2019-20 English Premiere League Thread
- Thread starter jeffbear
- Start date
Villa survive. Watford and Bournemouth came up together 5 years ago, they go down together today. Man U finish 3rd, Chelsea 4th, Leicester 5th, Spurs 6th, Wolves 7th. Wolves will have to wait for next weekends FA Cup final to see if they play in the Europa League again. However, Wolves are still alive in the Europa League. If they win it, they get into the Champions League. I think that would reduce the number of Europa League clubs to 2. So, an Arsenal win in the FA Cup combined with a Wolves win in the Europa League see Spurs miss Europe. I think.
Villa, Villa, Villllllaaaaa, Villa. Grealish with a rocket, which they immediately give back (because of course they would) but Villa finally hung on to a point and squeaked though on goal diff. That whole season was like giving birth. TONS to fix on that roster, but now they'll have fresh cash, and room under FFP if anybody gives a crap about that anymore, to do it with. Defense, a proper goalkeeper and a striker are the minimum requirements.
And a little luck against Sheffield in the first game back. But taking 8 points of the 12 available? Pretty good run.
And FFP is dead.
Yeah ... the internet is never gonna let that go. Like Villa is the only team in the Prem to catch a break they didn't deserve at some point.
Correction, BTW ... they didn't actually need goal diff. Squeaked out by a single point. Skinny.
VinatieriDefinesClutch
Active member
I'm shocked! I was fully prepared that the lifeline was just to kick me back down harder when they got relegated anyway. Finally some good news in 2020! Let's hope they can find someone capable of putting the ball in the back of the net next season.
Wesley was doing pretty good until he got hurt and is young enough to keep growing into the role. Hopefully the task is more along the lines of finding a reliable Plan B, as Samatta and Davis clearly just aren't good enough. The D is more of a puzzle to me. A better keeper wouldn't hurt, to be sure, and Mings is solid enough ... but everything else on the back end needs to be reconsidered, including the scheme. They HAVE to be able to shepherd out games late and shut down the constant leaking of late goals and set piece failures. They let so many draws turn into late losses that it was almost comical.
Brentford booked their ticket to Wembley, overcoming a 1-0 1st leg deficit to beat Swansea 3-2 on aggregate. The 2nd leg of the other semifinal is tomorrow with Fulham ahead of Cardiff 2-0. If Brentford go through, it will be their first time in the top division since 1947.
The Saudi bid to take over Newcastle is dead.
www.skysports.com
Newcastle takeover: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, PCP Capital Partners and Reuben Brothers end interest
Newcastle statement: Never say never but to be clear Mike Ashley is 100% committed to this deal. However our current focus must now be on supporting Steve Bruce in the transfer market and on the preparations for the new season.
Supposedly, there are 2 bids by Americans and at least one of them has been vetted. Those fans deserve better than what they've gotten from Ashley.
American ownership is by no means a guarantee of "good" ownership ... says one with experience with the not good kind. Come to think of it, being "vetted" by the FA is 100% no guarantee of pretty much anything other than whether or not you have hired a law firm in the UK to represent you. But pretty much anything other than the current owners of Wigan or Hull would be an improvement on Ashley, probably. Just avoid Chinese food scientists and people who have failed in an attempted overthrow of their government.
At least the FA for this one right. There are a bunch of articles on The Athletic about this. It appears that one of the Saudis’ partners could have financed the purchase by himself, he has a net worth of £13 billion. Not in the Saudis league, but enough to operate the club, no?
Arsenal take the FA Cup, 2-1 over Chelsea to book their ticket to the Europa League Group Stage. Leicester joins them in that round, Spurs must come from the 2nd qualifying round. However, if Wolves win the 2019-20 Europa League, they become England’s 5th Champions League entrant and knock Spurs out of Europe.
The bigger news is an apparant hamstring injury for Christian Pulisic. They’re notoriously slow to heal, putting him out for the Champions League restart next weekend and possibly putting the start of the Premier League on September 12 in jeopardy.
The bigger news is an apparant hamstring injury for Christian Pulisic. They’re notoriously slow to heal, putting him out for the Champions League restart next weekend and possibly putting the start of the Premier League on September 12 in jeopardy.
So,apparantly, if Wolves win the Europa League, the Premier League will have 8 teams playing in Europe, Spurs spot is not affected. But Arsenal’s win in the FA Cup left Wolves with winning the Europa League as their only path to another season of European competition.
One would think, yes. But enough of these clowns have slipped through the safety net with very impressive PAPER bank statements only to find that their just paper rich to make it a "show me" situation. I've got no dog in that fight per se, but having a strong club in the Northeast is good for English football as a whole. If Leeds can keep their momentum and Newcastle figure it out ... look out.
BTW ... Villa are now one their third director of personnel/recruitment in as many years with Johan Lange coming on from FC Copenhagen. Supposedly he's a more analytics-based guy, so maybe Villa can join the modern age in the personnel department. Not like they need it or anything ... with at least 3 positions needing immediate strengthening only one year after they dropped 125 million pounds on players.
And Sunderland’s fan base is as rabid as any too. There just aren’t a lot of clubs on the northeast coast of England, with Middlesbrough the only other one.
Did I see correctly on espn.com that the Scottish Premier League kicked off today?
Yup. Since they decided to go ahead and call 2019-20 complete, they could move forward with 2020-21's start on something approximating the usual schedule. Threatened lawsuits pending of course, because everybody that got relegated thinks they got screwed and Rangers are a conniving, disingenuous bunch of creeps who didn't mind fanning the flames so long as the uncertainty kept Celtic off balance in the transfer window.
Celtic opened their campaign for a record 10th league title in a row with a 5-1 win ... FWIW.