*Official* English Football Season 2011-12

[Nate]

Loving this football so, so much. Finishing still not acceptable, but as I've banged on about forever, this style is where it's at. Glad Dalglish had the balls to drop Carroll.

Now just for the end product boys!

Southampton vs Blackpool was amazing ftr.

 

[Nate]

That'll do nicely! Suarez ILY.

Crucial we get a second now though. Crucial.

 

[sledger]

Bravo Robin.

Wonder what happened to Newcastle today, looks like a bit of a bad result for them.

 

[Uppercut]

Their whole defence is injured. Just wait til Demba Ba goes to the African Cup of Nations...

Wigan out of the relegation zone, albeit only for a day. Things can change so quickly at the bottom of the table.

 

[sledger]

Another pretty dreadful result for Bolton as well.

Great win for Wigan though, that's the exact kind of match they need to be winning on a regular basis to avoid the drop. Long may it continue.

 

[TT Boy]

Manure game was a walk in the park, even Rio and Evans looked competent. Though Welbeck was out of his depth once again. Never in a million years United quality.

Off-topic but Sledger what are you studying at King's?

 

[sledger]

Arsenal - Everton (van Persie goal) 10.10.2011 - YouTube

Haha, that takes some doing. WAG.

 

[Furball]

Arsenal - Everton (van Persie goal) 10.10.2011 - YouTube

Haha, that takes some doing. WAG.

van Persie >>>>>>> van Basten.

Fact.

 

[keeper]

Maybe it's of interest to those who like accounting. To those who like football it's just something that idiot fans bring up as a way of arguing that the success of someone else's club doesn't really count that much.

Sorry, are you calling me an idiot?

 

[sledger]

.....

 

[chalky]

Got a couple of quid on more than 2 goals in the Real v Barca game

Benzama scores in 25 seconds after some comedy defending from Barca

 

[grecian]

Any chance we can stop all this "isn't the Spanish league wonderful", and change it to "aren't Barca wonderful", Valencia, Villareal et al, really doesn't seem all it's cracked up to be, IMHO.

 

[Tom Halsey]

In terms of real spend, they're well up to the top (and IMO are only in this strong a position because of the money they spent back in the early days of Taggart's reign)

I've seen you trot out this argument several times, despite the fact it doesn’t have much basis in reality. Our real spend was not the highest in England in any given year during Ferguson’s reign until 1998 (Yorke, Stam, Blomqvist). Prior to that several clubs spent more, including the clubs who were considerably better than us at the beginning of Ferguson’s reign.

Barca still the best in the world by a fair margin, though Real are nearer to them than anyone else is. It would help if their best player didn’t have a Cullinanesque mental block against them.

 

[grecian]

I've seen you trot out this argument several times, despite the fact it doesn’t have much basis in reality. Our real spend was not the highest in England in any given year during Ferguson’s reign until 1998 (Yorke, Stam, Blomqvist). Prior to that several clubs spent more, including the clubs who were considerably better than us at the beginning of Ferguson’s reign.

Barca still the best in the world by a fair margin, though Real are nearer to them than anyone else is. It would help if their best player didn’t have a Cullinanesque mental block against them.

Sorry don't get this, when have Real murdered other decent teams, and cristiano has always been rubbish when it mattered.

 

[chalky]

Any chance we can stop all this "isn't the Spanish league wonderful", and change it to "aren't Barca wonderful", Valencia, Villareal et al, really doesn't seem all it's cracked up to be, IMHO.

The classico, although tense and has lots quality, is very difficult to get into as a specticle for me as every tackle results in a guy on the deck rolling in agony whilst a bunch a players surround the referee demanding a card. The top premiership games although a lot loss quality have a much better tempo and flow to them.

 

[Jarquis]

RVP, so so good.

Was at the Swansea vs Fulham game today in the away end, shame it took until they went 1-0 down for Fulham to lift their game.

Ipswich game was a cracker.

 

[Furball]

I've seen you trot out this argument several times, despite the fact it doesn’t have much basis in reality. Our real spend was not the highest in England in any given year during Ferguson’s reign until 1998 (Yorke, Stam, Blomqvist). Prior to that several clubs spent more, including the clubs who were considerably better than us at the beginning of Ferguson’s reign.

Barca still the best in the world by a fair margin, though Real are nearer to them than anyone else is. It would help if their best player didn’t have a Cullinanesque mental block against them.

I think it helps that so many of Barcelona's players are fans that have come through the youth system; I think that gives Barcelona an edge in clasicos. They seem to want it more.

 

[marc71178]

I've seen you trot out this argument several times, despite the fact it doesn’t have much basis in reality. Our real spend was not the highest in England in any given year during Ferguson’s reign until 1998 (Yorke, Stam, Blomqvist). Prior to that several clubs spent more, including the clubs who were considerably better than us at the beginning of Ferguson’s reign.

Not much base in reality apart from it being true you mean? First 2 Premier league seasons you had the most expensive squads, How many other clubs were spending £2m on a right back and £2.6m on a centre back at the same time back then?

Up to the end of the 2010 season, only Chelsea had paid more for players in Premier League history.

 

[cpr]

Not much base in reality apart from it being true you mean? First 2 Premier league seasons you had the most expensive squads, How many other clubs were spending £2m on a right back and £2.6m on a centre back at the same time back then?

Up to the end of the 2010 season, only Chelsea had paid more for players in Premier League history.

Wasn't going to argue this one, but as your about as near to fact as Katie Price is to celibacy, I'll bite.

Firstly, when did we spend £2m on a right back and £2.6m on a centre back? Because if your thinking of Parker and Pallister, there were 2 years between those signings. Pallister had been at Utd for 4 years by the time the Premiership started.


As for the most expensive squad - bear with me for this list, but I think I need to be comprehensive.

1993/94 Man Utd Squad
Peter Schmeichel - £0.53m (1991)
Paul Parker - £2m (1991)
Denis Irwin £0.65m (1990)
Steve Bruce £0.8m (1987)
Lee Sharpe £0.2m (1988)
Gary Pallister £2.3m (1989)
Eric Cantona £1.25m (1993)
Paul Ince £1m (1989)
Brian McClair £0.85m (1987)
Mark Hughes £1.8m (1988) - though we had flogged him for £2m in 86
Bryan Robson £1.5m (1981!!)
Andrei Kanchelskis £0.65m (1991)
Roy Keane £3.75m (1994)
Dion Dublin £1m (1993)
Mike Phelan £0.75m (1989)
(Colin McKee, Darren Ferguson, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Les Sealey,Clayton Blackmore, Lee Martin, Craig Lawton, Paul Scholes, Gary Walsh, Chris Casper, Gary Neville, David Beckham, Ben Thornley, John O'Kane, Keith Gillespie, Neil Whitworth - all free/nominal)

Total - £19.03mil - 9 mil of which had been spend over the course of the 80s (and ignoring the Hughes deal was really a profit, lets not open the net spend argument).

Now lets look at Blackburn 93/94

Tim Flowers £2.4m (1993)
Henning Berg £0.4m (1992)
Graeme Le Saux £0.7m (1993)
Stuart Ripley £1.75m (1993)
David Batty £2.75m (1993)
Tim Sherwood £0.7m (1992)
Alan Shearer £3.6m (1993)
Kevin Gallacher £1.5m (1993)
Mike Newell £1.1m (1991)
Colin Hendry £0.7m (1991)
Kevin Moran ?? (1990)
Bobby Mimms £0.25 (1990)
Alan Wright £0.5m (1991)
Paul Warhurst £2.75m (1993)
Ian Pearce £0.3m (1993)
Andy Morrison £0.5m (1993)
Patrik Andersson £0.8m (1992)
Lee Makel £0.15m (1992)
Frank Talia Jason Wilcox David May Mark Atkins being home grown or not worth shouting about

Giving a slightly higher total of £20.85m (excluding Moran), of which only £2.55m was spent before the Premiership era

CBA doing a list for the Liverpool squad, but that was even more expensive, at about £22m


I guess what I'm getting at is yes, our squad wasnt cheap, but it was built over a long period of time (not splashing out £4.5m in the defence in one go, like you claim) - It also wasn't the most expensive, like you claim, as other clubs had spent the same in 2-3 years as we'd had building over the past 12.

Basically the 'apart from being true' you stated, is a bit of **** I'm afraid.

 

[BoyBrumby]

To be fair though, Blackburn were the first of the modern "bankrolled" clubs, so comparing Man U's net/gross spend to theirs isn't an accurate reflection of how the domestic transfer scene was back then.

Jack Walker's largesse might seem small beer now, but it was unprecedented at the time.