[Saxongirl]

Honestly I think it's such a myth that the Premier League is actually any good when you take away the individual players. What I mean by that is: yes on the whole most teams are stacked and even some league one sides might be able, on the basis of that, to compete in France, Germany or Spain the their highest tiers BUT the crucial difference is that in the last 10 years any new tactical advancements in the game have bypassed English football completely.

This might be about to change this season with Mourinho, Ranieri, Klopp, Guardiola, Wenger, Koeman and others in charge of strong sides BUT that does not erase the history of the last 10 years. England has, for the longest time, never attracted the most successfull international managers and even if it did, as in the case of Mourinho, they have hardly been successfull on the international stage. One of the main reasons for that is obviously the ridiculous number of games played in the league and cup competitions meaning that most teams are gased by the time the CL quarter and semifinals role around. Furthermore when are you supposed to actually practice and train? That should not be discounted. Also, obviously, you have more teams going for the champion's crown meaning you can't afford to drop points or take it easy on lowly opponents whereas Bayern, Paris and Madrid, Madrid and Barca tend to be able to clobber any other side in their league with ease. Another reason for this lack of success in recent years is the bloating of squads. I mean we are talking about 40 man squads with another 10-20 players on loan. How on earth can you get structure into such a team and how on earth are you supposed to work with this many players? Instead of forming a core squad and adding bits and pieces to it over time most English sides seem to chase the headlines by trying to get in a new multi-million pound signing, or several of them, in each transfer window without actually scouting the players. They seem to simply buy by name and because they heard someone was good. There is no structure to it. No specific team need is adressed in most cases which leads to a lot of teams being an assortment of individual talent rather than a crafted squad.

To top that off for too long England had this ridiculous notion of a team manager, a guy, handing of most of his practice to his assisstants and sitting around in his ivory tower watching players through the window and buying and selling them. That's patently ridiculous and I don't know who put the notion into their heads, especially since French, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish managers have always been coaches first and foremost, working with their squads on the pitch being their main task, and managers second in Germany, as in France and in Spain there has even been, for the longest time, a proper distinction between the coach who runs the team and the manager or director of sports who buys and sells players. That lack of oversight also leads to teams not really having an identity. I mean yes under Alex Ferguson you knew what United stood for and what Arsenal stood for under Wenger and how Chelsea played under Mourinho but these are good managers. How many other teams really had an identity beyond: let's get the ball in the net? Sometimes I think the last team before ManU and Arsenal that had an identity was Nottingham Forest. Liverpool, even in their resurgence, certainly didn't have one, neither did Everton, Newcastle, West Ham, Tottenham or any other team with any kind of success over the last few years.

The reason that for the longest time England was unattractive to any decent active manager is that before the last Sky Deal and the EPL not knowing what to do with their money most clubs were simply unattractive. Old stadiums or at least run down ones, empty half the time because the tickets are too expensive, lack of funds except for ManU and Chelsea and later ManCity, too many games to properly implement a philosophy and a league that condoned and encouraged brutal fouls and basic football tactics like in the 1930's. So it would be 30 or so games against sides that would simply play kick and rush and in the meantime try to kick your players to death. How is that attractive to any manager?

Like someone has stated the supposed speed of the Premier League is simply due to the fact that they have no clue how to use the midfield and how to get the ball back. So it's just chuck it in front and let some sort of Jesus in football boots do something with it and when we lose it we all run back and stand around the box waiting for the other teams Jesus. You could see in parts how absolutely astonished most teams in England were to deal with Klopps team when they played well even though his straight forward doubling and trippling tactics and hard pressing has been outdated for 3 years now and most teams have found a counter meassure against it. You could also see how helpless most teams were against Van Gaal's ball posession football when it was actually working as intended (which it didn't do often due to the poor quality of players he employed) even though this tactic has been out of date since at least 2010. You also saw how Leicester beat other teams by Ranieri actually using proper modern tactics to give his team an edge. An edge he also gave them in recruiting, the same way Southampton did under Koeman, by putting together a team that adressed the key requirements for his tactics and using the players to best effect.

This season you will see more of that with all of these teams in capable hands and a proper training camp under their belt with their new managers. It's a good thing because maybe finally all that money these teams spent will be put to good use instead of just being wasted again and again and maybe we finally get to see some attractive attacking football.

For my money, the Bundesliga and La Liga are by far the strongest leagues in terms of being well managed and competitive and the most attractive leagues to watch. That is mainly because they started escaping the circle of always employing the same tired all managers again and again mostly. They give new young coaches a chance and actually have a decent coaching program as well as well as a youth program that feed directly into most teams producing quality young players instead of just buying like mad every chance they get. And please don't argue with the continental success of Arsenal or ManU. Ferguson in his time, as well as Wenger, were miles ahead of the rest of EPL and it mostly showed in the league standings as well and they actually did it before someone with a pot of gold took over the club. Just because they did well does not mean that it isn't a disgrace that a league with teams like Tottenham, Liverpool, ManCity and Everton wasn't able to produce anything on the international stage for such a long time given how far ahead they are financially. I mean... Bayern doesn't have some sheikh or some other rich sugar daddy. They made money by being well managed, well coached and spent their money well most of the time and the reward is that they won the CL in 2013, made the finals 2010 and 2012 and have made it to at least the semifinals of the CL every year since 2012 and if you disregard a couple of weak years they actually were as successfull before. They made the quarter final 1998, the final 1999, the semifinal 2000, won in 2001 won and made the quarter final in 2002. Furthermore they managed to snag first Guardiola and now Ancelotti, coaches who, even when they signed for Bayern, were chased by half of the EPL. Even van Gaal managed Bayern first and with greater success as did Klinsmann, who was said to be the top pick for the English national squad and Klopp was on Bayerns list well before anybody in England was aware he existed.

So to cut a long text short I personally wish the English spectators the best with all those great managers but up until now, watching the Premier League has to have been the most boring experience to anyone who actually enjoys watching football. As a league it's supremely overrated but that is what you get if you believe some media hype.