2022-23 English Premier League discussion

OK, congrats to Man City, who get to play LIV in the Community Shield on 7/29/2022 at King Power Stadium (not Wembley, due to Women’s Euros). Let’s see if these two teams can play the Max number of times this coming season.
Check my work:
Community Shield (1)
EPL (2)
League Cup (2 in semi-finals)
FA Cup (plus a replay? cuz WC, probably not, but if so, 2)
Champions League (2 in round of 16 thru semi’s)
So, nine.

Ten is the max possible, I think, should one win the Europa and the other win the Champions (thus playing in the Super Cup), while one wins the league and the other wins the FA Cup.

So, now that a Dodger owner will own CHE, do Dodger fans have to root for CHE? You know, like other baseball fans do?
Maybe CHE will play a match in the LA Area. They are playing ARS in Orlando, on AstroTurf. So, A squads for 20 minutes, B squads for the rest.

FA wants the EPL not to stage any “Big Six” matches the weekend before The WC.

Best way to handle this is to have them all play each other the week before. I mean, each of them plays five matches against the others. There will be 16 matches played before, then three afterward in the “first round robin” of the season.
Seems not too difficult. Have one Big Six match per week, that’s 15 matches in 15 weeks. Doubling one or two up on one weekend makes it even easier. Having some after the WC makes it even easier.

OK, the new schedule is here!
According to this “analyst” trying to figure out if the schedule actually affects the season’s outcome (guessing he had to make the story interesting, similar to the VAR articles’ slant), MCI should “assert” themselves in the first few weeks, 'cuz easier schedule.

But, they will eventually play each team twice, so at some point, their schedule will get a bit tougher. Plus, most of the other teams won’t have as many players at the WC, and THAT is the most challenging part of this upcoming season for the top teams, NOT how the schedule was drawn up. Besides, there are FA Cup/League Cup postponements for the top teams, squeezing their schedules near the end.
Expect a closer top six this season than last. That’s JMO. Glad they went back to five subs like all the other top Euro leagues.

Oh, and the EPL acceded to the FA’s request not to have “Big Six” fixtures on the eve of the WC break.

Final kicker: “The games you can’t miss”: there are six. All season long, only six. And, only one of each of the pair of matches the team play each other. The other match will be meh. For example, the LIV-MCI match on Oct 13 you can’t miss, but the April 1 MCI-LIV match, well, that won’t be nearly as exciting.

Nice article on Mané:

One of my favorite LIV players. Won’t be missed by most fans of other EPL teams.

While Hendo is the cap, Mane was the soul. There was nobody that could confront Salah about shooting too much like Mane. His strength and speed as well as ability to score with either foot from outside box made him incredibly dangerous. Loved the episode of Salah and Mane on “Besties”.

Still disappointed that they went with Mane, Mane instead of my submission for Sadio song (to Radio GaGa): [hands over head in V] All we need is Sadio running (clap, clap), Sadio shooting (clap clap), Sadio scoring (clap, clap) [repeat]. Sadio, it’s true, Sa-di-o, Anfield still loves you!

I did get some favorable feedback on fan site.

1 Like

Nice song!!

Sterling to CHE? I’d rather he wouldn’t, but Haaland is gonna hog the goals for the next several years.

Darren Eales leaves his job as President of Atlanta United to take the CEO job at Newcastle.

“Unretiring”??

I don’t want to paste this everywhere, so I took the one we’ll all be reading and posting to the most, until November.

New rules!

Although the IFAB has insisted the law itself has not been changed, a new list of guidelines for a “deliberate play” has been issued. It means that a only a controlled play of the ball, such as a misplaced pass, will now reset the offside phase.

The guidelines for a “deliberate play” are now defined as:

  • The ball travelled from distance and the player had a clear view of it
  • The ball was not moving quickly
  • The direction of the ball was not unexpected
  • The player had time to coordinate their body movement, i.e. it was not a case of instinctive stretching or jumping, or a movement that achieved limited contact/control
  • A ball moving on the ground is easier to play than a ball in the air

Seems to me that this will take up some more VAR time.
This “deliberate” language seems to fall in line with the language found regarding handling.

Community Shield Saturday.
Too bad it’s on ESPN+.

Holy crap, season starts next weekend!
Are we having a prediction contest??

Meanwhile, I can’t believe that Charles Barkley is going to announce Liverpool matches,…
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Oh, never mind.

I see only two matches this weekend so far on my cable: the Friday one and EVE-CHE at… 12:30?? But I’m in the PDT! Meanwhile, the all-important LPGA is on NBC at the usual “prime” time.
Hoping a couple of Sunday matches will be added to the TV lineup, and not relegated (apt) to Streaming.

I am getting “Premier League” matches on cable on Saturday but sadly only Canadian, German and French.

Changes in the EPL (some affect all soccer):

Short Version:

  1. WC in the middle of it all.
  2. Rearranging UCL teams’ matches after away Wed matches, so they are not at Noon Saturday.
  3. Ten balls used. Not sure what the number was before. Says if the ball retrievers are abusing their position for the home team, referee can scrap it and use only one ball (and, I guess start adding time for fan wastage?).
  4. Five subs.
  5. Subtle offside change, requiring a deliberate play (not merely an attempt or a lucky block?) of a defender to change the play to onside. I think this will cause some VAR delay.

Oh, and the players won’t take a knee every match. Only on specific matchdays.

Nice opening weekend. Guess it’s all over, because no matches on Cable tomorrow…

TWO out of TEN on NBC/USA. I get that this is an unusual starting weekend, and other, more important stuff (Women’s The Open Golf) was already scheduled, and oh, heck, put the soccer on Peacock, because soccer is not advertisement-friendly.

Fulham-Liverpool was (surprisingly) the most exciting game today.

Spurs are in first place, but they were also first after the first four games last year….

ESPN seems to want VAR to overturn, or at least have the referee check the monitor, more often in EPL. This is a big change from prior years where the ESPN articles on VAR were all about “what if VAR didn’t exist” with the implication that the game would be better off without it.