Redslo

Figuring out how to use statistics effectively in baseball was easy compared to football. People are still trying to figure out how to do that. (Or, perhaps, more accurately, if anyone has figured out something significant they are keeping their mouths shut--as Oakland A's fans wished Billy Beane had.) But it would be foolish to assume that it will never happen.

But MLS might raise the salary cap to the point where teams can offer competitive wages for all but the top players. Admittedly that is not likely to happen soon since the last season's cap (excluding designated players) is around 38K pounds a week for 20 players. Yes, Forster makes more than an entire MLS roster (again, excluding designated players). I have not checked its accuracy but here is a link for the average salaries in various football leagues. http://screamer.deadspin.com/chart-the-average-player-salaries-in-soccer-leagues-ar-1658856283

The way to get around FFP is to have large commercial sponsorship deals that are not discounted for involving related parties paying above the real value. This translates into have rich, but legally unconnected friends, willing to have you money (tens of millions of pounds a year) for a sponsorship that isn't worth what they are paying. I am sure some people have friends like that, but it really doesn't sound like rich person behavior. The long term way to beat FFP (while complying with it) is to set up a successful academy. Academy expenses don't count against FFP. We are lucky enough to have a huge head start on this strategy, but Man City is trying to do this. For someone like Villa the owner would have to be willing to pump in a lot of money over many years before seeing a good return--depending in part on how good the Villa academy is right now. FFP can also be exploited by building a big new stadium. Those costs also don't count against FFP and if you have the fan base to fill the stadium you can increase your spendable revenue under FFP significantly. This is why Tottenham, Chelsea, and others are looking at new stadiums. It is also why West Ham is likely to be on the rise for real. They have a new stadium coming up that they can probably fill which has cost them effectively nothing in both real terms and FFP terms. Plus, as I understand it, they have decent academy already.

I missed five goals in the Sunderland game. Despite the lack of byes, MLS teams find the chance to play European teams. Also, we don't have to play MLS teams. We could schedule games with European clubs in the USA or Japan. A game with Everton, for example, would attract a crowd because of Tim Howard. Swansea would also make an attractive opponent.

It might be interesting to surprise someone by not starting Pelle so they have no idea what to do with us.

Fox put nearly all the games on Fox Soccer and Fox Soccer plus--although a few games were on the Fox network itself which was available with all basic cable packages. You had had to pay extra to get Fox Soccer from most cable TV providers (and less than half of the homes in America got it) and even more extra to get Fox Soccer Plus (which some providers don't carry at any price--including mine). They also had an app (Fox Soccer 2 Go) for the rest of the games but that cost $20/month. One game a week was on ESPN which was easy to get. NBC puts most games on NBC Sports Network which is currently available to nearly 70% of US homes--I assume that even more could get it but choose not to. Virtually every weekend has one game available on NBC itself (the Saturday 5:30 game). They also have an app but it is free if your have a subscription to a cable TV company that carries NBC Sports Network. Also, NBC has done a better job of promoting the Premier League and the in studio experts are better or, at least, more pleasant to listen to. One way or another I was able to watch all of Southampton's Premier League games. (I have only missed one full game and two half games so far for reasons unrelated to their availability--although I missed most of the second half of this year's Sunderland game due to a bug in the app.) However, it is $200 cheaper with NBC than it was with Fox and I can see every Southampton game live if wish.

That seems too suspiciously reasonable to be true.

Obviously, but more commercial money will be available for a team that consistently progresses into Europe and/or appears on TV a lot. Keep in mind that outside of England, the Saturday 3pm time slot is a TV game and, for publicity purposes, it matters who gets selected for broadcasting. Also, it is not clear to me what should be viewed as moving the dial. If, for example, we want to retain Schneiderlin and Clyne by paying them 100K per week each that would be an increase of about 139K per week or just over 7.2 million a year. Increasing our commercial revenue by that amount is not beyond the realm of possibility--especially if non-English sponsors could be found.

That explains everything. In Football Manager commercial income can be very helpful, but it just happens. You have no control over it. Maybe that is how he thought it worked in real life.

That is not exactly what he said.

Except that Galaxy or Earthquakes are the only ones I can get to so it is not the last thing I want to see.

The thread is really an amazing display of certainty that we must finish 7th and therefore do not need to be discussed--with a few exceptions. Of course, if they beat us, they might be right. Except that we would sell our extra players who should be good enough that we would profit--or at least not take big losses. That could be right. However, if the FA cup winner does not qualify for the Champions League, they get the automatic EL group place and everyone is pushed down one slot. As long as we are buying our Lovren not Liverpool's Lovren it won't be a problem.

The earliest Southampton might have to play a Champions League playoff game is August 18, 2015,--after the season starts. The earliest we might have to play a Europa League third round qualifying game is July 30, 2015. I have relied upon Wikipedia for this. This assumes that we do not qualify through the fair play table which I believe is virtually a certainty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_UEFA_Europa_League#Third_qualifying_round

I understand that people's tastes vary. That being said, you are right, I have no idea why he would seem especially grating to people from England, but not people from Canada, the USA, or Scotland. On the other hand, I have found Harry Redknapp to be grating for nearly four years now and he is English and I suspect most posters here would agree with me on that one. In any case, Ralph's job can be accomplished successfully even if many fans find him boring. On the good side, it has been five months since anyone has accused me of being Ralph Krueger.

It sounds to me like someone enjoying his job who knows what he is doing and knows that he should not talk about the parts of the job that are not his to talk about. I think a long car ride with him would be quite interesting, but then I also like to talk hockey.

I don't think the media waxes lyrical about the Europa League until the semi-finals. Otherwise, I appreciate the humor in you cynicism.

No. There are only 4 CL spots in that case. The part you were not sure what I meant is my poorly expressed uncertainty as to what happens if 5 English teams qualify for the Champions League. Does England still get three Europa League spots? I think so, but I am not sure. What if the 5th Champions League spot club finished in a Europa spot? Does that mean only two Europa spots? I don't know, but it doesn't sound right.

That was my understanding as well.

Can you provide a link for this information?

I think having a plane fly over with a message is pretty silly but if something like that is necessary, you should wait until later in the season. If we clinch a Champions league spot and Liverpool does not, then fly a plane over a Liverpool game with an appropriate message at that time.

I posted "I make Predictions (Round 26)". It includes magic number updates. http://redsloscf.blogspot.co.uk/ http://redsloscf.blogspot.com/

You might be right. My point is that qualifying for the champions league is the only way to become competitive with the richer clubs--it is not something to be avoided until we are competitive because then that time will never come.

I assume that if we expand our squad for European football next year and then fail to qualify the next year, we will sell some players. Therefore, the critical factor is not to over pay our players that we might want to sell so they can be transferred.

We are unlikely to ever become that wealthy, but the only way would be to qualify for the Champions League multiple times and routinely advance to the knock out phase.

I went over this in my blog last month. You have a couple of things things wrong which I have highlighted in bold. http://redsloscf.blogspot.com/2015/01/european-qualification-rules-for.html After reading your post, I also realized that I did not explain, because I did not think about it, what happens to England's Europa league slots if a fifth English team qualifies for the Champions League. Does England still get three Europa slots? I do not know and will have to research it.