Traveling Fans

[Ghost of Clough]

11 minutes ago, David said:

Easy to sit here and dismiss players fitness levels being an issue yet both La Liga and Bundesliga have winter breaks, Bayern Munich as an example play no games between 21st December and 10th January meanwhile Liverpool have 5 games.

Players aren't robots, give us a winter break and better financial incentives for the FA Cup and we'll see a more competitive Cup again.

Or managers could manage their squad better, resting a couple of players here and there over the Christmas period, to prevent against fatigue and injury

[Day]

2 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Or managers could manage their squad better, resting a couple of players here and there over the Christmas period, to prevent against fatigue and injury

Or give us the winter break so clubs can continue to play their strongest sides. 

Carson I think was saying how the Christmas just gone is his first off that he can remember whilst in Spain and Germany the players are off with their feet up enjoying Christmas with their families.

I would hate to see us lose Boxing Day football, but if we can extend the season by a couple weeks, give them a break early January, allow that couple weeks off to have that time off and rest the legs it would be great for them. 

Football has changed, time to move the game forward.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

14 minutes ago, David said:

This is where the football the business side comes in, managers are judged on league performances, why? Because that's where the money is, nobody owns a football club for the fun of it. Make the FA Cup more lucrative and clubs will value it much more. 

The FA Cup sponsorship deal is £30m for 3 seasons, plus TV deals on top. The winner gets just £1.8m. As I mentioned earlier you can get that with one win in the CL group stage.

The FA claim the rest of the money goes to grassroots, grassroots claim they barely see anything. The money is most likely soaked up in self proclaimed non footballing experts wages that employ the likes of Sam Allardyce, St George's Park and Wembley debt. Semi finals at Wembley why? More £££ for the FA big wigs.

Bournemouth was given £70.4m last season in Premier League prize money/TV deal and they finished 16th! Is it any wonder Howe is concentrating on the league.

Easy to sit here and dismiss players fitness levels being an issue yet both La Liga and Bundesliga have winter breaks, Bayern Munich as an example play no games between 21st December and 10th January meanwhile Liverpool have 5 games.

Players aren't robots, give us a winter break and better financial incentives for the FA Cup and we'll see a more competitive Cup again.

I'm not sure increased financial incentives would even work David though it's a fair point.

Just say the winner of the FA Cup gets 200 million. Teams like Liverpool like today will still field inferior sides against lower league opposition because they still believe they can get away with it. Then in the later rounds they'll take it seriously which is kind of what happens anyway.

With the Prem like you say, Bournemouth can get all that cash for finishing 16th so it's much more of an incentive for clubs just to stay in the Prem than go all out for 200 million that they may not end up winning anyway.

I just don't think there is an answer or a solution and it's just what we have to accept now.

Even giving European football as an incentive isn't likely to work. I think the Europa League winners get into the Champions League the following season and most English clubs even knowing this don't even take that seriously.

Liverpool finding it difficult to break down lower league brutes and cloggers at Anfield at the moment, nearly half time. Plymouth have been really poor admittedly but it's not as easy as you thought is it Jürgen?

[unclej]

They should play their best team until they are out of sight and then bring on the kids. 

[Angry Ram]

7 minutes ago, David said:

Or give us the winter break so clubs can continue to play their strongest sides. 

Carson I think was saying how the Christmas just gone is his first off that he can remember whilst in Spain and Germany the players are off with their feet up enjoying Christmas with their families.

I would hate to see us lose Boxing Day football, but if we can extend the season by a couple weeks, give them a break early January, allow that couple weeks off to have that time off and rest the legs it would be great for them. 

Football has changed, time to move the game forward.

OMG not the winter break... And clubs will fly to China and play needless friendlies and sell merchandise.. Another excuse for us to do other things.. We might just get to enjoy those other things more than football.

I am not sure what clubs in those leagues do but the Xmas period is synonymous with British football. It's like turkey on Xmas day, mince pies.. Don't take that from us as well for gods sake.

Those players who are also 'enjoying' their winter break are also training very hard.. You don't just turn these geezers off and on like a cooker. So just how much of a 'winter' break is it.. They might risk a muscle strain or a dodgy tackle in training.

Football has changed, time to kill it off completely. People are disillusioned enough with 'the product' as it is.. Maybe time to move the game backward a little and remember the 'customer'?

[Angry Ram]

10 minutes ago, unclej said:

They should play their best team until they are out of sight and then bring on the kids. 

Absolutely, no issue with that at all. Get a winning lead and then change.

[Duracell]

3 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

OMG not the winter break... And clubs will fly to China and play needless friendlies and sell merchandise.. Another excuse for us to do other things.. We might just get to enjoy those other things more than football.

I am not sure what clubs in those leagues do but the Xmas period is synonymous with British football. It's like turkey on Xmas day, mince pies.. Don't take that from us as well for gods sake.

What about a winter break in January though?

I'm sure the big clubs would fly off and play needless friendlies, and then wonder why they'd drop silly point throughout Feb. Bring it on.

[AndyinLiverpool]

20 minutes ago, David said:

Or give us the winter break so clubs can continue to play their strongest sides. 

Carson I think was saying how the Christmas just gone is his first off that he can remember whilst in Spain and Germany the players are off with their feet up enjoying Christmas with their families.

I would hate to see us lose Boxing Day football, but if we can extend the season by a couple weeks, give them a break early January, allow that couple weeks off to have that time off and rest the legs it would be great for them. 

Football has changed, time to move the game forward.

Players who don't like playing over Christmas can always move to Germany and Spain if they want a break.

Those in football who moan about this are free to ply their trade elsewhere. Or they could remember how lucky they are to play a game for a living and get on with it.

[Angry Ram]

1 hour ago, KBB said:

The thing is they are dammned if they do and dammned if they don't.

some people on here still blame wassall for thornes injury against Ipswich in a "needless game"

if the big sides play a full strength side and their best player gets an injury you can bet your life there would be a que of people waiting to moan about him not resting/rotating players.

I get what you are saying but players get injured whenever. Ipswich was not a needless game ( I get you might not actually agree with that), momentum and continuity were crucial to us and could still be argued Thorne needed games.

Wassall made one of his few right decisions playing him. Then cocked up the play offs. 

 

[Day]

8 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

OMG not the winter break... And clubs will fly to China and play needless friendlies and sell merchandise.. Another excuse for us to do other things.. We might just get to enjoy those other things more than football.

I am not sure what clubs in those leagues do but the Xmas period is synonymous with British football. It's like turkey on Xmas day, mince pies.. Don't take that from us as well for gods sake.

Those players who are also 'enjoying' their winter break are also training very hard.. You don't just turn these geezers off and on like a cooker. So just how much of a 'winter' break is it.. They might risk a muscle strain or a dodgy tackle in training.

Football has changed, time to kill it off completely. People are disillusioned enough with 'the product' as it is.. Maybe time to move the game backward a little and remember the 'customer'?

The leagues would need to prevent them playing those kind of friendlies, I agree tho they would probably see it as an opportunity to generate more revenue.....goes back to my £££ point tho.

Any winter break would have to be after Christmas, as much as I feel for the players missing their Turkey dinners, they can celebrate it in January instead, you can't screw with festive football.

With FIFA screwing around with the World Cup season schedules will need to change anyway, shorten the summer break then fans won't be forced to watch cricket as long.

[G STAR RAM]

3 hours ago, Alpha said:

We only care about Derby not who the opponent is unless we win. None of us want to see Eden Hazard at his best against Derby. 

If only this were true.

Unfortunately, I think we are in a dying breed and your views are 20 years out of date.

Sad but true.

Can you imagine a half and half scarf in the 70s or 80s?!

[AndyinLiverpool]

1 minute ago, David said:

The leagues would need to prevent them playing those kind of friendlies, I agree tho they would probably see it as an opportunity to generate more revenue.....goes back to my £££ point tho.

Any winter break would have to be after Christmas, as much as I feel for the players missing their Turkey dinners, they can celebrate it in January instead, you can't screw with festive football.

With FIFA screwing around with the World Cup season schedules will need to change anyway, shorten the summer break then fans won't be forced to watch cricket as long.

Or play fewer matches in European competition. 

[Angry Ram]

4 minutes ago, Duracell said:

What about a winter break in January though?

I'm sure the big clubs would fly off and play needless friendlies, and then wonder why they'd drop silly point throughout Feb. Bring it on.

Isn't everyone bleating on about fixture congestion over Xmas.. I get a break in some countries where climate might dictate such things but not here.

The point is the break is not actually a break.. Even in the close season they don't really break. They all have rigorous schedules to keep their fitness levels up. Nothing really changes apart from Match days.. Sausages are still no go.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

23 minutes ago, unclej said:

They should play their best team until they are out of sight and then bring on the kids. 

Spot on. Get the job done and then make changes.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

11 minutes ago, Duracell said:

What about a winter break in January though?

I'm sure the big clubs would fly off and play needless friendlies, and then wonder why they'd drop silly point throughout Feb. Bring it on.

This is exactly what would happen.

[Day]

10 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

Isn't everyone bleating on about fixture congestion over Xmas.. I get a break in some countries where climate might dictate such things but not here.

The point is the break is not actually a break.. Even in the close season they don't really break. They all have rigorous schedules to keep their fitness levels up. Nothing really changes apart from Match days.. Sausages are still no go.

By extending the season they could ease up slightly on Xmas fixtures whilst keeping the main festive fixture dates. As far as I'm aware climate isn't the reason why Spain and Germany have winter breaks.

Guardiola once claimed the Bundesliga month off was boring, now at Man City he's not happy. Middle ground would be 2 weeks. 

The players would need to train still of course to keep fitness levels up, it's not the training they need a break from, it's the 90 minutes of football. 

One sausage wouldn't hurt.

[Day]

10 minutes ago, Tony Le Mesmer said:

This is exactly what would happen.

As I said earlier, the leagues would need to prevent this from happening. 

[Angry Ram]

19 minutes ago, David said:

The leagues would need to prevent them playing those kind of friendlies, I agree tho they would probably see it as an opportunity to generate more revenue.....goes back to my £££ point tho.

Any winter break would have to be after Christmas, as much as I feel for the players missing their Turkey dinners, they can celebrate it in January instead, you can't screw with festive football.

With FIFA screwing around with the World Cup season schedules will need to change anyway, shorten the summer break then fans won't be forced to watch cricket as long.

Good luck with the leagues stopping them playing friendlies.. Probably illegal for them to do that anyway, restriction of trade and all that.

I guess I just hate what football is becoming. For me the only saving grace was that 'the fan' still wanted his team to win and did not sell his sole to the dollar.. Now 'the fan' is changing as well. Soccerball is slowly killing itself with this shift.

I am essentially a working class geezer who loves to watch his team play, spend time wIth his mates watching those games and hoping that we might actually win something someday.. Finishing 8th or 9th nearly 20 years ago does not float my boat but maybe the new breed it does and average is now acceptable as glory. In reality I can't remember when I last sat around with Derby supporters and discussed that season.. Not sure I have seen many posts about it wither in here.. That must tell you something.. Big picture.. That starts at 15:00 on a Saturday or any other bloody day or time of the week that Sky tell me it is.. and lasts for 90 mins.. I then look forward to the next big picture which in our case is on a bloody Friday 220 miles from my bloody house. Sky can kiss my hairy backside. 

Cricket ain't so bad either. 

I guess that I am not the type of supporter that Morris, Sky, The FA, FIFA and UEFA want.. I have never painted my face in my life but I guess that will be the norm soon. Along with other such clapper gimmicks ala Leicester.. 

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

13 hours ago, Alpha said:

Well impressed by some attendances and in fact some of the starting line ups today. Some clubs are trying to keep the FA Cup a respectable comp.

As for Forest... joking aside I think our rivalry works because they are so similar to us. What's a couple of thousand people? We were at WBA and they were at Wigan. We are in a great run, they are very worried about the state of their club. Swap positions and circumstances and they'd take 5k plus while we took 1500

Obviously I'm not saying stop complimenting them on their lovely pink seats. But I'd probably not got OTT with it or start telling ourselves we're so much better than them. 

What is tragic is the Hull v Swansea game that Tony brought up.

6000 people between two Premier League clubs who's average attendances are what 17,000 and 20,000. That is terrible. It's not funny, it's sad.

The FA Cup! Fook whether Jose or Arsene etc rate it. It's a proper trophy. It leads to real European competition and that should be exciting to fans of Hull and Swansea because it's the biggest trophy and only route into Europe they can dream of. 

What other contest in the world will have a team so many tiers lower than another beating that team as frequently as in the FA Cup.

It's bad enough that some managers see it as a bad thing. No fans should. 

By staying in the PL Hull fans can look forward to high ticket prices and many defeats. By winning the FA Cup they lift a trophy at Wembley and get European away days. Maybe even AC Milan at home. 

The PL is worth big money to the club but fans won't get a penny of it. They should be in it for the fun and glory. I don't get the contempt

I couldn't have wrote that better myself, in fact I don't think I could have wrote that.

[Duracell]

21 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

Isn't everyone bleating on about fixture congestion over Xmas.. I get a break in some countries where climate might dictate such things but not here.

The point is the break is not actually a break.. Even in the close season they don't really break. They all have rigorous schedules to keep their fitness levels up. Nothing really changes apart from Match days.. Sausages are still no go.

But January could be a recovery time from the Christmas period. That's the main gripe managers have - the congested festive schedule, then January brings two FA Cup fixtures and the return of European football.

Maybe it could be just the league that takes a break, with the FA Cup being the only competitive domestic football in January. Teams wouldn't have to worry about prioritising in the early round of the cup either.

I'm fine with things as they are, but a winter break wouldn't have to ruin everything.