Premiership Bubble Bursting

[jockser]

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Barcelona have an Irish kid on their books. Or at least they had in the very recent past.

His name is Jockser or something

[Éanna]

do they honestly think players like keane and duff would be as good if they had stayed in ireland ?

They'd be even better if they played in a technically better league like Spain or Italy. The best scenario would be that Irish players would be able to begin their careers in Ireland, developing better as people, and then securing moves to the best leagues in Europe (including England). This would improve football in Ireland and would also guarantee the national team's security.

[jebus]

I really don't see what the Premier League commitee has to discuss. Its fairly obvious to everyone I'd imagine why the attendences have fallen in England because they're are at least a few fairly obvious reasons, over-pricing being on of the main ones, but for me the absolute main one has to be

The Style of Football Being Played Seriously I haven't watched one decent Premiership game this season, and God help Sky if they continue with their 'Óne United game a Week' policy. Look at the top teams at the moment, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and United, outside of Arsenal not one of these clubs has even attempted to produce good flowing football in the last year or two, and even Arsenal are toning it down because they realise playing all out attack won't win them anything major anymore.

Chelsea under Mourinho have been tactically spot on, they suffocate a team and don't give goals away, fair play to them, they won the Premiership for the first time in fifty years and will probably go on and win another this season and another the next season, but they just aren't exciting to watch, even when you put them in a grudge match with Arsenal or United, it just lacks passion.

Arsenal tried keeping the flowing football going up until they realised they couldn't catch Chelsea this way, and that as long as they did so United would hack them off the park ala the Battle of the Buffet, the Battle of Old Trafford, so they changed it. And again it worked well. They defended well against United in the FA Cup final and took home the cup, just as well they won that because by the looks of the lack of funding coming Wenger's way for the team it'll be the last thing they win for a while.

Ferguson panicked at United when everyone started to realise that he's number has been called and its time to retire and has basically just tried to copy Mourinho's tactics at Chelsea, problem is, United aren't good enough as a team to play it as well as Chelsea do. Would anyone from the United team other than Rooney, Van Nistelrooy and Ferdinand be certs to get in the Chelsea first XI? And no I''m not forgetting Ronaldo.

And at Liverpool, well lets face it, their team is ****e and Benitez probably has to play negative tactics regardless.

But its no surprise that Blackeye Rovers can only fill out 63% of their stadium these days, or that they sit bottom of the attendence league (click here for the atendence league stats ) The Premiership has pimped itself out to so many companies since it began that it can't be any surprise that these casual fans are leaving them now. They were never going to stick around when football lost its gloss with the tabloids, especially when the English national team is underperforming whilst the English rugby team are the World Champions and the Cricketers just defeated Australia in the best Ashes series I've ever seen anyway. Personally I'd rather watch the Championship (come on nthe Owls!) or La Liga any day of the week at this stage than have to sit through another Utd - Everton, Liverpool - Utd or Utd - Villa (see Sky has been shown an unusual amount of Utd games) again.

[RedX]

My opinion of the drop in attentendances in the Premiership is this..

I have been reading articles regarding ticket prices and all that rubbish but that IMO is all a cover up to the more wide problem which is people being completely bored like others have stated above..some of it is down to watching morons like Rio Ferdinand demand extra money on an already unbeleivable wage he receives..some is down to the prices of tickets and some down to so much Sky coverage...but i think the main problem is that people are bored seeing the same teams always now being focused on constantly..John Terry this,Frank Lampard that,will it ever end..all that matters is Champions League..no one cares when the Carling Cup and FA Cup come along anymore because they are not that important to the Man U's and Chelseas..but they are to the rest of the clubs and especially the lower league clubs..the days of upsets in cups seem to be leaving..big clubs treating small clubs like nothings by fielding 2nd string sides and even if they lose they say sure we are concentrating on bigger things..the romance of football in England is out the window..gone..Sky is destroying the game there..there should have been a wage cap of nothing more than 20,000 put on years ago..i support Ipswich in England and i always remember the times when Ipswich beat one of the top teams in the league or cup..it was great for me to slag guys that were slagging me for yrs..now if Ipswich beat a top team in the cup the reply is "its a nothing cup anyway"..the craic is gone...i used to go over to watch Ipswich when i could while also being a huge Cork City fan...but now there is only one team for me and its not Ipswich..i would not spend 20 euro to cross the road to see them anymore..and our best players want to go over and sample that..what a fcuking shame...

[mypost]

Kick-off times are affecting attendances. You saw it last season, when Cardiff was less than half-full for one of the FA Cup semi-finals. What bad blood exists between the fans that forced an Arsenal v Blackburn cup tie to be played at 12.45?

Far from the police deciding kick-off times, the times are actually written into the tv contract. There must be a Saturday lunchtime game, there must be one at 5.15, there must be a 1.30pm game on Sundays, you can't play on Sunday at 4.00, it must ko at 4.05 instead, and there must be 2 PPV games shown every weekend, to facilitate tv. Some weeks you play at 3pm, then you have 3 ko's in the morning/evening, then back to 3, and sometimes out to 8pm. More of the same applies in Scotland. It's bonkers!

Such mad times, affect atmospheres. Grounds in the Premiership resemble more like libraries these days, than sports arenas. In Germany for example, all 7 league games ko at the same time on Saturdays, at 3.30pm. The remaining 2 games of the weekend, ko at 5.30pm on Sundays. There is no messing around with ko times. When I went to a Bayern league game in Germany recently, both sets of fans mingled with each other before the game, and created a cauldron of noise throughout the game, that you simply don't get in England these days. At the end of the match, all 65,000+ fans calmly left the stadium at the same time, (no holding back of away fans), and met up with each other outside again. There wasn't the remotest hint of trouble at any time. It was a pleasant change, when you see how things are done in England, and occasionally, at games here.

Have you seen Sunderland's crowds on the box? They may have one of the most passionate sets of fans in England, yet there are vast rows of empty seats at their ground. People don't have the money to travel all over the country, every few days. If Chelsea play Newcastle on a Wednesday night, a Newcastle fan has to book two days holiday to travel down and pay about €200 overall (and that's just for himself) for the round trip, only to probably see his side collapse. Why bother? It's not worth the money anymore.