General Premier League Thread 2022-23 - mod note in OP 12/03/23

With Luton going up, is that now 8 teams in the league based in London? Is there any other league with such an imbalance (geographically speaking, it may be proportionate population wise) but that’s a huge amount of derbies in a single league, 56 to be exact.

(Arsenal, Brentford, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Luton, Spurs, West Ham)

12 out of 16 teams in this years Uruguayan top flight are from Montevideo.

Nearly 10 million out of 56 million people live in "Greater" London, according to Wiki. So just over 1 in 6 English people live there or something like 16-17%. Proportionally, three London teams would be a 'fair' representation.

FWIW, 2011-12 had five London teams and four "Greater" Manchester (2.8m) teams (City, United, Wigan, Bolton).

A lot of people base their arguments about "best ever PL side" around point totals.

As in a team who gets 95 points is better than a team that got 89/90 (no matter how far apart the seasons). A very simplistic way of looking at things.

This title win was a classic SAF win. Kick into gear after Xmas and pull in your opponents in the business end and go up a gear at that end of the season.

City hit form at the perfect time to put themselves in a position to win all competitions they were in and it could result in their greatest ever season and one of the best seen in England.

But some will still think the 100 point City team are better because they got more points despite failing to beat Wigan in an FA cup and Liverpool in the CL.

An obsession with point totals without any context around them. Winning the titles is all that matters and winning more titles in the same season is a far better indicator of a better team

I’m really in no position to do the maths (waiting for a bus), but if you added up all the points won for all teams, and then expressed City’s total points (for example) as a percentage out of that total, would that be a fairer representation of how strong their team was comparatively to the rest of the league?

I’m beginning to think football stats are just a way to keep lads interests who can’t kick a ball 😂

Its impossible to compare teams from different eras. The dominance of Man City in the last few year is either because they are the best team of this and every generation or the competitiveness and average quality of premier league clubs in the premier league in the last few years is less than it was years ago, but there is no stat that can definitively prove either position.

Cities 2 most impressive titles have been their slender wins over Liverpool, requiring nothing less than absolute perfection down the stretch to pip them. They were also well on course to do the same but Arsenal crumbled so naturally the foot came off the gas.

Breaking 100 points was impressive in its own right but there was zero competition for them in the league that year.

I do think points totals can indicate just how good a team is, but it should probably be qualified against the strength of competition that year too.

It’s not the first time recently I’ve heard totals being dismissed, and I guess it’s because City now have a very real possibility of completing the treble so it will be compared against Uniteds and they won the league that year with a relatively low points total.

But I will say as a Liverpool fan, Uniteds will be the bigger achievement because while they may not have accumulated as many points as City they didn’t spend over a decade ignoring league rules to build the team that achieved it.

on the best team stuff, very difficult to compare across periods. If the United treble team is considered poor(er) because the points tally how rubbish was the rest of the league?

Even comparing player for player, you would have greater fitness in the current players due to.... 'ahem'.... 'medical advances'

But, all things being equal in terms of stength/conditioning, I can't think a United side of

Schmeichel, Neville, Johnsen, Stam, Irwin, Keane, Scholes, Giggs, Beckham, Cole, Yorke (with Butt, Sheringham, Solskjaer)

The Arsenal, Bayern, Barca, Juve and Inter sides that United came up against were no mugs.

Of course if you had a time machine and went and picked up the 99 team and brought them back to today I've no doubt they'd struggle against better conditioned players.

If that's the way of looking at it then the best team ever will come around every 15-20 years as we enter new eras with better knowledge.

Achievements and the context around those achievements are very important.

If City win the treble in 25 years the 2023 squad will be remembered as a better team than the 2018 side. It'll definitely be more celebrated *

*providing they don't actually end up getting the book thrown at them by the PL

Yeah but they will just go out and buy players to replace them

Small squad.?????

City do have a small enough squad but the "subs" they have would start for most Top 5 teams.