Recruitment and season tickets

What really brought this idea to the fore was a West Ham Fan TV podcast I was listening to over the weekend. Long story short, that club is quite possibly the biggest circus in the Premier League. Well, Everton and Newcastle are close, mostly due to the large fan base each one has. With the Hammers, a large part of the issue in recent years has been the stadium. I'm not super involved with that fan base, and I certainly haven't been to Upton Park or the London Stadium, but it was a clear down grade. For me, the biggest problem at the club, at least on the pitch, is no vision. I have no idea how long this has gone on, but the club is horribly run in terms of coaching and recruitment, hence why I mention vision. It's not like Burnley, where they have no money, and never have, due to being a small club in a poor region of the country. The club has never won the league, and the biggest claim to fame for fans is having some players involved in England's world cup win. That was back when the vast majority of supporters weren't alive, a bit like Di Stefano winning the CL a bunch of times at Madrid. The current manager is a perfect example, and this is where the Everton comparison comes in. I wouldn't say Pellegrini and Ancelotti are at the same level, but they're both older managers who haven't been particularly successful outside of big club situations in recent years. Thus, it hardly makes sense for a club with a long-standing loser mentality and no coherent plan to bring them in and think things will magically change. Part of this it tactics, where they're both outdated, but it's also recruitment. Changing managers every couple/few years simply means there's no cohesion in the squad. You'll have new managers taking over with players still in the squad from one or two (sometimes three) regimes ago. It leads to half the squad being surplus to requirements, and of course teams sell players at a loss. This, plus the new manger constantly bringing his own players in, usually on high wages, leads to a never-ending cycle of underachievement and mid-table (if not fighting relegation) finishes.

After laying out the example of two of the more pointless clubs in the division, I want to touch on the entire landscape of the Premier League, especially in this shortened off season. I've talked about the promoted teams, so now I'll focus on others. First, I just want to say that due to the money involved, there aren't really any "stepping stone" clubs. A few years back, there was the infamous Southampton to Liverpool step, where 5 or so guys ended up making that transfer after impressing in the league. That's hardly the case anymore. A few cases off the top of my head are Grealish, Rice and Zaha, just from the last year or so. Also a number of the Norwich guys fit into this category. By this I mean it's clear the players are better, or at least rated higher than the level the team's playing at, but the selling club is the one dictating whether the player will get a move or not. Even now it's like this, despite match-day revenue being drastically hindered. The currently Leicester model works like this as well, in that they tend to sell one big name player for a high fee each summer, while replacing him for relatively cheap and keeping most of the squad together. Getting back to player valuations, it's reached the point where the absurd TV deal is no longer helping. While it's true "small clubs" aren't forced to sell their top assets, they also end up with aging (if not straight up old) squads without millions lying around to improve it. I think of Palace here, where Zaha has been wanting out for a while, but made the choice to sign a new contract, thus having no exit leverage. In essence, what I'm getting at here is the top clubs either sign players whose deals are running down, take the "risk" associated with guys outside the PL, or pay over the odds. Thus, despite having money, sensible transfers usually still come from buying players abroad, at a lower level, or at the end of deals.

This has largely been about recruitment so far, and how the bloated financial situation isn't actually helpful for many clubs, so now I want to address a club or two in particular. I'll start with the champions. In a similar vein to the previous paragraph, there comes a point when proper investment is necessary. For whatever reason, FSG do not do that. The won a league title a season after the Champions League, which only one or two other English clubs could expect to do (Chelsea maybe, City if they get over that hump). Despite narratives of competitiveness, they are one of two clubs head and shoulders above the rest, in the past three years. Chelsea are frantically spending to close that gap, while City are back to spending after a down year (IMO it's largely due to complacency). My point here is I don't see three of the "top six" having more than a 5% chance of winning the league, and obviously none of the others should be able to fluke their way to a title like Leicester did that one time. Even then, it's a risky game to not spend any money, despite the ridiculous earnings that come from the Champions League and Premier League. They'll finish at worst 3rd, but it could've been a walk in the park if they'd signed 3 or 4 guys to provide cover and competition, knowing how congested the season will be (plus the short break in between).

Now, the final part is getting around to season tickets. I've outlined the outlook of many clubs, which is simply not spending money to improve the squad. Palace is one of the only ones addressing issues (lack of creativity and high squad age) with sensible signings, and that's a delightful development, despite it being at least two seasons late. They're also due to spend, having collected aging players and not making signings for a while. This brings me back to the season ticket issue. Honestly, whether fans were allowed all season or not, a number of clubs don't "deserve" loyal fans. The promoted teams, sure, I'll give them a pass, especially Leeds, but Fulham and West Brom (the latter, especially) have been woeful in the PL for a while. I'll quickly calculate the teams I'd deem "deserving" of having fans renew; Leeds, Liverpool (won the league), City (usual investment), and Chelsea (early Abramovich days levels of spending). Arsenal and Spurs have made some additions, though I still see them as challenging for 4th, at best. That's, at most, 6 teams. I'm sure some will do business in the coming weeks, but that's pretty bad.

Like I said, I may well be missing something here. But, the way I look at it, these clubs do nothing for fans, and it's all about money. Even with no fans at stadiums, some won't be able to legally watch "their" team on TV. How crazy is that? And yet, people are buying/renewing their season tickets. It almost seems like Stockholm Syndrome. They've endured years and years of winning nothing, yet they've invested so much time and energy in a frankly parasitic relationship, they just go along with it. I'd love to see what would happen if fans woke up to the reality of getting screwed by their beloved clubs, and finally just grew a pair and said I'm not doing this anymore. That's why the WHU fan channel chat inspired me. I don't get why people are so attached to these clubs that do nothing for them. You literally go to work, slaving away all week for a measly sum of money, which if you think about it is a social construct, just to go root for people you don't know and who don't give a shit about you (attempt to) kick a ball into a net against another group of people you don't know. Like I said, pretty much everything is like this, but football was at one point supposed to be pure. American sports have always been about super rich owners controlling wealthy players, whose wages are paid by working fans. Great system. And this is why the current situation baffles me most. Why are people still doing this? You can't even go to the game! I'd never by a piece of merch or spend any money on any of these corrupt organizations if I wasn't able to go to games. The elephant in the room is what will games be like if/when fans are "allowed" back in. That sentence itself is disturbing enough. The fact that fans are still watching games is giving consent to the fact that owners and governing bodies couldn't care less about fans. It's like I was saying before; these fans are so blinded that they don't notice how abusive this system is.

I'm not a guy who bitches about problems without providing solutions. I have two for this issue. The first is simple; stop watching. Very self-explanatory. When the NFL team I watched as a kid moved, I stopped watching and never looked back, and that was 5+ years ago. When the NBA started being a two or three team league that cared more about social BS than the actual sport, I stopped watching. Not to mention the ridiculous amounts of money slightly above average players make. Hell, baseball was always my main sport, and when the players I grew up watching retired and were replaced by some bots, I stopped investing myself in it. It's that simple. Personality is stifled, the game isn't exciting anymore (takes a long time, fewer homers without 'roids, talent dispersed with so many teams) and the players whine about everything. Plus, I've always been one to have a game on in the background while watching like 3 innings with intense focus, unless I'm in the stadium, obviously, which clearly isn't happening this season. The other solution I have is for the people to create their own teams and leagues. This may be the case with non-league, though I'm not sure how many teams have actual owners, which defeats the purpose of going lower down to get a "pure" version of the sport. So yeah, the long and short of this is I don't get why people are still buying season tickets to the football. The game's been gone for ages, and it's only continuing to go downhill with the financial discrepancies from league to league.

Just a side note: betting isn't legal in my state, so I've chosen not to address that. It's one of the big issues in sport, as well, but I'm not particularly informed on it, so I left that out.