Too many games

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Is it just me or is it wall to wall football now.
We seem to have played twice a week since McD came back.
46 league games plus a few in the cups and we are up to 50.
Add the international breaks on, is it 5 a season with 2 games, and that's another 10 for our internationals. All across the world
Is it any wonder that the Championship is such a slog now.

Last night I just didn't want us, or Ipswich to be playing, keeping up the momento for the stupidly long season is so difficult for managers.

It is spoiling the game imho.

Why is everyone an International now, how did that come about.

Time for a 2nd tier of 20 teams

[paultheroyal]

Not aware anything has changed over the last number of X years.

Maybe its just you.

[Coppelled_Streets]

46 games plus league cup and fa cup has been too many games for a while now. It's even worse for 2nd and 3rd division clubs!

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

46 games plus league cup and fa cup has been too many games for a while now. It's even worse for 2nd and 3rd division clubs!

They don't have the internationals tho, most of which are just friendlies to bring in more money.

[Coppelled_Streets]

46 games plus league cup and fa cup has been too many games for a while now. It's even worse for 2nd and 3rd division clubs!

They don't have the internationals tho, most of which are just friendlies to bring in more money.

No but they have the JPT or whatever it's called now. At least we get international breaks, albeit they then have to squeeze the games in to catch-up again.

[Ian Royal]

Not aware anything has changed over the last number of X years.

Maybe its just you.

+1 i seem to recall that back when we played Utd in 96 we had 9 capped players... not quite the same thing and may have included b teams but off the top of my head...

Mikhailov, Bernal, Wdowczyk, Williams, Lovell and Quinn had some form of international recognition

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

46 games plus league cup and fa cup has been too many games for a while now. It's even worse for 2nd and 3rd division clubs!

They don't have the internationals tho, most of which are just friendlies to bring in more money.

No but they have the JPT or whatever it's called now. At least we get international breaks, albeit they then have to squeeze the games in to catch-up again.

Take a look back at 2005/06. We had International breaks then, the difference was we didn't have a team full of players who buggered off each time, either to play or sit on the bench, so club commitments could continue almost uninterrupted .

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Completely agree, i've thought this for a while. Its boring and outdated.

The current structure of the divisions was set up to suit football in the 1950's and there haven't been any huge changes since. Intro of the PL was just cosmetic. We have the play offs, but even then the format of those could be so much better.

If you had to come up with a suitable structure for the football league clubs to compete at from scratch, you wouldn't come up with what we have now, nothing like it.

20 teams maximum per division and slightly extended and fairer play off system that rewards higher league placings.

League Cup for football league clubs only, ditch the Auto Windscreen.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Not aware anything has changed over the last number of X years.

Maybe its just you.

+1 i seem to recall that back when we played Utd in 96 we had 9 capped players... not quite the same thing and may have included b teams but off the top of my head...

Mikhailov, Bernal, Wdowczyk, Williams, Lovell and Quinn had some form of international recognition

Wiki says Archie played 2 games for Australia in 2000, so irrelevant

Darius last played for Poland in 1992, signed for us in 94

[floyd__streete]

Another issue is the amount of qualification matches for major tournaments, which means that the tradition of qualifiers taking place midweek, bookended by full Saturday programmes of domestic football, was lost to us. There are too many international matches. The likes of San Marino, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein etc. are parasites feeding off the richer associations. It is an absolute nonsense that the lower ranked (so-called) nations start at the same stage of the competition as the higher ranked sides; you wouldn't have Manchester United entering the Extra Preliminary Round of the FA Cup and drawing Hartley Wintney away FFS. The flotsam and jetsam at the bottom of the rankings should have to pre-qualify in a tournament which could be held at the same time as the major tournament they have failed once again to qualify for (be it World Cup or Euros) and the best sides earn the right to enter the next full qualifying round. It has been theorised that the smaller nations develop better playing the top sides but the regular series of absolute thrashings dished out entirely disproves that.

[Ian Royal]

They don't have the internationals tho, most of which are just friendlies to bring in more money.

No but they have the JPT or whatever it's called now. At least we get international breaks, albeit they then have to squeeze the games in to catch-up again.

Take a look back at 2005/06. We had International breaks then, the difference was we didn't have a team full of players who buggered off each time, either to play or sit on the bench, so club commitments could continue almost uninterrupted .

I think you have old timers vision.

Convey, Hahnemann and Ingimarsson were internationals iirc.

Lita was U21. Kitson refused to play for Ireland. Murty got a Scotland call up at some point. Doyle and Shorey got called up in a later season. Maybe SHunt too? Sonko? Gunnarsson? Didn't Harper flirt with Ghana?

We had Internationals in League One.

[Forbury Lion]

Maybe something for the club to consider when signing players, avoid signing players from smallish nations like Wales where there is a good chance of a player eligible for their national side playing at Championship level getting a call up.

Then again, the club gets international recognition from having these players on the books so that needs to be weighted up and factored in.

Worse case would be having players on the books who bugger off to play in the African Nations or similar during the season.

[Longhorn1970]

46 games plus league cup and fa cup has been too many games for a while now. It's even worse for 2nd and 3rd division clubs!

same for everyone so no excuse for our school football ..

[Forbury Lion]

46 games plus league cup and fa cup has been too many games for a while now. It's even worse for 2nd and 3rd division clubs!

same for everyone so no excuse for our school football ..

The clubs in the 2nd and 3rd divisions won't be complaining as they know any changes to it will see the size of the leagues reduced and teams pushed down the football pyramid to accommodate the changes and making their chances of promotion harder and relegation more likely.

The solution is simple - have more players, if they can do that and lower the average wage at the same time there won't be any financial impact

[Green]

Agree with the OP really. Too many games, yet too few played at 3pm on a Saturday.

[Forbury Lion]

The season is played over 8 months with a break between May and July - Maybe this needs looking at, extend the season by a couple of months and that's four more weeks in which to spread the games over.

The World Cup / Eurpoean Championships or whatever doesn't last four months.

[Maneki Neko]

yeah, if there are more and longer breaks between games, they shouldn't even need a full break between seasons.

[Lenny The Tramp]

Another issue is the amount of qualification matches for major tournaments, which means that the tradition of qualifiers taking place midweek, bookended by full Saturday programmes of domestic football, was lost to us. There are too many international matches. The likes of San Marino, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein etc. are parasites feeding off the richer associations. It is an absolute nonsense that the lower ranked (so-called) nations start at the same stage of the competition as the higher ranked sides; you wouldn't have Manchester United entering the Extra Preliminary Round of the FA Cup and drawing Hartley Wintney away FFS. The flotsam and jetsam at the bottom of the rankings should have to pre-qualify in a tournament which could be held at the same time as the major tournament they have failed once again to qualify for (be it World Cup or Euros) and the best sides earn the right to enter the next full qualifying round. It has been theorised that the smaller nations develop better playing the top sides but the regular series of absolute thrashings dished out entirely disproves that.

Agreed. Put San Marino, Lieichtenstein and co in a pre-qualifier and the winners go into the qualifiers proper. They might actually enjoy playing games where the don't stick ten men behind the ball.

[Sutekh]

Another issue is the amount of qualification matches for major tournaments, which means that the tradition of qualifiers taking place midweek, bookended by full Saturday programmes of domestic football, was lost to us. There are too many international matches. The likes of San Marino, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein etc. are parasites feeding off the richer associations. It is an absolute nonsense that the lower ranked (so-called) nations start at the same stage of the competition as the higher ranked sides; you wouldn't have Manchester United entering the Extra Preliminary Round of the FA Cup and drawing Hartley Wintney away FFS. The flotsam and jetsam at the bottom of the rankings should have to pre-qualify in a tournament which could be held at the same time as the major tournament they have failed once again to qualify for (be it World Cup or Euros) and the best sides earn the right to enter the next full qualifying round. It has been theorised that the smaller nations develop better playing the top sides but the regular series of absolute thrashings dished out entirely disproves that.

Agreed. Put San Marino, Lieichtenstein and co in a pre-qualifier and the winners go into the qualifiers proper. They might actually enjoy playing games where the don't stick ten men behind the ball.

Alternatively have 14 qualification groups each with 4 teams or so. But only the winner of each group would qualify.

Oh, i forgot though, all FAs are greedy ******** and dont want to play less games at that level.

Sooner fans walk away from these games the better.

And what's happened to that wally idea for a league system for teams playing friendly internationals? Died a quick death i hope.

[tmesis]

Alternatively have 14 qualification groups each with 4 teams or so. But only the winner of each group would qualify.

Oh, i forgot though, all FAs are greedy ******** and dont want to play less games at that level.
.

I don't think it's greed. I think it's more the fear that one slip up will see a nation not qualify. Bigger groups makes shocks less likely.

The problem isn't really about minnows. There have always been minnows in qualifying. The problem was the break up of the Soviet Union and other nations like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia (although one went the other way when the two Germanys combined).

In 1986 there were just 33 teams in UEFA. For the 2014 WC there were 53.


They also used to play internationals almost exclusively midweek, so no weekends were cancelled, meaning there were more weekends to play league games.

And, of course, back then, the Championship (or Division Two as if was confusingly called - how did we cope?) only had a 42 game season, and no play-offs.


On the flip side, cups games could go to multiple replays, and both the 1st and 2nd rounds of the League Cup were over two legs. And clubs had far smaller squads. Much was made of Aston Villa only using 14 players when they won the league in 1981, but even Liverpool only used 18 when they won the double in 1986 - a season which saw them play 21 cup matches in addition to 42 league games.