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An advantage of the EFL


Tamesaint
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I must say that over the Christmas period I have enjoyed the number of matches that we have played. 4 in 10 days is great entertainment and is IMO what people want. 

Compare this with the way that Premier League fixtures have been spaced out over the corresponding period. Matches at odd times and on random dates - no thanks. 

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To be honest there are lots of advantages, it’s a great league if you are a good side that is in the mix. Loving it currently. My take is that if we get promotion there will be some genuine positive momentum with the championship sojourn having educated the Board and repaired some of the fanbase ‘scar-tissue’. 

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No VAR, you don't have to wait ages for some minute decision.

The offside law should be altered so that there is clear daylight between players, not half a nose, and the  sight of players having to have their hand behind their back to me is utterly ridiculous.

I'm really enjoying this season, but my Burnley supporting cousin isn't very happy.

I'm beginning to wonder whether the "super rich clubs shouldn't be allowed to break away, but it would kill the golden goose of the Premiership

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2 minutes ago, cambsaint said:

No VAR, you don't have to wait ages for some minute decision.

The offside law should be altered so that there is clear daylight between players, not half a nose, and the  sight of players having to have their hand behind their back to me is utterly ridiculous.

I'm really enjoying this season, but my Burnley supporting cousin isn't very happy.

I'm beginning to wonder whether the "super rich clubs shouldn't be allowed to break away, but it would kill the golden goose of the Premiership

All that does is shift the goal posts.. There will be intense zooming-in to find a pixel of 'clear daylight'....

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1 hour ago, cambsaint said:

No VAR, you don't have to wait ages for some minute decision.

The offside law should be altered so that there is clear daylight between players, not half a nose, and the  sight of players having to have their hand behind their back to me is utterly ridiculous.

I'm really enjoying this season, but my Burnley supporting cousin isn't very happy.

I'm beginning to wonder whether the "super rich clubs shouldn't be allowed to break away, but it would kill the golden goose of the Premiership

VAR isn't the problem, it's the way it's being used. They just need to say what is/isn't offside and what is/isn't handball. Even if they said from now on, if it hits your arm in any context what so ever it's a pen and if any part of you is even slightly offside - It's off. It'd be annoying but at least everyone would know where they stand.

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50 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

VAR isn't the problem, it's the way it's being used. They just need to say what is/isn't offside and what is/isn't handball. Even if they said from now on, if it hits your arm in any context what so ever it's a pen and if any part of you is even slightly offside - It's off. It'd be annoying but at least everyone would know where they stand.

Then nobody would every try to score a goal. Why bother when all you have to do is aim for a defender’s arms? That’s a lot easier.

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56 minutes ago, SaintBobby said:

If you're going to have VAR, I'd limit it to just checking if either foot is offside. Not a fucking eyelash or a nasal hair.

Exactly, use feet only to determine offside. That's similar to what they do in ice hockey (the puck mustn't enter the opponent's "defensive line" after the skater's feet, and they don't look at the rest of the body).

As they say, KISS (keep it simple, stupid).

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5 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

VAR isn't the problem, it's the way it's being used. They just need to say what is/isn't offside and what is/isn't handball. Even if they said from now on, if it hits your arm in any context what so ever it's a pen and if any part of you is even slightly offside - It's off. It'd be annoying but at least everyone would know where they stand.

They did that a few seasons ago and it was shit.

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19 minutes ago, Dark Munster said:

Exactly, use feet only to determine offside. That's similar to what they do in ice hockey (the puck mustn't enter the opponent's "defensive line" after the skater's feet, and they don't look at the rest of the body).

As they say, KISS (keep it simple, stupid).

Use feet and have thicker lines, lets say 6 inches. If there is any overlap between the lines, the player is onside. If there's even a slither of green grass - offside. It'll take three seconds to establish, not minutes of geometry and head scratching.

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50 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Use feet and have thicker lines, let’s say 6 inches. If there is any overlap between the lines, the player is onside. If there's even a slither of green grass - offside. It'll take three seconds to establish, not minutes of geometry and head scratching.

Pretty sure they are doing that already, or close to it. They changed it to make it the broadcast lines rather than the 1 pixel calculation lines previously used from the crosshairs.

Edit: not the feet obvs, which I do think is a good idea, but then thicker lines.

Edited by The Kraken
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16 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Then nobody would every try to score a goal. Why bother when all you have to do is aim for a defender’s arms? That’s a lot easier.

That happened about two or three seasons ago, every contact with the hand in the area was a penalty, players were literally chipping the ball up at defenders arms. That’s the reason they changed it to what it is now. 

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My response to this is  - do you want to see Saints win a cup? Because that is a near enough impossible as a Championship side. But in our last stay in the Premier League we lost a League cup  final narrowly and went to two FA Cup semi-finals that we didn't bother to turn up for. Even the poorest Saints side I have ever seen still made a League cup semi last season.

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I agree i'd rather saints were in the top division. I also agree with OP more games is fun. However, your point on TV and changing of times does not hold up - we've been pissed about way more this season then any of memory in the prem. Even last home game was a 6 o'clock kick off on a Friday. 

Edited by SotonianWill
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Watching a winning team in whichever league is better and lets face it Saints spend most of the time in the lower half of the Premier league. Still beating the likes of Man City or Utd or Liverpool feels  better than any win in the Championship (unless its the one that wins promotion)

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On 01/01/2024 at 12:41, AlexLaw76 said:

All that does is shift the goal posts.. There will be intense zooming-in to find a pixel of 'clear daylight'....

Exactly this. People who keep suggesting it are just missing the point entirely. 

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5 hours ago, Kenilworthy said:

My response to this is  - do you want to see Saints win a cup? Because that is a near enough impossible as a Championship side. But in our last stay in the Premier League we lost a League cup  final narrowly and went to two FA Cup semi-finals that we didn't bother to turn up for. Even the poorest Saints side I have ever seen still made a League cup semi last season.

We also lost to Grimsby (FFS).

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6 hours ago, Kenilworthy said:

My response to this is  - do you want to see Saints win a cup? Because that is a near enough impossible as a Championship side. But in our last stay in the Premier League we lost a League cup  final narrowly and went to two FA Cup semi-finals that we didn't bother to turn up for. Even the poorest Saints side I have ever seen still made a League cup semi last season.

Absolutely, league football is fun but a club our size exists to compete in the cups. We're easily one of the top thirty teams in the nation historically, so if the likes of Birmingham, Wigan or Swansea can win a trophy then why not us. The longer we stay as a big fish in this division, we end up with our best players getting picked off, like with Walcott, Bale or Oxlade-Chamberlain when they broke through. I can't imagine it's too much fun being Pompey, having led their division at Christmas on a regular basis in recent years, only to fail to achieve promotion. It's like a kind of slapstick routine in slow-motion. Or is an imaginary 7th place trophy something to now aspire to, when it comes to the lower divisions?

As far as offside interpretation goes, I like the idea of a daylight rule, but you would still end up with some retired lunatic in Stockley Park enhancing the pixels and pretending they're on CSI. The process obviously isn't ready for full automation yet, so for now leave it in the hands of the on-pitch refereeing team, except in the case of clear and bloody obvious error - e.g. Gabbiadini's "offside" goal at Wembley.

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8 hours ago, Fabrice29 said:

Anyone who has been in this league for two years doesn’t want to be here anymore. You lose all fun of it the moment you lose the incentive of going up. 

Absolutely, it's fun when you're a big fish and have the muscle to compete at the top end, but 2 more years at this level and that advantage will have evaporated and we will transition into a Stoke, Swansea Watford etc quite quickly. This league is a bitch to get out of, that's why we seriously need to take this season by the horns as the options we have at our disposal are ridiculous for this level (KWP being one). We're giving it a good shot now though, really looking forward to the 2nd half of the season.

I don't want to think about what will happen should we fail this season though...! 

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2 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Absolutely, it's fun when you're a big fish and have the muscle to compete at the top end, but 2 more years at this level and that advantage will have evaporated and we will transition into a Stoke, Swansea Watford etc quite quickly. This league is a bitch to get out of, that's why we seriously need to take this season by the horns as the options we have at our disposal are ridiculous for this level (KWP being one). We're giving it a good shot now though, really looking forward to the 2nd half of the season.

I don't want to think about what will happen should we fail this season though...

Martin said the other day that failing to go up this season will mean the squad will look very different next year

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1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Martin said the other day that failing to go up this season will mean the squad will look very different next year

Oh yeah no doubts, it will probably trigger a bigger rebuild than this year given the loans we'd lose as well as our remaining permanent players and out of contract guys. Will prob end up needing to build an entirely new 11, with less money and a lower rep. Certainly won't be easier.

We'll worry about that in May should it become a thing though!

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5 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Oh yeah no doubts, it will probably trigger a bigger rebuild than this year given the loans we'd lose as well as our remaining permanent players and out of contract guys. Will prob end up needing to build an entirely new 11, with less money and a lower rep. Certainly won't be easier.

We'll worry about that in May should it become a thing though!

If he can't get us up with this squad, he will have no chance with anything inferior.

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4 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Absolutely, it's fun when you're a big fish and have the muscle to compete at the top end, but 2 more years at this level and that advantage will have evaporated and we will transition into a Stoke, Swansea Watford etc quite quickly. This league is a bitch to get out of, that's why we seriously need to take this season by the horns as the options we have at our disposal are ridiculous for this level (KWP being one). We're giving it a good shot now though, really looking forward to the 2nd half of the season.

I don't want to think about what will happen should we fail this season though...! 

Totally agree. We currently have the basics of a competitive premiership team and this will get eroded away the longer we stay in the championship. Plus, I much prefer to be the 'underdog' and get more satisfaction out of getting a point at Man City than an away win at Rotherham. Plus, as a Saintsplus member, it seems harder to get tickets for away games in the championship. Plus, Kenilworthy is right - as a premiership club, we've had good cup runs. 

Many more pluses than negatives. Surely VAR can be sorted out.  Define 'clear and obvious error' properly; impose time limits on decision making but do something. People realise it's ruining the game but there seems to be this inertia to do anything concrete about it.

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1 hour ago, Ted Bates Statue said:

Absolutely, league football is fun but a club our size exists to compete in the cups. We'reeasily one of the top thirty teams in the nation historically , so if the likes of Birmingham, Wigan or Swansea can win a trophy then why not us. The longer we stay as a big fish in this division, we end up with our best players getting picked off, like with Walcott, Bale or Oxlade-Chamberlain when they broke through. I can't imagine it's too much fun being Pompey, having led their division at Christmas on a regular basis in recent years, only to fail to achieve promotion. It's like a kind of slapstick routine in slow-motion. Or is an imaginary 7th place trophy something to now aspire to, when it comes to the lower divisions?

As far as offside interpretation goes, I like the idea of a daylight rule, but you would still end up with some retired lunatic in Stockley Park enhancing the pixels and pretending they're on CSI. The process obviously isn't ready for full automation yet, so for now leave it in the hands of the on-pitch refereeing team, except in the case of clear and bloody obvious error - e.g. Gabbiadini's "offside" goal at Wembley.

What's your measurement metric for placing us 'easily one of the top thirty teams in the nation historically' out of interest?

For a club that you say exists for cup competitions we've got a pretty woeful record in them.

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8 hours ago, Kenilworthy said:

My response to this is  - do you want to see Saints win a cup? Because that is a near enough impossible as a Championship side. But in our last stay in the Premier League we lost a League cup  final narrowly and went to two FA Cup semi-finals that we didn't bother to turn up for. Even the poorest Saints side I have ever seen still made a League cup semi last season.

it's nearly impossible for anyone outside of the top 4-6 as well these days. Since the year 2000 only Wigan, Leicester and the Skates outside of what you'd call the big clubs have won the FA Cup. The league cup has been dominated by the Manchester clubs the last 10 years with Chelsea and Liverpool the only other clubs to have won it. So yeah i'd love to see Saints win a cup, but we've got about as much chance on the championship as we have in the premier league. Our best hope of winning everything is to go up, come straight back down again and try and win the championship or the play offs. We've got pretty much zero chance of winning anything else. 

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13 minutes ago, EssEffCee said:

What's your measurement metric for placing us 'easily one of the top thirty teams in the nation historically' out of interest?

For a club that you say exists for cup competitions we've got a pretty woeful record in them.

https://www.worldfootball.net/alltime_table/eng-premier-league/ 

I think we get a healthy level of semi-final appearances, as others above have mentioned. Trouble is we didn't go all in when Pochettino or Koeman were here.

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15 minutes ago, Ted Bates Statue said:

https://www.worldfootball.net/alltime_table/eng-premier-league/ 

I think we get a healthy level of semi-final appearances, as others above have mentioned. Trouble is we didn't go all in when Pochettino or Koeman were here.

That's one metric but surely you have to consider others too such as honours. I'm sure Huddersfield fans would argue their 3 league titles are worth more than our extra ten seasons without ever winning it.

All down to preference I suppose and how much importance is placed on recent achievements.

Yeah we've had a few semis but to win this only one major honour in our history is atrocious.

Edited by EssEffCee
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10 minutes ago, EssEffCee said:

That's one metric but surely you have to consider others too such as honours. I'm sure Huddersfield fans would argue their 3 league titles are worth more than our extra ten seasons without ever winning it.

All down to preference I suppose and how much importance is placed on recent achievements.

Yeah we've had a few semis but to win this only one major honour in our history is atrocious.

Don't get me wrong, I don't get overly excited looking at that table in itself. It doesn't exactly demonstrate any great historic achievement. To me, it shows that Saints are a medium-sized club (notwithstanding our gargantuan catchment area, and legendary stadium expansion plans). We don't have a divine right to be there, but considering we have spent most of the last fifty years in the top flight is a decent achievement. Despite relatively little investment in players, we have still thrived. I consider Saints to be in the mix for the cups most seasons, because we have had the consistency of playing regularly in the top-flight, notwithstanding our lower spending power.

It is a shame that we haven't won more major honours, but there are bigger clubs out there, who have spent comparatively vast sums of money on transfers and salaries to achieve not much more than us. Take Villa, Newcastle, West Ham for instance. They've all had purple patches recently but had to spend tonnes of money, and for what? A few relegations between them and zero major trophies this side of the century.

What Huddersfield achieved a hundred years ago is nice, but I don't think it means much to anyone except the stars on their crest. If anything it must be a bit embarrassing for them to be dwarfed by their history like that, a bit like if we waxed lyrical about our 1900s FA Cup final appearances. After a point it just becomes a historical anomaly to cling onto. The difference is, as long as we're in the top division most of the time, we still have a chance of a decent cup run - and a shout of winning it outright. The longer we spend out of it, the less chance of that happening. Some might rightly argue that we were already making up the numbers over the last two or three seasons, but we still managed some cup runs in that time. For me, that shows the value of being back in the top flight, for all its faults.

 

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On 01/01/2024 at 20:00, Lighthouse said:

Use feet and have thicker lines, lets say 6 inches. If there is any overlap between the lines, the player is onside. If there's even a slither of green grass - offside. It'll take three seconds to establish, not minutes of geometry and head scratching.

you wait till they try and introduce the SIN BIN.................who makes the thresh-hold............for that one to be equally dispatched each week?...what a cluster fuck thats waiting to be........!

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12 hours ago, Turkish said:

it's nearly impossible for anyone outside of the top 4-6 as well these days. Since the year 2000 only Wigan, Leicester and the Skates outside of what you'd call the big clubs have won the FA Cup. The league cup has been dominated by the Manchester clubs the last 10 years with Chelsea and Liverpool the only other clubs to have won it. So yeah i'd love to see Saints win a cup, but we've got about as much chance on the championship as we have in the premier league. Our best hope of winning everything is to go up, come straight back down again and try and win the championship or the play offs. We've got pretty much zero chance of winning anything else. 

But the FA Cup finals since 2000 have not been totally dominated by the massive teams. Losing finalists have included minor Premier League sides such as Saints, West Ham, Everton, Portsmouth, Stoke, Hull, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Watford. Having got to the final they did have a chance of winning (ok Watford didn't). While since West Ham won the FA Cup as a second division side in 1980 there have been only four finalists from the second division - QPR, Sunderland, Millwall and Cardiff. Our chance of winning silverware as a Premier League side would be better than the zero it is in the Championship.

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29 minutes ago, Kenilworthy said:

But the FA Cup finals since 2000 have not been totally dominated by the massive teams. Losing finalists have included minor Premier League sides such as Saints, West Ham, Everton, Portsmouth, Stoke, Hull, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Watford. Having got to the final they did have a chance of winning (ok Watford didn't). While since West Ham won the FA Cup as a second division side in 1980 there have been only four finalists from the second division - QPR, Sunderland, Millwall and Cardiff. Our chance of winning silverware as a Premier League side would be better than the zero it is in the Championship.

There’s your point, losing finalists. The only ones that won it were the skates who typically luckily for them got to play one of the only second tier teams to make the finals since 1980, Wigan was a massive upset and a very good Leicester team who also won the league around the same time. They might be better than zero in the premier league but not much more, especially as we as a club have always seemed to content to just exist in the premier league living off our reputation as a club who sells their best players not one who gives it a go to win things like Leicester and Pompey did.

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33 minutes ago, Turkish said:

The only ones that bought the cup with players it turns out they couldn't afford were the skates

Fixed it for you

#cheats

Edited by trousers
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16 hours ago, Kingsland Codger said:

VAR - the video assistant referee should have 15 seconds to decide on offside or handball or any other decision he (she) might be called upon to make. When 15 seonds are up you go with the on-field decision.

Like this. All this poncing around on the monitor puffs up the refs sense of self importance.

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1 hour ago, Turkish said:

There’s your point, losing finalists. The only ones that won it were the skates who typically luckily for them got to play one of the only second tier teams to make the finals since 1980, Wigan was a massive upset and a very good Leicester team who also won the league around the same time. They might be better than zero in the premier league but not much more, especially as we as a club have always seemed to content to just exist in the premier league living off our reputation as a club who sells their best players not one who gives it a go to win things like Leicester and Pompey did.

I might be setting myself up but SR have invested a lot of time and money in our team. Confident we are aiming for auto promotion. I can’t see all this effort just to whirl around the plug hole of the basement of the PL. 

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11 hours ago, Roo1976 said:

you wait till they try and introduce the SIN BIN.................who makes the thresh-hold............for that one to be equally dispatched each week?...what a cluster fuck thats waiting to be........!

I use Sin Bins and it improves compliance - but not necessarily respect - for the referees and assistant ref decisions.
 

Nobody dissents the rugby ref in abusive fashion and gets away with it. No reason why that cannot and should not be the case for soccer imo. 

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44 minutes ago, trousers said:

Fixed it for you

#cheats

Couldn’t give a shit. I’d rather had a trophy on the cabinet and memories to last a lifetime than slapping ourselves on the back because we sold an academy player for £30m. 
 

In any case most clubs sign players they can’t afford it’s why a lot of clubs operate at a loss and why for most clubs relegation is a disaster.

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2 hours ago, gio1saints said:

I use Sin Bins and it improves compliance - but not necessarily respect - for the referees and assistant ref decisions.
 

Nobody dissents the rugby ref in abusive fashion and gets away with it. No reason why that cannot and should not be the case for soccer imo. 

Because the useless bunch of refs we have, will be sin binning players from small clubs and backing away smiling from advancing screaming players from the big clubs.

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18 hours ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

Surely VAR can be sorted out.  Define 'clear and obvious error' properly; impose time limits on decision making but do something. People realise it's ruining the game but there seems to be this inertia to do anything concrete about it.

VAR could be improved if we didn't have these fundamentalists running the show. Time limits are the way forward, for it to work refs have to make decisions again instead of leaving it for VAR to sort out.

During VAR breaks, we have to stop pundits and commentators saying 'well the important thing is that they get the decision right', noooo this has become the new 'well he was entitled to go down'. The important thing is to improve the game, long tedious video watching is shit.

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48 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

Because the useless bunch of refs we have, will be sin binning players from small clubs and backing away smiling from advancing screaming players from the big clubs.

 

40 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

VAR could be improved if we didn't have these fundamentalists running the show. Time limits are the way forward, for it to work refs have to make decisions again instead of leaving it for VAR to sort out.

Quite ironic that in your first post you dismiss the “useless bunch of refs” as essentially biased towards bigger clubs. so a hard NO to sin bins.
 

But in your very next post you argue that decisions should be left to the referee more and VAR less or not at all. 

Do you mean to say that VAR is even more useless and biased to big clubs than the referee alone? That’s what I’m getting? Or that both referees AND VAR are useless and biased?
 Quite a bold statement either way seeing as VAR was supposedly designed to remove or at least reduce referee subjective bias on key decisions. 
 

 

Edited by gio1saints
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