It's harder than ever to navigate the demands of league and Europe, especially with a fiercely strong Premier League. Liverpool picked a bad year to be below par.
The financial success of the EPL + new EPL club owners who are richer and/or better operators + new MCO models has increased competition ... punchline: clubs 7th thru 15th in the EPL can beat its top 6 clubs on any given match week.
In contrast, it's getting easier for best of Europe's elite outside the EPL. The Big 3 in La Liga, Bayern and PSG can and do rest their best players in more than half of their league matches. The Buli & PSG have 10% fewer league matches, enabling mid-season breaks to re-charge. While Serie A and the Buli are more competitive for top 4, their clubs are poor in the bottom half of the league.
The 10th, 11th & 12th placed EPL sides (Bournemouth, Fulham & Brighton) can compete for the same players as the top clubs in the other leagues except for the 4-5 elite clubs. These clubs can be very successful in UEL & UECL because they are richer & more talented that their continental opponents.
Here's the 10th-12th clubs in the other top 5 leagues ... Athletic Bilbao, Osasuna, Girona, Sassuolo, Udinese, Parma, Augsburg, Hamburg, Borussia Monchengladbach, Brest, Toulouse, Angers. Every EPL club (including promoted sides) would be favorites to beat them. They'd all get relegated if you moved them to the EPL.
Unless the EPL reduces the # teams (not gonna happen) or this mosh pit football starts to turn off viewers and sponsors (forcing rules changes), it's only going to get tougher for EPL clubs in UCL.
It is crazy that England still has a League Cup with the demands in the game these days. Scrapping it would restore some of the lustre to the FA Cup too.
100% agree to scrapping EFL Cup if your club is competing in Europe. Makes zero sense for the clubs participating in both.
It would enable clubs 7-20 to have a better shot at winning a trophy and qualifying for UECL (more supporters getting a chance to support their club at Wembley and in cities across Europe). Seems like EFL (Trevor Birch & Rick Parry) are the main obstacles here, holding that concession hostage in exchange for greater funding of the EFL.
Other than COVID which impacted all teams pre-season and the season when the world cup was in the middle of it. Do we have any other comparisons where a team has in essence lost a third of their pre-season and the over arching impacts of that loss?
I have looked for some, basically what we are looking at is unprecedented but in summary this is what to expect from Liverpool's situation
Short term: Teams often show an immediate emotional lift (“win it for him” effect), leading to increased intensity and sometimes improved results for a few games.
Medium term: Performance typically becomes inconsistent as the emotional toll sets in—fatigue, loss of focus, and disruption to team dynamics start to impact results.
Long term: Over a full season, most teams either regress slightly or perform below expectations. Sustained improvement after such a loss is very rare, unless the squad has exceptional depth and strong leadership to stabilise performance.
This is in line with what we have seen for the most part. Hopefully we can get through this difficult time in our history but to be honest other clubs have it way worse. Even take a look our rivals down the M62.
I've been thinking that a lot lately. Liverpool's worst case scenario for this season is (probably) 6th in the league, the knockout phase of the Champions League and an FA Cup quarter-final. It's really not that bad, all things considered.
Yeah. I can only see the quality of football in the Premier League continuing to decrease to be honest. It should stay competitive so interesting in that sense, but it's hard to see it becoming more watchable when the players are all exhausted.
The financial success of the EPL + new EPL club owners who are richer and/or better operators + new MCO models has increased competition ... punchline: clubs 7th thru 15th in the EPL can beat its top 6 clubs on any given match week.
In contrast, it's getting easier for best of Europe's elite outside the EPL. The Big 3 in La Liga, Bayern and PSG can and do rest their best players in more than half of their league matches. The Buli & PSG have 10% fewer league matches, enabling mid-season breaks to re-charge. While Serie A and the Buli are more competitive for top 4, their clubs are poor in the bottom half of the league.
The 10th, 11th & 12th placed EPL sides (Bournemouth, Fulham & Brighton) can compete for the same players as the top clubs in the other leagues except for the 4-5 elite clubs. These clubs can be very successful in UEL & UECL because they are richer & more talented that their continental opponents.
Here's the 10th-12th clubs in the other top 5 leagues ... Athletic Bilbao, Osasuna, Girona, Sassuolo, Udinese, Parma, Augsburg, Hamburg, Borussia Monchengladbach, Brest, Toulouse, Angers. Every EPL club (including promoted sides) would be favorites to beat them. They'd all get relegated if you moved them to the EPL.
Unless the EPL reduces the # teams (not gonna happen) or this mosh pit football starts to turn off viewers and sponsors (forcing rules changes), it's only going to get tougher for EPL clubs in UCL.
It is crazy that England still has a League Cup with the demands in the game these days. Scrapping it would restore some of the lustre to the FA Cup too.
100% agree to scrapping EFL Cup if your club is competing in Europe. Makes zero sense for the clubs participating in both.
It would enable clubs 7-20 to have a better shot at winning a trophy and qualifying for UECL (more supporters getting a chance to support their club at Wembley and in cities across Europe). Seems like EFL (Trevor Birch & Rick Parry) are the main obstacles here, holding that concession hostage in exchange for greater funding of the EFL.
Other than COVID which impacted all teams pre-season and the season when the world cup was in the middle of it. Do we have any other comparisons where a team has in essence lost a third of their pre-season and the over arching impacts of that loss?
I'm not aware of one but happy to do a little data digging if anyone has a good example.
I have looked for some, basically what we are looking at is unprecedented but in summary this is what to expect from Liverpool's situation
Short term: Teams often show an immediate emotional lift (“win it for him” effect), leading to increased intensity and sometimes improved results for a few games.
Medium term: Performance typically becomes inconsistent as the emotional toll sets in—fatigue, loss of focus, and disruption to team dynamics start to impact results.
Long term: Over a full season, most teams either regress slightly or perform below expectations. Sustained improvement after such a loss is very rare, unless the squad has exceptional depth and strong leadership to stabilise performance.
This is in line with what we have seen for the most part. Hopefully we can get through this difficult time in our history but to be honest other clubs have it way worse. Even take a look our rivals down the M62.
"other clubs have it way worse"
I've been thinking that a lot lately. Liverpool's worst case scenario for this season is (probably) 6th in the league, the knockout phase of the Champions League and an FA Cup quarter-final. It's really not that bad, all things considered.
Louder for those at the back Andrew 😆
I will have a think about it
Heaven knows what next season will be like after the World Cup and a short turnaround before the new season starts🤦♂️🤦♂️
Yeah. I can only see the quality of football in the Premier League continuing to decrease to be honest. It should stay competitive so interesting in that sense, but it's hard to see it becoming more watchable when the players are all exhausted.
I’ve just seen a comment that Hughes is going to Saudi this summer…..just when you thought things couldnt get any worse …
Really? That feels like a really odd move if it happens.