Seven Subs available next year in the Premiership

[lo zio]

no steevio, i can't agree with u. football is not mathematic and a "star" has not necessarily a bigger impact on the game than a "normal" player.
if football was just about this, then it would be useless to play matches. utd face city, ok utd will win because they have more quality players.... that's just wrong.

u wanna limit the gap between top clubs and small clubs? fair enough then introduce a salary cap rule.
but decreasing the gap by keeping just 3 players on the bench is simply unfair.

first of all because u can be sure that a "nani" could have a bigger impact on the game than a boro mid class player.

and (most important) it's unfair because the ones who pay the consequences of this situation are the young players, who will just have less chances to play.

u say that 16 men on the bench is fine for u. i see. but actually this is not about what is fine for u or for me... we're talking about what's fine for our leagues, for our youngsters, for those hundreds of players that every week will know they won't have any chances to play, and will have to look at the matches as they were normal fans.

yesterday milan won thanks to a goal scored by a 18 years old guy. there were inzaghi, seedorf and many others stars on the pitch...but the one who decided the match was an unknown kid who was called by ancelotti from the youth team.
if we had just 5 men on the bench, that guy wouldn't have been called..... and the same story happened with rosina, balotelli, aquilani, cerci, de silvestri, and many other youngsters who were able to show what they're about just by entering into the pitch during the match.

that's what we're talking about

 

[steevio_uk]

Mate I agree with you in many respects about developing youth players here.
The point I am making is that English players are generally overrated and vastly overpriced, so 5 subs, 7 subs or 11 subs, the big clubs in this country will still be full of big name players and expensive signings.

You think if Chelsea and Man Utd have 6 extra bench places that they will use them to put youth players in?
Not a chance in hell.
The places will be filled with big name and big money signings.

When I say star players, I obviously mean players of actual quality rather than just being a big name.

no steevio, i can't agree with u. football is not mathematic and a "star" has not necessarily a bigger impact on the game than a "normal" player.
if football was just about this, then it would be useless to play matches. utd face city, ok utd will win because they have more quality players.... that's just wrong.

first of all because u can be sure that a "nani" could have a bigger impact on the game than a boro mid class player.

How on earth is that wrong?
So just because you get the rare occasion when a lesser player performs better than a quality player or a lesser team beats a much better team, my point is invalid?

Of course if you have a selection of beter players that you have paid millions for, they will NEARLY ALWAYS be better than some random Boro signing from West BRom

Ok, to be pedantic to answer your point... lesser mid table 'Boro substitute players' do not ALWAYS perform less then bigger name quality players but the VAST MAJORITY of the time they do.

How many times can you count a lesser player changing the course of a game against a big team?
A few... not that many.

How many times do big name, quality signings change games?
Every single week.

Bigger clubs having more money to spend on more quality signings to fill up an 11-man bench = advantage over smaller clubs that can only fill their bench with average players that have a LOT less chance to influence a game.

I have made points in capital to be pedantic back to your point.

 

[lo zio]

You think if Chelsea and Man Utd have 6 extra bench places that they will use them to put youth players in?
Not a chance in hell.
The places will be filled with big name and big money signings.

yes mate i do think so. actually i don't think it, i see it... every week. i see it in spain, i see it in italy; every week in serie a i take a look at top club benches and i see a balotelli, a paloschi, a de silvestri, a rosi, a palladino, a raggi a aubameyang....

real madrid has a terrific roster, but still u can see on their bench balboa and miguel torres.

because top clubs usually don't have 2 players of the same quality for each role. some of them have 5 top class backups, some have 6 top class backups.
there is just one team in europe which really has 2 top class players for each role: inter. and inter too never has just top class backups sitting on the bench. because there are always some injured players, or some disqualified players.

this season inter brought on the bench many young guys, and they all got their chances to play (balotelli, bolzoni, pelè). with just 5 players on the bench, this probably wouldn't have been possible.

what i'm trying to say is that if we compare the first 3 backups of a top club with the first 3 backups of a small club, the difference is huge (talking about the quality of those players). but if we keep going this way and start to compare the first 7 backups of both teams, then the difference gets smaller... and this gap keeps going down as we keep "enlarging" our point of view.

but anyway mate, even if this wasn't true... even if chelsea (just to make an example) had 22 "maloudas" in its roster....
then, what the hell, wouldn't it be a shame to keep all this quality off the pitch? wouldn't it be bad for football?

of course the coach will be able to bring on the pitch just 3 of them anyway, but at least u wouldn't bring them down by telling them on friday "i'm sorry, but i won't bring u with me on the bench sunday... u'll just watch the match from the stands".

this is really a important factor mate. i'm sure u heard many times a coach saying "one of the worst things in my job is when i have to do the list of the players who will play, stay on the bench and stay at home".
that's what this rule is really about.... nothing else.


Palermo just bought a player, Balzaretti. A high quality left back who spent the last 6 months watching his former team (fiorentina) playing from his couch or from a seat at the stadium.
his former coach needed other people to take his place on the bench (more versatile players). he told him "im sorry i would really take u on the bench but i already got this guy who can play in your role and as a cb in the same time, so i have to pick him". so this coach didn't take balzaretti on the bench, despite the "versatile" backup being not as good as him.....
..but he was more versatile, so he had to take balzaretti's place.

the first thing balzaretti said when he came in palermo was "i'm sorry i had to leave fiorentina, but i just can't keep watching football from the couch at my home. i didn't expect to play, but i wanted to be involved in the team project. starting a game from the bench sure is not great, but at least when u're in the bench list, u know u might get some playtime. and it totally change your mental status, your confidence. when the coach tells u won't even be on the bench, it gets so frustrating"

So just because you get the rare occasion when a lesser player performs better than a quality player or a lesser team beats a much better team, my point is invalid?

but mate, we're not talking about "rare occasions". in premiership (like in la liga or in bundes or in serie a) there are hundreds of players. dozens of high quality players disappoint every season. every season we see 15, 20, 25 high quality players who face a disappointing season, and every season we see 15, 20 25 previusly unknown players who reach the spotlight with their performances. it's not about rare occasions. it's something that always happens to many players, every season, for most of the season.

once again my team offers me a good example (but there are thousands of examples in every league, in every team). this season we have 3 players for the same role: simplicio (the starter) bresciano (the backup) and jankovic (the young talented gun who doesn't get any play time).
bresciano is having an awful season. every time he plays he's so disappointing. but still palermo's coach never brings jankovic on the bench. because bresciano is more experienced, is more versatile.....
so we got this nice talented guy (jankovic, who was able to score 8 goals last season in spain, with maiorca) who spends his sunday afternoons watching our matches from the palermo stadium stands, just like me.

as i wrote before, if your aim is to reduce the gap between top clubs and small clubs, there are plenty of ways to get this result (collective deals money redistribution, salary cap, putting a limit to the max number of players our team can have, etc...)

but keeping just 5 men on the bench won't help (because, as told u the difference between the 7th derby's backup and the 7th chelsea's backup is a lot smaller than the difference between chelsea's and derby's 1st, 2nd, 3rd backups).
this rule instead would bring many advantages to the whole system (those advantages i just mentioned).

btw mate, i'm not trying to say that i'm totally right and u're totally wrong. i'm just trying to explain why ferguson (and many other coaches and players across europe) thinks this would not be a "ridiculous idea".... at all

 

[steevio_uk]

Yeah I know where you are coming from.

I agree that a player's confidence will be strengthen if he is at least on the bench.
But one other thing is how would a player feel if he cannot even make the squad of 22?!

In Europe, younger players get more development and more playtime, simply because the clubs can buy and develop these players.
Over here, you will have a 20year old with 10 appearances, rated at £5m by his club... so a team like Arsenal will not buy him, but look abroad at players like Toure and Clichy.
Who can blame them?

I would be all for development of youth if the amount of available subs was introduced, but I honestly don't think that will happen.
Chelsea will put 6 stars on their bench, so to compete, Man Utd will buy extra and put on 7, then Arsenal 8 etc etc...
I honestly think that will happen so the difference between Man Utd's '8th sub' and Derby's '8th sub' will be a lot bigger than you think.

I suppose this is where we agree to disagree?!

It could be good if maybe there was a rule that a set amount of the subs had to be under a certain age and English.

In terms of what I said about 'stars' compared to 'normal players'... I was basically saying that a Michael Ballack is more likely to influence a game than a 'John Paintsil'.
I know it doesn't work like that all the time, but for the vast majority of time it does.

I wouldn't be too unhappy at 7 subs as it could maybe be good if at least one of them had to be a home grown player, but for me 10 subs is far too much.
Squads get bigger, teams need to invest in order to compete and things start to change because of it.

As I say, if it isn't broke, then don't fix it.

It may only be considered a small advantage to bigger clubs by some people, but it cannot be denied that it is still an advantage, no matter how small.
I think it will start to become a bigger advantage as teams compete to have the better selection of subs to choose from and lower teams just won't be able to compete.

Of course no one is right and wrong as we are yet to see how it would happen, but we have different ideas of what would happen, so it's just a case of 'wait and see'!

 

[lo zio]

I honestly think that will happen so the difference between Man Utd's '8th sub' and Derby's '8th sub' will be a lot bigger than you think.

I suppose this is where we agree to disagree?!

yep, i think that's the core of the dispute. Beside i can't be totally sure of my thoughts as, like u said, this is a case of "wait and see".
Moreover u brought some good points i might have underestimated, like this one....

The point I am making is that English players are generally overrated and vastly overpriced

anyway i read a couple of weeks ago that just the 38% of premiership players are english (wich is the lowest percentage of "native players" in europe).... so maybe the system is not broken, but still i think there's something that needs to be "fixed".
but, once again, considering your point about the english overpriced players, this rule might not be the right adjustement.

I agree that a player's confidence will be strengthen if he is at least on the bench.
But one other thing is how would a player feel if he cannot even make the squad of 22?!

:lol::lol: actually that's a good point mate.
nice conversation, steevio