Don’t settle for 40 points... you could just win the title!
PREMIER LEAGUE bingo. Forty points is our target.
It’s the best/toughest league in the world. As long as we finish 17th, we are happy. The beauty is there are no easy games. Let’s think about survival and then we can consider Europe and top four.
You will have a full house before September.
Grim, grim, grim, grim, grin.
Joyless, joyless, joyless, joyless, joyless.
It can celebrate its TV deals all it wants, but does the Premier League and its clubs really want to be measured by the money you earn for merely STAYING in it?
Is commercial cash really the measuring stick for a football club founded to represent its community?
Does it really matter how much your clubs spend on players and agents’ fees?
The most uplifting title-winning story of many a year has been swiftly followed by an obscene summer when the only Premier League talk has been of inflated transfer fees, wages and representatives’ rake-offs.
But football joy is not measured by money.
It is not measured by the pay cheque you get for staying in the Premier League.
It is not measured by finishing 17th – or fourth. It is measured by the joy etched on to the faces of those Leicester City players who gathered at Jamie Vardy’s house in early May. It is measured by the joy of winning a game. Not by not losing it.
So, if there is one hope for the new season, it is that each club will believe it can do a Leicester. And why can’t they? The so-called elite clubs are a cabal, buying footballers from a cabal of agents, who merely circulate overrated players and readies.
In an ideal world, clubs such as Manchester United, Manchester City
LAST week, I bemoaned the inevitability of Everton’s sale of defender John Stones (right, with Roberto Martinez).
It has not happened yet. Not only that, Everton appear to be digging their heels in over Romelu Lukaku. Whatever you think of the wisdom of keeping star players against their wishes, it would be one hell of a stand for Everton to make to hold on to Stones and Lukaku. and Chelsea would have more class than to allow so-called super-agents to have such an influence on the playing side.
But because Jorge Mendes or Mino Raiola gives you first option on their best clients does not ensure success.
United – or one of the other clubs who can lavish wages in excess of £200,000 a week on one player – might well win the title.
That ilk of club will probably fill the top four positions.
But as we now know, it is not guaranteed.
That is because the Premier League market is flooded with decent players and there are fine margins.
Should Paul Pogba go to Old Tr a f f o r d for £100million, who is to say Georginio Wijnaldum at £25m for Liverpool does not to turn out to be a better signing? The £37m Manchester City have spent on Leroy Sane does not guarantee he is going to make any more of an impact than, say, Ahmed Musa, recruited by Leicester for half the price. The playing field is more level than most would have you think – elite clubs cannot recruit every decent player looking for the Premier League dollar. There are too many of them. Footbal l ’ s few, special , game-changing individuals reside in Barcelona and Madrid. What Leicester showed last season was that the game-changers here are camaraderie, spirit, organisation and belief. That is why EVERY club’s ambition when it all kicks off next week should not be to reach 40 points. It should be to win it.
REMEMBER Charlie Stillitano, the American who entertained club bigwigs down at The Dorchester and suggested that – whatever their finishing positions – Manchester United should be in the Champions League ahead of Leicester? He is also the mastermind of the International Champions Cup, which, apparently, has been taking place over the last few weeks. A couple of years ago, Stillitano had this to say: “Year Two of the International Champions Cup set the gold standard for soccer worldwide.” Can’t say I remember that, but one thing is for sure – this year of the International Champions Cup has set the bog standard for soccer worldwide.