money, but no reason we couldn't be a swansea (can't believe I'm typing these words) and sustaining itself in the premier league and going for the cups. There is too much money in the league however and this has led to dysfunctional ownership latching onto it profit and not even giving a little bit of a damn about the football itself. If it goes wrong we will just be discarded to the next dysfunctional owner. Yes the profligate spending of Shepard etc became unsustainable but all the talk of Ashley being sensible money wise is a nonsense. Yes we're safe while the club is making him money, but when he's cocked it up once and for all he will sell it to the next tom dick or harry and who knows they could be worse? He'd probably wind us up as a club completely if it made financial sense for him to do so.

 

I am not convinced this will end, or anything will improve in a generation.

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Worth its own thread, because what is the answer? Just been reading RTG's thread about it and a couple of people have suggested it may only be a matter of time before clubs have facilities in London and simply fly their players up for matches. :anguish:

 

Not going to happen but things like changes to the loan system, wage caps and caps on foreign players would all help make the league more competitive IMO.

 

As long as those running football are getting richer, be they the PL or the clubs, does anyone care about it being a question that needs an answer? I suspect not.

 

Think the London thing is maybe a little far fetched but if someone did it I'd not be surprised.

 

The fact you could in theory be a relatively successful PL team without having a single paying fan is pretty scary.

 

The big are so big now it's hard to see it changing (both here and abroad).

 

Those clubs will keep on getting richer due to the likes of sky/bt paying ridiculous sums for Premier League games in which Sky paid 5 billion for them. I mean it could 10 billion the next time the rights are up for grabs. 

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Don't know where to begin when I try to describe the Premier League these days.  It's a thoroughly grim institution these days.

 

If you were asked to define it,  'a sporting competition' would come way down the list.  It's so many other things (a brand/a cash cow/a boys' club), and whilst the fuel is there to sustain that,  clubs like us will continue to fade and suffer.

 

We're marketed as cannon fodder for the important teams and exploited as being a great story if there's ever an upset. On a wider scale it's basically lose-lose.

 

It's fucked.

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Ultimately, I think somewhere along the line we are going to have to start developing our own players of a decent standard.

 

Where are they though? There should've been dozens of talented new Geordie players by now. Or are we saying the gene pool has run dry in the North-East in recent years?

 

I think the article poses some essential, but very difficult questions. When I posted that article on my Facebook earlier, a Celtic-supporting mate of mine took issue with Neville saying that "maybe Gary Neville needs to open his eyes when he is in his employer's studio and he would see the reason for the decline. Clubs with no support are handed £100 million a year before they even need to sell a ticket because of the ludicrous money paid by Sky....take that money away and see what clubs produce the income needed to pay the wages".

 

What Sky et al's money has done is commodified football so that the top brands retain the dominant market share. It's almost like a cartel arrangement. In some ways, it feels like we're yearning for an old paradigm which no longer exists, nor could ever exist. It's bullshit to talk about Newcastle not being able to offer a good enough quality of life for the best talent - it's not changed much since the days we attracted great players like Ginola, Asprilla, Ferdinand, etc. What's changed is the extent of greed within the game. I think if you're looking for answers to that question, you need to look at Blatter, Platini, etc - it's all rotten to the core.

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Chelsea and Arsenal are the only mega clubs in the south, one has an oligarch and the other has been very well run with a brilliant manger.

 

Apart from them, the other superpowers are the two Manchester clubs, in the north.

 

I haven't read that whole article, but the PL to me is more the established elite 4 or 5 with the rest there to pad out the league and with no chance of really achieving anything. And then on top of that, a complete disconnect of the league from the rest of football, due to the concentration of wealth and media interest.

 

It's possible the massive money coming from TV could even it up a bit, since in theory any PL club can now buy players for massive money.

 

London is obviously an attractive destination for foreign players, but is there anything to it beyond that?

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Worth its own thread, because what is the answer?

 

Playoffs.

Oh no you didn't.

 

:lol: It only fixes everything.

 

Just ignore me saying it, will you. Even when I agree with you, you just blank me :weep:

 

:lol: I was like

 

http://i.imgur.com/CFpuvZU.gif

 

tbh.

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Cracking read that, but the question with Newcastle has to asked, did the demise start with Ashley or was it there with Shepard ?

 

Think the club has been on a downward spiral since John Hall stepped down as Chairman, we had the couple of years renaissance under Robson but the first killer blow was the appointment of Souness and since then we have fallen from grace at an alarming rate and now we are at the shipwrecked stage. Ashley had the chance to steady the ship under Keegan but blew it big time and now we are in a hopeless position with second rate stooges running the operation of the club and we are now a pitied shell at best and a laughing stock at worst. That's why some people on here really boil my piss as you just don't get it and don't appreciate how serious the situation is.

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