Its not the economy as such, its the utterly insane wages etc.

You periodically see scary articles about just how insane the money handling of it all is. iirc The odd club does manage a profit - Arsenal and, pre debt loaded take over!!, ManU say - but quite a few of the rest tend to lose money and often insane amounts.

Given how much money is coming in, it really is incredibly stupid.

Rangers a bit 'special' even by these standards though

Willempie wrote on 03/07/12 at 12:07:02:


As a rabid Rangers fan, its all very depressing news. Craig Whyte & David Murray really did us in. I hope they get a new owner/investor who genuinely loves the club soon. But I fear paractically the whole 1st team will hv to be dismantled before the administrators start discussing abt new ownership. Which in turn is another problem cos the 1 consortium interested in buying in wants the 1st team intact, when he takesover.

Kudos to McCoist & McCulloch for offering to continue for free till the end of the season. Truly a manager & a player who puts club before self. An inspiration to many.

Maybe they decided to fire him while Capello is still available?

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 03/04/12 at 18:05:27:

They hire the wrong coaches. I have no problem winning the EPL with football manager when I manage Chelsea. Maybe one of the resident Russians should pass on my CV to Abramovich?

[quote author=5B5F587D7A7C517D6A120 link=1330276825/3#3 date=1330292507](1) Man City and Swansea have notably good home records compared to away
(2) West Brom and Wigan both have done better away than home, I think
(3) None really in the nature of things. But Swansea at home, perhaps, Norwich and Stoke at home have put up good resistance this term[/quote]

Thanks! Btw, a quick look at the crosstable says that Aston Villa has the most draws of all - inability to win at home or to win at all?

The biggest problem for me will probably be the matches from The Championship, a fancy name for the 2nd division... :/

[quote author=754A4046514C5A230 link=1330276825/1#1 date=1330279067]I think this is the best one on the BBC sports pages:

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17106280[/url]

Mark Lawrenson used to play for Liverpool, with Jan Molby IIRC. 

But, he is often wrong. After all, if he was consistently right, why would he need to work for a living?  ;) 

He makes predictions for all the EPL games and you can see his track record at the bottom of the page. The actor Gary Oldman did better![/quote]

Thanks! Nice to get some opinions, even if not always right! 

I see he missed almost the same games we missed - I'm starting to lean towards a rule of always going "1X2" every game Wigan and Wolves are involved in... :/

Btw, what English teams in the top three leagues would you say are known for:

1) being extremely good at home? (like Palermo in Serie A)

2) being almost better away than home?

X) being extremely hard to beat, even for top teams?

At my chess club we've started a joint gambling on the results of 13 matches on Saturdays from Premier League and below (Btw, what do you call that in English? Tipping?!?)

Anyway, next week it's my turn and since I usually only follow the Italian league, I expect there will be several matches where I don't know more than the team names... 

What are the best sources for this on the net? - maybe one of the British news-papers have a particularly knowledgeable and reliable expert in their sport sections?