Ghosts of Premier Leagues Past

i have tried to be positive. i have attempted to be patient. my team is playing in the PREMIER LEAGUE this year and i have tried not to be cynical. but after this loss to bolton, i'm beginning to lose my grip on the situation.

i won't get into some hoary old attitude about how great life was before the advent of the almighty, bloody PREMIER LEAGUE. the ugly trade-off for the achievment of having given english football to the world has seen unbelievable financial gaps develop between the PREMIER and FOOTBALL leagues which have weakened the integrity of the domestic league structure and destroyed the ability of the large community-based clubs (once the bedrock of the english game) to compete at the highest level .

Bolton Wanderers F.C. 2-0 WBA

live text replay


in the 2010-2011 season we have seen some good competitive football, the surprisingly good performances of all three promoted teams, and a shift from the guaranteed model of the "big-four" with a second-grade consisting of 3 or 4 clubs feeding on their scraps with the rest of the division never more than a few bad results from being relegation fodder.

this year, the division has organized itself into a top half of the table where everyone is a serious contender in playing for a european spot, and bottom half where everyone is either fighting a relegation battle or looking to keep clear by a vital few points and never more than a couple of poor results away from trouble. since jonas olsson's injury, the baggies have gone from being a european contender to a team who needs to avoid slipping into the bottom 4 or 5.



whatever skill we've seen in the work of kevin davies and johan elmander in leading a very successful bolton attack, the trotters are still essentially proponents of the long ball and purveyors of tough, ugly football. however, they have managed to raise the art of PREMIER LEAGUE survival to a level where they can now compete and see some success at the higher end of the table and the trotters are definitely in with a shout for a spot in europe next year. owen coyle deserves real credit for having brought something special to the reebok stadium.

while the baggies had the higher percentage of possession, interestingly enough, the wanderers dominated - albeit only very slightly - in all other categories. this surprised me, but was testament to the quality not only of bolton's defensive play (they simply don't give you many opportunities to get a look at goal) but that there is now a spark of creativity in their attack. the injection of some skill and subtlety in going forward has proved a successful addition to their footballing repertoire.



i had gone to england for the west brom v wolves fixture which ended up being postponed. so i was already suffering the effects of massive disappointment. there are no trains anywhere in england on boxing day, so it is impossible to go anywhere unless you have a car. i had no way of getting to bolton, and although i had not originally planned it, i would have probably made a desperate attempt to get there at this point.

originally, my mother was going to drive me down to huish park (not too far from where she lives) where i was going to watch yeovil town play brentford in their boxing day game. that match too was postponed, making it 3 out of 4 matches for which i had tickets now irretrievably gone, and my "football holiday" effectively ruined.

all i could do was sit at my mum's place in chilcompton, radstock listening to ALBION RADIO and yet another disappointing result from what sounded to be a terrific match. the MATCH OF THE DAY HIGHLIGHTS confirmed that it was indeed a very evenly contested, skilled and exciting game.

there was every reason to take heart at the baggies' performance in this match... just no points to celebrate. the albion will almost certainly win one or two more matches this year where they will not have played anywhere near as well as this.

WBA 1-3 Blackburn Rovers F.C.

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this was the only match for which i had tickets that i was actually able to get to. in the end, it was just another disappointment.

while the baggies performed admirably with chris brunt out on a single-match suspension for incurring a 5th yellow card, they missed his leadership in pushing the team forward and looked just slightly disjointed for his absence.

it was good, however, to see graham dorrans starting to come into some much improved form after a slow start to the season and being unable to get a place in the first team. while still not as spectacular as he was last year, he was looking more the part of the little general than he really has all season. likewise, dorrans' midfield partner, james morrison, has been improving with each match and looks to have returned to top-form following a long injury that had kept him out of the side for the better part of a year, followed by a lengthy rehabilitation towards regaining full match fitness.



the scottish international created one of the best early chances of the game with a tremendous individual effort which saw a scorching shot from 25 yards out beat the rovers' goalie, paul robinson, only to see the shot curl millimeteres wide of the far post.

however, the match itself was absolutely ridculous. the baggies have now fallen into the trap of delivering solid possession and attacking performances, but are conceding too easily - especially on corner-kicks. i think the problem probably stems from the fact that there are too many defenders - starting with jonas olsson - who are now out injured and while paul scharner has been a sterling stand-in at centre-half, the baggies are conceding soft goals through lapses in defending - and on set-pieces especially.

to compound they problem, they are not taking enough of their chances at the other end, and - like the 2008-09 team - they are becoming tentative in attack, looking for the elusive "perfect" goal. in other words: they have become desperate and having to think too hard about the final ball that the instinctive play we saw against arsenal, manchester united and everton has dried up and the baggies are now spurning chances that might produce an own goal, a dangerous deflection or an opportunity from a scuffed shot or mishandled ball in a dangerous area.

if you look at the statistics from this game it's clearly evident as to who played the more enterprising football:


POSSESSION:
west brom 55% - blackburn 45%
SHOTS:
on target
west brom 11 - blackburn 4
off target
west brom 10 - blackburn 2
CORNERS:
west brom 8 - blackburn 5
FOULS:
west brom 9 - blackburn 13


i guess it was the in the psychological intangibles that this game was both won and lost. there was also some moments of excellent goal-keeping from veteran england interantional, paul robinson, and for all their good possession football and attacking build-up the baggies were going to have a hard time getting a clear chance on goal.



after going behind 1-0 early on in the match, this looked another carbon copy of my first three or four visits to the hawthorns. in matches i had seen against plymouth argyle, doncaster rovers, blackpool and preston north end, the baggies had conceded both first and early before then turning the games around and winning all four matches by scores of 3-1 (plymouth, doncaster) and 3-2 (blackpool and preston). so the sight of nikola kalinic scoring on the break with just 3 minutes gone didn't phase me in the least.

the albion were caught in a good move out of the back by rovers for the first goal. with the wingers and full-backs caught playing in a high position, kalinic took a good long-ball hit into space down the albion left flank and having gotten in behind the albion back-four buried a low, hard shot just inside scott carson's far post.



welcome to the hawthorns, i thought sarcastically, recalling the first time i had seen the albion concede a goal at home.

in keeping with the script, the baggies then began to assert their possession football and created the better chances with a concerted effort and dominance in attack. as i have come to expect from my visits to the hawthorns, the baggies equalized on 17 minutes through a jerome thomas goal.

it was a good run from morrison, in fact, that made the equalizer for the albion just on 17 minutes. the baggies' midfielder went on a scintillating run, taking the ball from his own half and well into blackburn territory, finding somen tchoyi on the right wing, before the cameroon international delivered a perfect ball across the face of goal for jerome thomas to bundle it in at the far post.

the baggies went on to dominate the rest of the half, and would have had the lead were it not for the goal-keeping of paul robinson. ironically, robinson was substituted at the half for a strained calf-muscle. this gave opportunity to PREMIER LEAGUE debutant, marc bunn, to prove himself in the blackburn goal. he was given the chance to show his worth early on after the restart with having to turn a stinging effort by peter odemwingie around the post.



the baggies ultimately lost this match by two goals that resulted directly from blackburn corner-kicks. with jonas olsson out with injury, and now tamas on a three-match suspension, the albion marking on set-pieces - and especially corner-kicks - has fallen apart. no one seems to know his job and the situation need some real sorting. the other big problem - and in lightof this particular defensive frailty - is that scott carson is a keeper who just doesn't come off his line, so depends heavily on good marking from his central defenders on set-pieces. without olsson to marshall the back-line, carson is going to have to come for the ball a lot more than he is naturally inclined to.

in fact, if this situation persists and the albion start to give away too many more soft goals from set-pieces, then it might be worth giving boaz myhill a run in the first team and see if he does any better. above all, someone has to organize the marking better and carson doesn't seem to be doing that either.

oh well, onwards and upwards...

Barnsley 3-1 WBA

live text replay

well, things seem to have have gone from bad to worse... the rough return has finally really arrived.

the only positive from this one was chris brunt's goal near the match's end, showing that he is really the true leader going forward, sometimes having to take matters into his own hands - as i first detected in the match with ipswich town. after the albion scored in that one, the left-footed, northern-ireland international had to single-handedly drag the baggies back into attack, as they seemed at a lack for tactics. he had such a good game against middlesbrough - and scoring one of the really spectacular goals of the season - that it was kind of relentless.



but in this one, save for 4 or 5 occasions of individual initiative, the baggies were pretty poor. dorrans and mulumbu both appear to believe the hype they've created at the outset of the season in thinking that they're the next paul scholes and nani; and while this is a really good club, they haven't quite adjusted to the full range of experience that this division holds for them. the fact that they can go into a big stadium like the riverside, in a match replete with full TV coverage, big media attention, and produce a really good 5-0 win against top competition in high-flying style, and then massively underestimate both a home visit from mediocre crystal palace and a somewhat less than glamourous evening in south yorkshire is surely indicative of this.

today, the team was really missing jonathan greening for the first time; and probably (and though i hate to admit it) paul robinson too, as young joe mattock was consistently caught out coming up too high in attack. all three barnsley goals were the result of working the ball down the right wing and taking full advantage of the young full-back's poor positional play.

the club needs both another outside left and central defender before it has anything like depth throughout the whole squad; and, at least one of the strikers has to go on bit of a run before they can start to think about wins coming a little more easily. since luke moore's minor injury of a couple weeks ago, no striker has stepped forward to really lead the way back to playing all-out albion style football.



with cech out for a few weeks, and the long-term injured trio of miller, morrison, and clement still a long way from coming back, jerome thomas did a lot more damage than he could've imagined when he slapped young wilshere at the emirates stadium last week. moore has another minor injury, so i imagine that it will be another start for bednar paired with wood, and simon cox to come on as sub against preston on saturday. however the gaffer plays it, one of these guys has to start hitting. ironically, the midfield and full-backs are doing their part - putting goals in, anyway - and if the strikers don't start scoring at a rate of 1-2 goals a game - and enhance the present offensive output, this is going to be a long season with a lot of complaining about the defensive play and lack of clean-sheets. funny how that works, but that seems to be life at the albion.

WBA 1-1 Newcastle United

from the discrepancies in the local TV listings - including those aired on SETANTA SPORTS CANADA itself - i can only conclude that they haven't quite figured out here who can actually broadcast what, when, how, why and where, as of yet! while SETANTA has newly picked up the rights to 60 championship matches from the BBC, they were changing the TV listings for this one right up until the last minute. in fact, on LIVESOCCERTV.COM, which is usually pretty reliable and my first choice as a source for information on local televised football broadcasts - there was conflicting scheduling, with the baggies' home opener listed as being "live" on SETANTA in the 12.30 PM time-slot; as well as a repeat of the second-leg of celtic v dinamo moscow listed for 1.00.

this may have been on account of changing information in relation to the tri-nations tournament rugby (south africa v australia), which overlapped and ran past the start of the west brom match by half an hour. sure enough, this was followed by a repeat of the second-leg of celtic v dinamo moscow match from earlier in the week. the listing then changed to a first-run, time-delay broadcast at 8.30 pm for the west brom match. while the time listing turned out to be accurate, they had the actual first-run broadcast of the match at 5.30; which, had been the time listed in the original posting of last week, but having since been revised - and at the actual time of first broadcast wasn't listed at all!

myself - being a new subscriber, and never having heard their online audio commentary before - i went ahead and listened to the match live on the WBA website. beyond the novelty of a new experience - and the luxury of actually following the match live - i really enjoyed how the game worked as audio commentary; and later on after seeing it on TV - how different the two experiences are.

the match started off at a fairly high-tempo, and the ball-possession moved the match from end to end in a series of creditable attacking moves by both teams. this had a particularly exciting effect on the audio commentary. as the match was moving at a quicker tempo than your average match, so likewise was the commentary - and almost to the point of frenzy. i realized that being audio only this was necessarily so, just in order to deliver an accurate description of the action. whereas with TV, a higher tempo game actually causes the commentators to use a more dramatic, point-form syntax in order to speed up what is being said and let the video information do the work. it was a first hand example of how TV cools things down and radio hots them up.

live text replay


all in all, i have to say i was happy roberto dimatteo's choice of starting line-up. the one possible question mark was the selection of youngster chris woods over simon cox; but in the end, it was a fairly even-handed decision as the 17-year-old acquitted himself more than adequately over the 81 minutes he played - although his performance was somewhat diminished as he was left on too long, and should have given way to a cox substitution 10-15 minutes earlier. that in itself might have produced a winning result instead of the draw.

united surprised me. although they definitely look - and from the lofty heights from whence they came - to have all the earmarks of a club in crisis, there is a big difference between a "yo-yo" or perpetual second tier-club in crisis and a top-ten club in crisis. for this very fact - along with albion's open, skilled, controlling brand of attacking football, this never looked a second division match and these are both going to be consistently strong clubs at this level of the english game... never mind the "club in crisis" or "yo-yo team" tags! these were big clubs playing strong, fast football!

i was especially pleased with the selection of shelton martis to the first team. despite the fact that he was responsible for one of the myriad defensive giveaway goals, rather late in the season that the baggies were famous for last year; he was otherwise the best starter at his position in central defense all last year. leon barnett and ryan donk proved themselves inexperienced, and meite (who started off well) lost his nerve. i think it was fitting that he scored a goal and cemented his place in the first-team right at the outset. with jonas olsson back from injury, paul robinson (and his angry clown act) gone to bolton, and marek cech bringing some skill to the outside left - i think the backline will be greatly improved and we should see a few more clean sheets this year.

we're not going to see ishmael miller back until christmas, i would guess; but the arrival of dimatteo has obviusly good for more than a couple of the players. luke moore is slowly and surprisingly claiming his spot as the club's senior striker, and looks a completely different player under RDM than he did with mowbray. as do craig beattie, and marek cech, as well.



other than that, there was very little difference in terms of performance in this match and the performances of last year's team. save that this year's baggies feels a lot tighter and confident all around; is definitely looking more solid and skillful at the back; more sure of itself at this level of football; and developing and acquiring the necessary strikers to make a genuine run for promotion. present was the familiar poor finishing on a couple of occasions with both martis and greening missing a pair of absolute sitters, but by and large the baggies were held to a single-goal draw on the merits of newcastle's half-time replacement in goal, tim krul, who came on for the injured steven harper. indeed, a couple of poor finishes aside (and by both teams as well), the baggies were robbed of a win here by a positively electrifying second-half performance in the united goal, and damien duff's early second half equalizer.

the overwhelming percentage of matches that ended in draws on the championship's opening weekend is probably a little hint as to how competitive a division this could be this year. however, having seen the middlesbrough v sheffield united, as well as the coventry v ipswich town matches, i did feel the baggies game with newcastle had a slightly higher quality of football than either of the other two; and both these teams - along with cardiff city should be top bets to go up this year.



while i was wary of RDM taking over at the hawthorns, he has done a really good job so far of retaining the professional loyalty of both recent and long-time veterans in greening, brunt, koren, olsson, and zuiverloon; while giving renewed confidence and playing time to cech, teixeira, beattie and most especially moore. he has also understood, in having brought up chris woods - and with the acquisition of simon cox (not to mention the club's recent interest in jermaine beckford) the absolute need for strikers in order for the albion's traditional style of football to flourish and remain an overall winning proposition.

at this point, the gaffer's got me on his side and i've got every confidence that this is going to be a satisfying, fun, and above all - winning season.

Old Baggies Never Fade Away...

it seems, these days, that they just get transfered to fulham football club. much to my surprise, the man who has captained the albion - and i think probably been their most consistent player - for much of the last 5 seasons, has requested a transfer; almost invariably so that he can end his playing days in a premiership side that has acheived some measure of consolidation in the top flight. the club in question - and the only one reported to have put in a bid for him so far, has been the recent destination for 1 or 2 of his ex-teammates who've gone on and done well there too; and that's fulham f.c.

what thoroughly surprises me is that i've come to see jonathan greening as being the embodiment and individually most representative player for the albion over these past few years, and thought he had an eye to staying in football beyond his playing career. i took it for granted that west brom was where he would want to do this - much like tony brown before him, and take advantage of the opportunity to go into coaching and other areas of the game - perhaps even management - but always west bromwich albion to the end!

his request for transfer is also - and quite suddenly, i might add - out of step with his declarations within the last couple of months of his loyalty to the albion and calling for his teammates to stay and show similar commitment to the club - and in light of paul robinson now going to bolton, and marc-antoine fortune signing with tony mowbray's celtic... so this brings me to the question - and considering the time-line involved in these events: has the arrival of roberto di matteo at the hawthorns had any influence in greening's now wanting a transfer, where he seemed to want to stay before? what does this bode for the future?

again, it throws the appointment of di matteo as "head coach", and the club's switch to a european style of club management into question. what type of manager is di matteo going to be? anybody who's watched football in the last 15 years knows what a great player he was; but, he seems much less popular with the fans whom he has had to serve in the recent past. there was a post on the BBC 606 from an MK dons supporter, warning that he will ruin the constitutional structure of the albion playing style and replace it with a boring italian (read: defensive) style of football.

while some of the dons results would tend to bear this out; i would suggest that DM is at an early enough stage of his career (the baggies is only his second appointment at the helm of a club) that he may not truly have found a particular or committed style yet; and is, at this point, just concerned with producing good results with whatever situation is at hand. his record from last year as the dons' gaffer saw him manage the team to 27 wins, 11 losses, 14 draws; and was good enough to take them into the play-offs where they ultimately lost the two-legged semi-final 7-6 on penalties to scunthorpe united. while i saw both legs of the encounter, i could not make much of an estimation as to di matteo's management style - or what type of football he prefers to see his teams play. but his achievements at MK showed that he relied on good defensive performances, as the team did produce an awful lot of single goal wins in a large number of low scoring games. but then, perhaps he was clever enough to know that this was the constitutional nature of the team, and he played it to its strengths?

in the final analysis, he took a freshly promoted club from league 2 and led them to a place in the promotion playoffs for a place in the championship - and came up short only on a missed penalty by ex-teammate and super veteran tore andre flo. so in the end - i just don't know... let's hope that jonno has a different motivation for wanting to leave other than a lack of faith in the new gaffer - or perhaps he knows something that we don't?

more than likely though, i believe that it is just another example of the ever widening gap - both financially and in terms of prestige between the first and second tiers of english football, making the type of loyalty that was practiced in professional football prior to the massive money and pure pop culture of today impossible for all but a particular type of individual who we have not seen in a long time and may never encounter again. after all, fulham is a team that i think is fairly well suited to a player like jonno, and he should do well there.

in the 1976 FA CUP final, contested by perennial 1st division power-house manchester united; and (then) mid-table 2nd division club southampton; arguably the most pre-eminent international who played in that match was the saints' mike channon. in era's previous to this, famed internationals played routinely in the old 2nd division. but now - in the days of the premier league - the english national side doesn't consider anyone outside the premiership, who isn't a regular starter for his club; and - goalies aside - generally they try and keep selection for international duty to the really big clubs. this is a reflection of how much the prestige gap between the "big four"/consolidated premiership teams, the relegation/promotion battlers, and the established championship teams has grown considerably since the founding of the premier league; and in the process destroyed the possibility for an individual to choose to be loyal to a team - in a professional context anyway.

if a footballer has international aspirations, then he is forced to request transfer upon relegation of his current club. stewart downing at middlesbrough is making the news today as he has been transfered to aston villa for £12 million. here is a case where a young man had come through the academy system, and gone on to play for the local team he had grown up with and had supported as a boy. one of his quotes to the press - as reported on the BBC - was particularly poignant in addressing the situation:

"I loved the last World Cup, but I want to play a bigger part this time. I have to be with a good Premier League side if I want to do that... I hope the fans understand that I'm ambitious and want to win things and this move gives me a chance of that. But I'll always be a Boro fan."

as far as the english national side goes, it weakens the whole structure, by possibly limiting itself out of players who might become good - and useful - international footballers. as we've seen in the past, good club players and those who can shine in the forum of international play are very often made of completely different stuff. especially nowadays, when the ratio of foreign players in the premiership would make it more of a cosmopolitan league, and not necessarily where the best english players at any given position might be playing. in short, i would contend that while the premiership is the finest cosmopolitan football league in the world, and definitely the place to go and seek out one's best and brightest; just don't discount the quality of the much more overtly "english" championship league, and some of the really good young potential english internationals to languish in someone else's - or even popular opinion's - underestimation of what one might find there.

for example, with the number of english goalies who play in the premier league limited to a very few, it's very possible that the national side doesn't have the best english goalie playing for them. considering the number of internationals from the smaller footballing nations who have players currently active in the championship - i would imagine that this potential oversight is very possible.

jonno, however, is not an international and has no such interests to protect. he has, as well, declared that if the club receive no reasonable offer for him, he'll continue to don the navy the white stripes and play his hardest to get the baggies promoted again. in these days of miracle and wonder, of multi million pound transfers, of domestic league domination by a highly predictable few and choices dictated by highly prohibitive costs and standards; the concept of "loyalty" - the idea of a man dedicating himself to the improvement of a whole of which he is a committed and influential part, is a long lost quality whose capabilities to achieve... to create a victorious intangible, will never again be seen in the top-flights of professional football. let's hope that we traded it in for something of equal value.

Robbo Goes to Bolton

combing the online news last night - and just to see if there was anything new concerning paul robinson's apparent move to bolton. the most recent report being at GOAL.COM, saying that the long serving albion fullback is adamant that he will not be playing at the hawthorns next year, and have asked the club to accept bolton's transfer offer of £750,000. meanwhile, jeremy peace has held firm and rejected the offer, and insists on the asking price of £1 million.

generally, players asking to be released get what they want eventually; simply by virtue of the fact that - in football - no one wants to work with someone who doesn't want to be there. in just about any other business, workers in varying fields of endeavor are routinely held to contracts; where their reluctant delivery of performance is usually acceptable, based on the assumption of personal ego and their inherent sense of craft delivering adequate product. even the rolling stones squirming out of one of their first recording deals, did so by producing a piece of work in order to fulfill their contractual obligations... nothing more. in this case it was a song called "cocksucker blues" and was designed to be unusable - by virtue of its overly explicit lyrical content - by the company to which the song was owed. it did however produce (for better or worse) an interesting piece of art. it shows a commitment to something, anyway. but a footballer who does not want to honour his contract is useless and possibly even detrimental, produces nothing, lacks any sense of commitment; and considering what a footballer costs these days, you would generally want to get him off the payroll as soon as possible.

that is the way i feel about robbo, anyway. he's 30 years old, has no international career to protect (unlike morrison, whose considerations in leaving have more to do with his aspirations as a scottish international than anything else) and last year was part of one the worst defenses in the premier league. so i have to wonder what he's talking about when he says he can't "face another season in the championship".



the premier league - and especially the existence of the "big 4" - has seriously devalued the worth of all other english football; and the promotion/relegation issue between the first and second tier of play is turning into a perilous joke, with less and less of the league being able to stay competitive. nowadays - and in the big setup - teams in the premier league and championship fall into three basic levels of competition: "the big 4"... well that just speaks for itself, and is as much of an institution, at this point, as is the "old firm" in scotland, or the dominance of real madrid and barcelona in spain. then there are the rest of the "top 10" level clubs, in the likes of teams such as everton, aston villa, spurs, manchester city, blackburn rovers, bolton wanderers, west ham united etc... these are all teams that generally finish in the top 10 and occasionally will struggle for a season, but are rarely relegated.

a notable exception to this rule would be newcastle united in being relegated this last season. for these teams, relegation is the worst possible scenario, as the structure at these clubs - financial and otherwise - demands that they regain promotion within 2 years or face the possibility of spiraling downward into league 1 and possibly beyond. recent victims of this syndrome being charlton athletic, leeds united, nottingham forest, leicester city, norwich city, luton town, southampton and going a little further back, swindon town have never been back to the top flight after being the first team to be relegated from the premiership; and, both notts county - now in league 2, and oxford united of the blue square premier league were first division teams less than 20 years ago.

after this you have the group of teams that struggle against relegation from the premiership as often as they are playing for promotion from the championship: west bromwich albion, wolverhampton wanderers, birmingham city, reading, crystal palace, watford, stoke city, portsmouth, sheffield united, fulham, sunderland, wigan, hull city, middlesbrough - and a group of teams who might become competitive at this level on any given year: coventry city, cardiff city, burnley, derby county, bristol city, QPR, preston north end etc. these clubs make up the bottom half of the premiership and the top half of the championship. beyond that - and with a few notable exceptions... well, football is localized and of interest only to the teams and supporters involved.

while the former category of these clubs are capable of staying in the premiership for as many as four or five years at a time - and even produce top ten finishes replete with qualification for european competitions, and so forth - they will still inevitably and eventually find themselves back in the bottom 7 or 8 where the threat of relegation is always just around the corner and as imminent as your next 3 losses.

if paul robinson really believes that the championship is below the level at which he should be playing - then something is out of whack in the overall structure of football in england, and at its highest level. there are players of such a caliber that they could not entertain playing for anyone outside the "big 4". some of these players can be lured to other clubs in the "top ten" category - but only for "big 4" money - or they can go and play for real madrid. while there is another grade of player - like robbo - who will play for anyone as long they have a defensible and consolidated position in the premier league - i mean, you wouldn't want to leave west brom to play at hull, because their chances of a miserable season ending in relegation is more likely than not, and west brom are expected to regain promotion immediately.



the problem lies in the financial structure of these institutions, and the way in which they are allowed to operate. with the exception of west bromwich albion - who were the first team relegated this last year - every single premiership club operated by accumulating massive debt. manchester united, for example, couldn't afford to be manchester united if they couldn't attract the money and keep things running smoothly under the weight of this massive debt. they just wouldn't be able to meet the wages that they want to be able to meet, nor the incredible transfer fees made at the game's highest level that must be paid out. west brom, on the other hand, are a team that depend on prudent management, good buys, loyalty, player development in conjunction with signing young players, and making sure that there is enough money in the till to deal with whatever problems or opportunities might come up. not only did the baggies avoid debt last year, but they were the only premiership club that turned a profit. this may be why they can afford to go "sponsor-less" and actually look like a football team instead of 11 mobile billboards.

newcastle united, having spent many years in the premier league and first division prior to that - are a huge club... one of the biggest in the country. their financial structure calls for big investors, top name players on big salaries, acquired on big transfer money, and to be in the appropriate amount of debt to ensure that this all happens. this structure will absolutely sink a team when relegated to the championship. while albion will have the money and structure to deal with a championship campaign - and are expected to be favourites for promotion back to premier league, newcastle are in big trouble and will have to re-organize their financial structure, sell off their most expensive players, figure out what kind of team they need to put on the field week after week and will still need to get promoted within 2 years or face being broke, further in debt and possibly suffer deeper relegation.