Your football hot take?

[Winston Biscuit]

Arsenal's Invinsibles thing is just not all that impressive.

Their fans seems to prize it above all of their other achievements, maybe because its unique to them, but I just don't think it's all that big of a deal. Winning a major trophy is more impressive as its about trying to win, whereas going unbeaten for a season is about trying not to lose.

Also the fact its possible to go unbeaten for a whole league season and be a mid table nothing team (you could even do it and be relegated!) means it doesn't feel that special.

To sum up, its really not that big of an achievement, but Arsenal fans talk it up way beyond where they should just because its a unique thing they cling to.



(I've used 'hot take' in the title as I am young and hip)

[Sanguine]

Awful hot take, sorry. Mainly because Arsenal did win the league. So on top of winning the league, they also went unbeaten. And that's very cool.

[NathStPaul]

Paul Scholes wasn't a very good footballer.

[John Smith]

Beckham was shit

[Green]

The whole sport is shit, run by corrupt bureaucrats and supported by morons.

Bad experience? Every sodding time.

[Winston Biscuit]

The north London derby is the worst of the derbies. Its just a total nothingness to anyone outside of those 2 clubs

[leon]

The whole sport is shit, run by corrupt bureaucrats and supported by morons.

Bad experience? Every sodding time.

That’s a hot take!

[Stranded]

That professional football in England is too big and there is too much of it.

The professional game should be around 60 pro clubs in 3 divisions of 20 - with semi professional below that. Promotion would still be possible but each club would need to have a pro licence that would have very stringent rules based on expenditure. If a professional club breaches these rules, they have their licence revoked and automatically drop to the first tier of semi-professional football for the start of the following campaign.

From there they will need to reach a promotion spot and can then re-apply for a professional licence.

League Cup is scrapped but FA Cup retains it's place but all 60 pro clubs enter at Round 1 along with 68 from outside the league.

[Winston Biscuit]

The football pyramid should deffo be regionalised at a higher point than it is now. Maybe 4th tier. Maybe even 3rd.

Also said before that I think the League Cup should go and we should instead have some kind of British Cup in its place. regionalised early rounds and then money contributed towards travel & accommodation for lower league teams having to travel a long way

this is where someone finds the most extreme example (Ross County Vs Plymouth?) and uses that to nonsensically show why it wouldn't work for teams that are not those in the most extreme example

[Sutekh]

SKY and other international broadcasters. Get rid of these companies and the money more or less disappears and we can have something that actually resembles proper association football back.

Also scrap the Premier League as having two organisations running professional league football is plainly ridiculous.

Agree with the League Cup going, would replace with a British Isles Cup, why not have the Irish teams in the mix as well as the Scottish, Welsh and English. Perhaps have seeded one off ties so the smaller clubs are guaranteed to get a game against a decent team.

Finally stop the never ending growth in European and International games. Scrap the stupid nothing group games that are there just for the money and return to good old fashioned knockout ties. Have international competitions and games that actually mean something eg. in Europe World Cup qualification would only be via, say, winning one of 15 groups of 4 teams so no more of these stupid groups and utterly pointless games where England etc. basically just have to turn up.

All this would therefore allow for a reduction in the fixture list leaving more time for the domestic games to be played so you’re not stuffing all games into short periods of time and cup tie replays can be scheduled where needed.

[ReadingGlasses]

The league cup does seem like a good candidate to go. I suspect that eventually more and more teams will begin to treat it as effectively a reserve team competition anyway, and it may get scrapped due to lack of interest.

For me there's two really big reforms I'd like to see, but I doubt either will happen:

1. As mentioned above, having separate Premier League and EFL is silly. They should be merged, with far more of the TV money being distributed down the pyramid.

2. Change the ownership model to be something more like the German model, with a large (if not majority) level of fan ownership of each club. This would make funding clubs more difficult, but a fairer level of TV money distribution would help that. Failing that, a tax on the income of large clubs to be spread among lower league clubs who match the fan ownership criteria.

[Green]

That professional football in England is too big and there is too much of it.

The professional game should be around 60 pro clubs in 3 divisions of 20 - with semi professional below that. Promotion would still be possible but each club would need to have a pro licence that would have very stringent rules based on expenditure. If a professional club breaches these rules, they have their licence revoked and automatically drop to the first tier of semi-professional football for the start of the following campaign.

From there they will need to reach a promotion spot and can then re-apply for a professional licence.

League Cup is scrapped but FA Cup retains it's place but all 60 pro clubs enter at Round 1 along with 68 from outside the league.

How did you get to 60 clubs, what's that based on?

[Stranded]

That professional football in England is too big and there is too much of it.

The professional game should be around 60 pro clubs in 3 divisions of 20 - with semi professional below that. Promotion would still be possible but each club would need to have a pro licence that would have very stringent rules based on expenditure. If a professional club breaches these rules, they have their licence revoked and automatically drop to the first tier of semi-professional football for the start of the following campaign.

From there they will need to reach a promotion spot and can then re-apply for a professional licence.

League Cup is scrapped but FA Cup retains it's place but all 60 pro clubs enter at Round 1 along with 68 from outside the league.

How did you get to 60 clubs, what's that based on?

I typed 60.

[Stranded]

But honestly there are, IMO, too many professional clubs in a country as small as England - a move to a smaller professional game makes sense with clubs outside the top 40, 50, 60 (whatever number you want really) in a semi-pro or even amateur state.

60 allowed for a smaller division, with 8 less games outside the top flight - meaning one game per week most of the year - better for players and arguably allowing for a higher quality.

[Sanguine]

Finally stop the never ending growth in European and International games. Scrap the stupid nothing group games that are there just for the money and return to good old fashioned knockout ties. Have international competitions and games that actually mean something eg. in Europe World Cup qualification would only be via, say, winning one of 15 groups of 4 teams so no more of these stupid groups and utterly pointless games where England etc. basically just have to turn up.

This would actually make qualification much more pointless. As teams would be seeded, right? So you'd have the best sides all in groups that they are definitely going to win, and with no runners-up spot that means anything, smaller nations with essentially fcuk all to play for.

And you won't have to worry about European competition if you pull the plug on Sky and the PL - our teams will have all the relative ability of a TNS or Lincoln Red Imps.

[Winston Biscuit]

That Ronaldinho goal against Chelsea where he toepunts it into the corner is really not that special. It gets talked up as being one of the best goals of the modern era, but all I see is Carvalho standing off him which means he is unchallenged and has time to pick his spot and put it away

[From Despair To Where?]

I'd scrap all seeding for cup draws. Have them all completely open.

[Green]

I'd scrap all seeding for cup draws. Have them all completely open.

As in no byes in the FA cup?

Yeh I'd be up for this

[From Despair To Where?]

Maybe impractical for the FA Cup as there are about 600 teams that enter. I was thinking more for international Qualifying groups or European Club competitions.

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?

[Sanguine]

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.