Your football hot take?

[Winston Biscuit]

I think I come down on the side of Team Caramelised tbh

[From Despair To Where?]

If you've got to beat the best to be the best, why shouldn't that be in qualifying? I keep hearing the criticism that England waltz through qualifying because the groups are too easy then struggle against stronger nations in the tournaments proper.

No one complains when Panama or North Korea get rinsed in Finals tournaments.

It why I quite like the Nations League. Smaller nations get the chance to play games they have a chance of winning and there a potential route to the Euros finals at the end of it, whilst the bigger nations get to play games tv companies and advertisers cream themselves over.

I mean, there's a constant push to increase the size of the tournaments so more countries take part or is that just a mechanism to guarantee the "big" countries always qualify?

Imagine if Barca,, Real and Juve all got drawn in the same Champions League group? They could have their own private ESL w@nkathon.

[Sanguine]

If you've got to beat the best to be the best, why shouldn't that be in qualifying? I keep hearing the criticism that England waltz through qualifying because the groups are too easy then struggle against stronger nations in the tournaments proper.

No one complains when Panama or North Korea get rinsed in Finals tournaments.

It why I quite like the Nations League. Smaller nations get the chance to play games they have a chance of winning and there a potential route to the Euros finals at the end of it, whilst the bigger nations get to play games tv companies and advertisers cream themselves over.

I mean, there's a constant push to increase the size of the tournaments so more countries take part or is that just a mechanism to guarantee the "big" countries always qualify?

Imagine if Barca,, Real and Juve all got drawn in the same Champions League group? They could have their own private ESL w@nkathon.

Equally Southgate's achievements are continually undermined because he has had apparently 'easy' tournament draws. I don't see how a tournament is improved by the presence of demonstrably weaker teams, just because its 'funny' to see (say) Spain miss out because they got drawn with Germany and Italy. The Panama and North Korea comparisons are irrelevant - the World Cup is a global tournament, in 2018 Panama were the third best of 35 CONCACAF teams, and when North Korea last qualified in 2010 they got through a confederation of 42 teams, and past Iran and Saudi Arabia in their final group stage.

On the Euros, those places in the final tournament for smaller sides have only come about by the generally derided expansion of that final tournament to 24 teams.

[From Despair To Where?]

I guess my post in the "hot take" thread fulfilled its remit

[Sutekh]

Who wouldn't want a World Cup Qualifying group containing Spain, Italy, France and Germany or one containing Gibralta, San Marino, Faroe Islands and Leichtenstein?

Me. I want the best teams at the World Cup, not Gibraltar getting caramelised in the group stages because they happened to get a fancy qualifying draw.

Nope. Luck of the draw. Really don't give a flying one about big teams and having to have the best of everything at tournament finals all the time. It's utterly boring to always wind up with the same teams and faces every time. Much rather any joy was spread around because the luck of the draw intervened.

It'll never happen of course as the big clubs/associations would whinge and take the ball home with them so to speak, not to mention all the £££££££££ as usual.

At the end of the day I want to see competition across the board, not (perm any 2/3/4/5 from) ManC-Chelsea-ManU-Liverpool-Arsenal-Spurs creaming it in every season, same in the Championship with the PL yo-yo clubs.

[Winston Biscuit]

If you had to redesign the league structure how would you do it?

Could we move to a PL North & PL South model based on all teams in the top 2 divs now? maybe top 4 qualify for matches against each other to see who is the overall champ?

Premier League North:

Everton
Leeds
Liverpool
Manchester City
--------------------------
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Blackburn Rovers
Blackpool
Huddersfield Town
Hull City
Middlesbrough
Preston North End
Rotherham United
Sheffield United
Stoke City
Sunderland
Wigan Athletic
Burnley
West Bromwich Albion
--------------------------------
Leicester City
Nottingham Forest
Wolverhampton Wanderers

Premier League South:

Arsenal
Aston Villa
Bournemouth
Brentford
------------------------------
Brighton & Hove Albion
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Fulham
Southampton
Tottenham Hotspur
Birmingham City
Bristol City
Cardiff City
Coventry City
Luton Town
Millwall
Norwich City
Queens Park Rangers
Reading
------------------------------
Swansea City
Watford
West Ham United

[Stranded]

Problem with that WB is that the South division just looks a bit dull.

[6ft Kerplunk]

Imagine if Barca,, Real and Juve all got drawn in the same Champions League group? They could have their own private ESL w@nkathon.

Scrap the Europa league nonsense and have a separate competition for all clubs that qualify for Europe. Unseeded single leg rounds to find the true knock out champions of Europe.