It doesn’t matter if it’s unfair, it doesn’t matter if the only reason they are doing it is for money, and it doesn’t matter if the majority of fans don’t want it, the 39th game proposal has risen from the grave, dusted itself off, put on a Richard Scudamore mask and is ready to go out trick-or-treating.
Let’s recap the reasons that the 39th game is unfair
- 20 teams play each other once each home and away, which totals 38 games. That’s about as fair as it gets.
- Who will play whom and how will it be decided? I can’t imagine (wait, yes I can) the Armageddon that would occur in the blogosphere if Man U and Arsenal were in a close trophy race and Arsenal got a third match against Stoke and Man U got a third match against Chelsea. See, that’s why one home and one away game is fair.
- And what about the relegation bound? Would it be fair to Tottenham if they had to play a top team 3 times?
So, it’s clearly unfair to add some 39th game held in some country a thousand miles from home.
That said, I’ll be honest, if Arsenal came here, I’d go see them. Which means that I can’t put my money where my mouth is and that is exactly why this is going to happen. Fair or unfair is irrelevant, people like me would go see our favorite team if they came to town.
I’ve proposed that they work on making it easier for foreign fans to go to England to see the games where they are best seen; along side the best fans in the world and at the best football stadiums in the world. But that idea is not really profitable enough so, I think this 39th game is probably a done deal.
Arsenal News
Arsene Wenger has been scanning YouTube and has picked Moussa Dembele to join Arsenal‘s first team right away based solely on a single goal. $30m is the asking price and pundits expect Arsene to put up cash out of pocket to fund the transfer, he’s that certain. Watch the video yourself, it’s amazing:
Now that’s world class defending…
Meanwhile bitter old loser Roy Keane has claimed that Arsenal don’t bring up young prospects, they just buy them all up.
The word on the street is that Arsenal have a group of kids coming through that will be absolutely outstanding. Anyone who works in youth football will tell you that. They buy a lot of these young players, so as much as we praise them for bringing young kids through they’re buying them from other clubs.
Arsenal have bought a few prospects, most recently Ramsey, but the Arsenal academy has developed a metric ton of players who are currently plying their trade in the Premier League. The idea that we “buy a lot” of young players is an outright lie. Shut up, Keane.
And finally, the Kazakh coach thinks that Theo Walcott is as good as Lionel Messi. Does that mean that Arsenal get to keep him from competing in these pointless international matches?
OK… that’s it, see you tomorrow.
I had never even heard of this. Money is obviously driving the EPL, but they should draw the line somewhere. This is ridicilous. But don’t worry, I have a solution to who-plays-who in the 39th game: Let’s introduce the concept of ‘Strength of schedule’ like american college football, then put everything in a computer who will decide which 2 teams play a best of 7 series that decides the EPL championship. That way we ‘open’ the game to the north american audiences, and then the rest of the EPL franchises can …. sorry I meant ‘teams’ … can be sold to the american billionnaires who are lining up as we speak. It all makes sense now.
Which Club do you prefer for Dembele future? Vote your choice… 🙂