At least the Championship is honest.
I was so sick of it by 2014 but now it feels like respite care.
I know a little about what some of our players get up to off duty. They're mostly just nasty ****s. They'll love to take blood money.
I've felt like this for years.
The Premier League is the poisoned chalice. Every Championship team is desperate to get there and get some of the table scraps from the mass media dining table. Only when they get there will they fully realise it's a closed shop.
You're not actually going to break into the top 6 in the long term because you're not part of the long-running cartel that runs football in this country, unless you have significant investment from a sportswashing oil state or an american holding company. The fact that we achieved two fairytale successes in winning the league and fa cup and still face relegation so soon after only proves this. It's not about sporting merit, it's about constant investment.
The vast majority of the football in the top leagues in Europe is based around avoiding defeat instead of trying to win. This can only be blamed on protecting capital as the stakes are higher with exponential investment into the sport.
I long for the days of hoofball after going through the Puel and Rodgers eras, as well as years of watching tiresome so-called genius tactics masterminded by the turtleneck genius. The atmosphere always seemed to be more fun at the stadium when we were in the championship too. I'd never wish for us to be relegated, but the idea that the Premier League is the only valid form of football is part of the rot that has cheapened the sport.