English Premier League Season 2023/24

That’s one point out of a possible 15 for Fat Ange and to loose against the Hammers at home is just too good.

The Spuds are finding their level again.

Fantastic second half there, a proper London derby. West Ham were as magnificent in the second half as they were woeful in the first. Loads of aggression in attack and some brilliant, determined defending.

5 Likes

‘It should be noted that in March 2023 the Premier League had asked the Commission for an expedited hearing to determine the issue prior to the end of the 2022/23 season (i.e. last season).’ The punishment should have applied last season when they would have spared Foxes.

In the rest of your post you’ve missed my point I think. 10 points was never going to damage Everton imo. They are far better than the promoted sides - why wouldn’t they be, they’ve overspent to build the squad - and Luton are unlikely to pick up many points in the coming weeks because they’ve got a tough run of fixtures. Everton should move clear of the drop zone now.

So the PL asked for the issue to be resolved before the end of last season in which case the 10 point deduction would have put Everton down. But in your previous post…

seems to be a contradiction.

The thing is - for some people, if Everton had been deducted say 20 points and still stayed up, it wouldn’t have been enough. Or 30, and so on. So what is the correct punishment - just outright relegation?

It will be interesting to see what comes out of the appeal, and what punishments entail for any clubs in the future that are found to have broke the rules.

One final point - that overspend was mostly on garbage that put us around the relegation zone in the first place, there wasn’t much benefit from it :smile:

I did think that (the contradiction) myself tbh. The EPL would have wanted the issue sorting last season I imagine because 3 clubs were threatening legal action (they’re not normally in a rush - City?). Last season the penalty might well have been a transfer ban rather than points. Who knows? I’m in no doubt that the EPL don’t want Everton’s new ground in The Championship. Whatever the machinations of the EPL (and of course I’m only speculating) the fact remains that at the point Everton were deducted 10 points the penalty was no more than a gentle slap on the wrists. The siege mentality I expected to kick in looks to have done and Everton will be fine. Those who played by the rules though … as in football as in life.

Far too early to predict what will happen to Everton. Better teams than them have gone down after an initially positive run after a points deduction. Indeed, if you look at the teams which did go down it was f because they just collapsed. The pattern for most was a decent run followed by the collapse. Everton are currently being hollowed out from the inside. More than 20 staff have left in the past 2 weeks and results won’t change that.

They didn’t overspend to build the squad. They built the squad within a budget, unfortunately the expected revenue stream was disrupted due the war in Ukraine and they made an accounting error.
I suspect people have sympathy for Everton, due to the fact, the rule breach was unintentional. I’m no lawyer but I’m pretty sure generally people who break the law unintentionally face no or a reduced penalty.

Everton claimed 6 issues in mitigation. The commission discounted them all although they did accept that Covid had impacted on market forces when looking to sell players. All clubs of course got Covid mitigations in any event.

The system favours the rule breakers. We’ve seen Championship teams overspend, get promoted & escape the consequences for instance. As countries buy our clubs the problem is likely to get worse I fear. In the battle of the lawyers (and the inevitable politics) the EPL can be out spent.

Everton may win their appeal. For now they’ve had their wrists slapped and won’t really suffer (unlike the little guys further down the leagues who genuinely suffer when they’re punished).

1 Like

I live near Reading, funny how it is the fault of the club, but what about the authorities who allow overseas owners to take over these clubs, ?

Ah, the continuing ability of sport to invent a whole new type of law which applies only to them because otherwise it’s “not fair”.

Generally speaking if you break the law then mitigation only applies for laws written to allow for mitigation to be relevant. Fairly certain that the rules in question allowed ways out but no mitigation.

The fundamental issue remains that football funding wishes to continue to defy the laws of accounting and physics and for that to happen punishments must be aimed at clubs rather than individuals. Multiple breaches of accountancy rules or the law which elsewhere would see you removed from the profession simply don’t count in football.

Footballers drive over the limit; crash their vehicles but mysteriously someone else was always driving.

First person to fail the fit and proper person test destroyed an entire club; was engaged in threatening behaviour; connections with criminal activity and the drugs underworld; investigated for money laundering by the DTI but was okay to run a club until he hit a copper.

Does that narrow the problem down a bit. Clubs want and need creative accounting to survive. The 92 and the 20 would collapse without it but dodgy owners come in all forms and with all sorts of different intents and if that were ever to be addressed the entire house of cards would collapse.

5 Likes

Just back from Selhurst. Much, much better performance from Palace today. The second yellow for Ayew was a terrible decision - really poor ref. It seems that there is a pretty low bar for second yellows now and it is changing match outcomes. A point for us would have been fair

PS We received 8 yellow cards for a match that was not dirty by anyone’s standards.

5 Likes

A tense and compelling game at Villa Park, and a tremendous result for Villa on the back of their defeat of the champions mid-week. Arteta will probably argue that Arsenal deserved a point, but his side were wasteful with the several good chances they created. Are Villa a ‘proper’ top 4 side now?

4 Likes

What I really don’t like is a player deliberately scoring with his hand and having the gall to claim it as a goal. Absolutely disgusting. Shame.

Of course, this sort of thing is inbred in Arsenal players. Just ask all Irish fans what they think of Thierry Henry…

2 Likes

I thought we’d peg them back eventually but unfortunately players like Odegaard who usually are so prolific from that range fluffed their lines. Well done to Villa and to Unai he’s done a cracking job there.

4 Likes

Yep Chris, Liverpool were lucky to get three points, and a draw would have been a fair result.

But look on the bright side – with Liverpool winning and Arse losing, the latter are no longer top!

2 Likes

:scream::scream::scream::scream::scream::scream:

This one was most annoying!

1 Like

True. I think Arsenal tried to sign him…

1 Like

Strange game for us today. Very poor in the first half, with loads of possession but with passes going astray left right and centre. Pedro played out of position and not looking at all comfortable.

Thought we were going to lose, so happy with the draw.

Shocking levels of time wasting from Burnley. Embarrassing! One yellow card give for the worst example of it

My all-time favourite goal. :wink:

2 Likes