Premier League Fixtures Final Day 11th May 2014

Luis wrote:We've been so shit but are winning. A sign of champions

COTR wrote:You have been decent today Kimmy. One of the better teams to lose at Anfield this season. Good job by your manager today   

Luis wrote:Top 4 all winning it looks like.

christmasborocooper wrote:One result off about 60 quid today. Fucking Sunderland.

Luis wrote:Was never meant to be today. We lost it vs Chelsea and never recovered.

Congrats to City, worthy winners.

Isco Benny wrote:Hardly a vintage year but hey, we finished above United.

Where's your Circle Of Life video now Fey?

Fey wrote:

christmasborocooper wrote:One result off about 60 quid today. Fucking Sunderland.

I had money on a win of them as well. And I never bet, let alone let the pride of the North win again.

Premier League ticket prices defy the very culture that built the game

Fans continue to be asked to part with sums that have risen wildly in excess of inflation – and the issue unites them

The Football Supporters’ Federation is calling on fans to join a march on the Premier League and Football League headquarters on 14 August to protest against spiralling ticket prices and demand “affordable football for all”. This demonstration, setting off from London’s Marble Arch, has become an annual fixture, as clubs have shown no inclination to use their TV rights windfalls to reduce historically inflated ticket prices.

For this forthcoming 2014-15 season, a handful of clubs (see table), including Tottenham Hotspur, Swansea City and West Bromwich Albion, have frozen ticket prices at the same level as last season. Manchester City, the Premier League champions bankrolled by the Abu Dhabi oil fortune of Sheikh Mansour, stand out with a benevolent £299 cheapest adult season ticket, which bears comparison with prices through football’s history when the sport was built and fondly referred to as “the people’s game”. Such tickets are limited, however, and prices at the Etihad Stadium go up to a high of £860 while matchday ticket costs, yet to be confirmed, were the target of complaints from some away fans last season.

Arsenal, whose £62 away-ticket price sparked a near-boycott by City fans when the two clubs met last season, will, as ever in modern times, be pricey to support. The cheapest adult season ticket at the Emirates Stadium is £1,020 – although that includes early-round cup matches, making for 26 games in total. The most expensive tickets, at a club that began building its new stadium in 2004 with the express aim of maximising income from more supporters, are more than £2,000 for a ticket and £129.50 for the most expensive single matchday ticket.

Such prices charged to supporters for watching their English clubs are a culture change from the century of the game’s development that passed before the First Division clubs broke away from the Football League, forming the Premier League and keep all ofing the money from the new pay-TV deal in 1992.

In the 1989-90 season, for example, during which Lord Justice Taylor produced his final report on the wider issue of football ground safety, there were thousands of tickets in Old Trafford’s standing accommodation where fans could watch Manchester United against top opposition for £3.50. Adjusted for retail-price inflation in the 24 years since, that ticket would now cost £6.94, just under a 100% increase. United’s lowest-priced ticket for this season, of which there are very many fewer than in the days of standing, will be £31.

That is cheap compared to £65.50 at Arsenal (for the highest category games), £55 at West Ham United with several clubs charging more, but United’s £31 price nevertheless represents a 785% increase since 1990.

At Liverpool, where prices have been increased significantly since the 2010 takeover of the then financially-troubled club by John Henry’s Boston-based Fenway Sports Group, the 1989-90 cheapest ticket price, accommodating thousands of fans on the Kop, was £4. This season, Liverpool’s cheapest matchday ticket will be £46, an increase of 1,150%.

Liverpool’s cheapest Anfield season ticket is £710, significantly more than at City, United and all clubs outside London; in fact it is the Premier League’s fourth most expensive lowest-priced season ticket after Arsenal’s £1,020 (for 26 matches), Chelsea’s £750 and the £745 that Tottenham Hotspur charge at White Hart Lane. Liverpool’s chief executive, Ian Ayre, has made it clear that the expansion of Anfield, for which preparatory work has begun with the demolition of surrounding houses, will be aimed at making more money for the club from fans, not reducing prices.



Kevin Miles, the FSF’s chief executive, describes high pricing as one issue which unites modern supporters, most of whom grew up and became loyal to their clubs in the pre-Premier League era. “There is an assumption that football has become a middle-class pastime, but I don’t necessarily see that,” said Miles. “I see traditional supporters stretching themselves, paying prices they think are unreasonable, to do the thing they love. It is such a captive market, clubs can squeeze people in a way other businesses can’t.”

Premier League clubs point to family sections that offer reduced ticket prices for both parents and children, and more clubs are now not charging fans full price at 16. Several, including Everton, Newcastle United, Manchester United and Hull City, have a concession or student price up to 20 or 21. The FSF argues that many people of that age are still students, on apprenticeships or in low-paid jobs and that football, which was celebrated as a constant in young adults’ lives, is now largely pricing them out.

The Premier League acknowledges that the average age of a Premier League club supporter is 41, but has claimed that young people are not priced out, that the highest proportion of fans are young, around 10% are from an ethnic minority background and “around a quarter” are women. However, these percentages are not a picture of the crowds regularly attending matches on a given weekend, where nothing like that proportion of women or ethnic minority fans are seen in grounds.

In fact, a Premier League spokesman has explained that the figure takes a total of all people who have attended a single match across a whole season, taking no account of how often each went, then calculates the percentages of young people, women and ethnic minority attendees.

In Germany the football association and Bundesliga have maintained standing areas throughout, and insisted on keeping the game affordable for the young and less well off who have long been the backbone of support. This season at Bayern Munich, still 75% owned by supporters, Bundesliga champions, 2013 Champions League winners and suppliers of the bulk of Joachim Löw’s World Cup-winning team, thousands of fan-members can buy a season ticket to stand for €144 (£114).

Here, the fans are marching on Premier League HQ to keep alive the tradition that football is not a business that should charge its followers whatever it can, but a game that belongs to everybody.

Managers' jobs threatened from within

POSTED BY MICHAEL COX

The Premier League was previously considered unique in Europe, as a top-level division in which managers were given time to battle their way out of difficulties. Whereas coaches in countries like Italy and Spain were given a few months then shown the door after a poor run of form, Premier League chairmen were more cautious, and therefore the managers more settled.

This was partly because of the difference in managerial structure. England was home to the general manager, who was in charge of everything from transfers to training to tactics. Elsewhere, there was more separation in responsibilities -- often a head coach in conjunction with a director of football.

Gradually, as football clubs expanded in size in terms of personnel and income, they started to adopt a more Continental model. The responsibilities of the manager -- or head coach -- are more limited, and perhaps they're more vulnerable to the sack.

"The British game was always very different; unique, in fact," Everton manager Roberto Martinez says. "There was a tradition that the manager decided the philosophy of the team and that is how he should be judged, not on one or two bad results. I think everyone else in Europe was a bit jealous of what we had, but in the past two years or so, we have become more trigger-happy.

"As a manager, if you are going to be a manager and not a head coach, you need time to put your ideas across, to manage your budget, to develop players for the short and long term. We shouldn't be copying other leagues, we should be preserving the British tradition."

Whatever the merits of swift managerial sackings, it's interesting how clubs decide to replace fallen bosses. Managers are now on very expensive contracts, and there's an increasing demand for them to bring in their own coaching staff, rather than work with those already at the club. This means hiring and firing a manager -- and his coaching staff -- can be an incredibly expensive process, especially if it happens every 18 months. Increasingly, the solution -- even if short term -- is simple. Sack the manager, and bring in the assistant.

The most obvious example was a couple of seasons ago, when Roberto Di Matteo took over from Andre Villas-Boas at Chelsea, and took the club to their first-ever European Cup. Typically, of course, Di Matteo didn't last much longer himself -- but it was still an extraordinary triumph, and an incredible turnaround in Di Matteo's career, having been sacked from West Brom less than a year before.

Inevitably, there were suggestions that Di Matteo conspired against Villas-Boas, something the Italian was keen to deny. "I did my best and Andre knows it," Di Matteo said at the time. "I did not conspire against him and all the decisions we took, we took together. I have always behaved with the utmost professionalism and loyalty." Villas-Boas didn't seem to hold a grudge when the two met the following season.

What Di Matteo said next, however, was most interesting. "All new managers inevitably replace a colleague when things go wrong or results are not up to expectations. This is the nature of football."

He probably meant "colleague" in a loose sense -- in the sense all managers are colleagues. Now, however, they're more literally replacing their former colleagues. Kenny Dalglish is another case -- he was involved at Liverpool's youth academy before the departure of Roy Hodgson in early 2011.

Last season it happened four times, including once again to Villas-Boas, who was sacked by Tottenham after a 5-0 defeat to Liverpool, and replaced with Spurs' former youth boss Tim Sherwood, a rather different character. Sherwood had a mixed period in charge, but his reputation -- particularly among the media -- was enhanced, and many felt sorry for Sherwood when he was dismissed at the end of the campaign. Had he plotted against Villas-Boas, who he seemed the complete opposite of? Who knows, but it was in his personal interests to do so.

Next to go was Michael Laudrup at Swansea, less than a year after winning the League Cup. His replacement was club captain Garry Monk -- initially on a caretaker basis, but he was eventually appointed on a permanent basis.

So too, was Norwich's Neil Adams. He was the club's successful youth team coach, and the obvious choice to replace Chris Hughton with five games of last season remaining -- he impressed, despite not winning any matches, and will lead the club in the Championship this coming season.

Then, finally, there was Ryan Giggs' brief spell as caretaker manager after David Moyes' departure. Various reports suggest the Class of '92 agreed -- quite reasonably -- that Moyes wasn't working out, and launched something of a coup to oust him. Giggs wasn't a realistic candidate to take over full-time, but he's secured an assistant manager role and is now the strong favourite to take over from Louis van Gaal, probably in three or four years' time.

There's a pattern here. Each of these six coaches -- Di Matteo, Dalglish, Sherwood, Monk, Adams and Giggs -- were already at the club when their predecessor was dismissed.

Each of them also had a playing history at the club in question, which meant they probably had more affection among supporters, and more of a core group of support among the staff. Di Matteo had been a Chelsea player for six years, Dalglish was a Liverpool legend, Sherwood was at Spurs for four seasons as a player and five more as a coach. Monk was a Swansea veteran of a decade, Adams is in Norwich's hall of fame for his playing contributions, and Giggs has played for Manchester United more often than anyone.

More intriguingly, each is in a better position after his surprise experience in charge.

This effect means managers must be increasingly careful when they appoint assistants. Paul Lambert's decision to appoint Roy Keane at Aston Villa was highly surprising -- Keane might not have any history at Villa, unlike the aforementioned six, but he quite obviously has managerial ambitions himself.

Lambert has been under constant pressure at Villa, and fans are getting restless. Chairmen are usually reluctant to sack managers because of the financial consequences, but now Lambert doesn't have that in his favour -- it won't cost Villa much to sack him. Keane will surely step up.

On paper, clubs promoting from within is a positive -- encouraging a consistent philosophy despite constant changes. Realistically, however, it's often just the easiest option, and managers would be well advised to surround themselves with those who don't have managerial ambitions of their own.