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If you had to name one-thing and one-thing-only as the main cause for our Premiership's stand-alone status as undoubtabley the greatest domsetic league competition in European Football, what would it be?
The strong influence of foreign players; like Arséne Wenger's French legion at Highbury? Or the "Russian Revolution" over at Stamford Bridge?
The overall range of `quality´ on offer, wherever you look? After all clubs like Manchester United are Arsenal aren't where they are for no-reason.
Or perhaps it is simply the way in which our top-division runs; currently, unlike any other top-flight competition on the continent.
Just look around you at what goes on in Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga, and you'll see how differently-run much of it really is.
For a start, teams in Germany, Italy and Spain will have only recently come back from what's known as a mid-season `Winter Break´ - something managers like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arséne Wenger have been wanting to see for several years, now; but neither the FA or FIFA have ever really given them the time-of-day, for 'this-and-that'. Aswell as that, there's the January Transfer Window - the only time after 31st August for clubs to make or lose addittions to their squad where a price-tage is involved. And, as you'll have noticed, it was this second system that was drafted-into our Premier League competition 2-years-ago, to "help" clubs in whatever way the 'big-men upstairs' saw beneficial.
However, it was only recently (thanks to the words of England head-coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson) that the FA and co. agreed that the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea could well benefit from the addittion of a 2-week break to assist their players in maintaining a high-level of fitness for the remaining 5-months on the home-straight. With the exception of this element, there is really much you could pick-up on to say that this league is really any better than what we have abroad, elsewhere.
3 points for a win; 1 for a draw. The top team is crowned `Champions´ while the bottom-few drop-down a division. And clubs like Man United and Arsenal are only really as big as the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Juventus, when you think of it. I mean, besides gum-chewing Scotsman, over-weight referees who can't do their jobs and hooligans running-wildm wherever you go; what else does The Premiership have to offer? - especially, now, we'll be losing two-weeks after Christmas...
Before you know it, it'll all be too much of the same.
England's Premier Division will be just like the top-flights of any other football-mad country in Europe. We may well have our fair-share of foreigners ourselves - who do play a big part in `The Difference´ - but things are really quite the same over in any other country, too. Frenchman, Italians, Brazillians, Scandinavians... With the chances of MUCH-better weather - on a regular basis, too - and just as many thousands for kicking the ball around a field, 90-minutes each-week; why would any player want to give all that to come and play in England, once these changes have happened?
Already, we've seen an impressive number of world-class players jet-off to play for a Lazio or Inter Milan after a spell with even a team of Man United's calibur. Look at Jaap Stam, for an example. Once regarded as one of the best centre-backs in the world during his time in the Premiership, and now, despite reported interest from clubs including Arsenal he has said he's rather stay in Serie A - where his career has since been tarnished due to positive drug-testing and the like - and now looks set to sign for AC Milan in the summer. Then, there are players like Robbie Keane and Steve McManaman, who have both previously left English clubs for "the oppurtunity" to play abroad (even though, they did return, eventually). It may still not be a kind of 'trend' for British players; leaving their homeland to go and play abroad; but, with sky-high profile players like David Beckham doing it and more-and-more clubs showing greater and presistant interest in England's regulars, one-change-too-many (or too-big) could be just the kind of thing to help them over-the-edge and out of Anfield.
You may believe the Pop-star-like amounts of media coverage one single-player can recieve has something to do with it, because of what it can do to one-man's profile (and wage packet)... Although, if anything, they are the one-thing capable of giving players that `extra-something´ that would make them want to escape from all the doom and gloom of life in England. No matter who you are, they'll get you. Pages-and-pages, full of praise and nothing else, one-week; next thing you know, they're the ones leading the chants of "Ranieri Out!" -- and it's not like newspapers alone don't get read! One silly mistake (a number of ex-United 'keepers come to mind...) and they can kill your career. (Whatever did happen to that Fabien Barthez???)
What's more, Premiership news seem to go across the globe, thanks, mainly, to the commercial selling-power of clubs like United and Chelsea.
There is no escape!
Now, name me one player who would be happy with all of this.
Go on, I'm listening!!
Who would want to play in a competition where not only is the weather always bad and it's often all "one-way traffic", but, from being ontop-of-the-world one-minute, you can be right back where you started in this game, the very next.
Had José Antonio Reyes not scored those 2 goals against Chelsea, he would still be "just another waste of money", to this day.
Why play in the Premiership when you could be livin' it up in the sun, with all the sexy women, easy money and (as some would surely agree) "easier", legs-still-in-tact football?
These days, it isn't always just about playing-the-game, when you're living at the top. And when more clubs are going to suffer slow and painful destruction as they draw 'helplessly' closer to the the pits of Administration, things have, simply, GOT to look a lot more appealing elsewhere.
So, before things get really out of hand, at a time where there is a Roman Abramovich at each of every Top-10 side, with money, quite literaly, making the ball go around; I want you to remember the Premiership as it has been, at it's best.
Ignore all thoughts of money, fat wages and anything else which has slowly-but-surely pulled the greatest players apart. Instead, think back to the magic legends like Eric Cantona have conjured out of nothing. The never-say-die attitude of a team like Leeds or Charlton, when things were really looking bad. And to those nail-biting end-of-season climaxes, where one bad result could see us waving 'Goodbye' to West Ham United.
Remember the Premiership, as they world's very best.
The strong influence of foreign players; like Arséne Wenger's French legion at Highbury? Or the "Russian Revolution" over at Stamford Bridge?
The overall range of `quality´ on offer, wherever you look? After all clubs like Manchester United are Arsenal aren't where they are for no-reason.
Or perhaps it is simply the way in which our top-division runs; currently, unlike any other top-flight competition on the continent.
Just look around you at what goes on in Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga, and you'll see how differently-run much of it really is.
For a start, teams in Germany, Italy and Spain will have only recently come back from what's known as a mid-season `Winter Break´ - something managers like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arséne Wenger have been wanting to see for several years, now; but neither the FA or FIFA have ever really given them the time-of-day, for 'this-and-that'. Aswell as that, there's the January Transfer Window - the only time after 31st August for clubs to make or lose addittions to their squad where a price-tage is involved. And, as you'll have noticed, it was this second system that was drafted-into our Premier League competition 2-years-ago, to "help" clubs in whatever way the 'big-men upstairs' saw beneficial.
However, it was only recently (thanks to the words of England head-coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson) that the FA and co. agreed that the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea could well benefit from the addittion of a 2-week break to assist their players in maintaining a high-level of fitness for the remaining 5-months on the home-straight. With the exception of this element, there is really much you could pick-up on to say that this league is really any better than what we have abroad, elsewhere.
3 points for a win; 1 for a draw. The top team is crowned `Champions´ while the bottom-few drop-down a division. And clubs like Man United and Arsenal are only really as big as the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Juventus, when you think of it. I mean, besides gum-chewing Scotsman, over-weight referees who can't do their jobs and hooligans running-wildm wherever you go; what else does The Premiership have to offer? - especially, now, we'll be losing two-weeks after Christmas...
Before you know it, it'll all be too much of the same.
England's Premier Division will be just like the top-flights of any other football-mad country in Europe. We may well have our fair-share of foreigners ourselves - who do play a big part in `The Difference´ - but things are really quite the same over in any other country, too. Frenchman, Italians, Brazillians, Scandinavians... With the chances of MUCH-better weather - on a regular basis, too - and just as many thousands for kicking the ball around a field, 90-minutes each-week; why would any player want to give all that to come and play in England, once these changes have happened?
Already, we've seen an impressive number of world-class players jet-off to play for a Lazio or Inter Milan after a spell with even a team of Man United's calibur. Look at Jaap Stam, for an example. Once regarded as one of the best centre-backs in the world during his time in the Premiership, and now, despite reported interest from clubs including Arsenal he has said he's rather stay in Serie A - where his career has since been tarnished due to positive drug-testing and the like - and now looks set to sign for AC Milan in the summer. Then, there are players like Robbie Keane and Steve McManaman, who have both previously left English clubs for "the oppurtunity" to play abroad (even though, they did return, eventually). It may still not be a kind of 'trend' for British players; leaving their homeland to go and play abroad; but, with sky-high profile players like David Beckham doing it and more-and-more clubs showing greater and presistant interest in England's regulars, one-change-too-many (or too-big) could be just the kind of thing to help them over-the-edge and out of Anfield.
You may believe the Pop-star-like amounts of media coverage one single-player can recieve has something to do with it, because of what it can do to one-man's profile (and wage packet)... Although, if anything, they are the one-thing capable of giving players that `extra-something´ that would make them want to escape from all the doom and gloom of life in England. No matter who you are, they'll get you. Pages-and-pages, full of praise and nothing else, one-week; next thing you know, they're the ones leading the chants of "Ranieri Out!" -- and it's not like newspapers alone don't get read! One silly mistake (a number of ex-United 'keepers come to mind...) and they can kill your career. (Whatever did happen to that Fabien Barthez???)
What's more, Premiership news seem to go across the globe, thanks, mainly, to the commercial selling-power of clubs like United and Chelsea.
There is no escape!
Now, name me one player who would be happy with all of this.
Go on, I'm listening!!
Who would want to play in a competition where not only is the weather always bad and it's often all "one-way traffic", but, from being ontop-of-the-world one-minute, you can be right back where you started in this game, the very next.
Had José Antonio Reyes not scored those 2 goals against Chelsea, he would still be "just another waste of money", to this day.
Why play in the Premiership when you could be livin' it up in the sun, with all the sexy women, easy money and (as some would surely agree) "easier", legs-still-in-tact football?
These days, it isn't always just about playing-the-game, when you're living at the top. And when more clubs are going to suffer slow and painful destruction as they draw 'helplessly' closer to the the pits of Administration, things have, simply, GOT to look a lot more appealing elsewhere.
So, before things get really out of hand, at a time where there is a Roman Abramovich at each of every Top-10 side, with money, quite literaly, making the ball go around; I want you to remember the Premiership as it has been, at it's best.
Ignore all thoughts of money, fat wages and anything else which has slowly-but-surely pulled the greatest players apart. Instead, think back to the magic legends like Eric Cantona have conjured out of nothing. The never-say-die attitude of a team like Leeds or Charlton, when things were really looking bad. And to those nail-biting end-of-season climaxes, where one bad result could see us waving 'Goodbye' to West Ham United.
Remember the Premiership, as they world's very best.
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If you had to name one-thing and one-thing-only as the main cause for our Premiership's stand-alone status as undoubtabley the greatest domsetic league competition in European Football, what would it be?
The strong influence of foreign players; like Arséne Wenger's French legion at Highbury? Or the "Russian Revolution" over at Stamford Bridge?
The overall range of `quality´ on offer, wherever you look? After all clubs like Manchester United are Arsenal aren't where they are for no-reason.
Or perhaps it is simply the way in which our top-division runs; currently, unlike any other top-flight competition on the continent.
Just look around you at what goes on in Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga, and you'll see how differently-run much of it really is.
For a start, teams in Germany, Italy and Spain will have only recently come back from what's known as a mid-season `Winter Break´ - something managers like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arséne Wenger have been wanting to see for several years, now; but neither the FA or FIFA have ever really given them the time-of-day, for 'this-and-that'. Aswell as that, there's the January Transfer Window - the only time after 31st August for clubs to make or lose addittions to their squad where a price-tage is involved. And, as you'll have noticed, it was this second system that was drafted-into our Premier League competition 2-years-ago, to "help" clubs in whatever way the 'big-men upstairs' saw beneficial.
However, it was only recently (thanks to the words of England head-coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson) that the FA and co. agreed that the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea could well benefit from the addittion of a 2-week break to assist their players in maintaining a high-level of fitness for the remaining 5-months on the home-straight. With the exception of this element, there is really much you could pick-up on to say that this league is really any better than what we have abroad, elsewhere.
3 points for a win; 1 for a draw. The top team is crowned `Champions´ while the bottom-few drop-down a division. And clubs like Man United and Arsenal are only really as big as the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Juventus, when you think of it. I mean, besides gum-chewing Scotsman, over-weight referees who can't do their jobs and hooligans running-wildm wherever you go; what else does The Premiership have to offer? - especially, now, we'll be losing two-weeks after Christmas...
Before you know it, it'll all be too much of the same.
England's Premier Division will be just like the top-flights of any other football-mad country in Europe. We may well have our fair-share of foreigners ourselves - who do play a big part in `The Difference´ - but things are really quite the same over in any other country, too. Frenchman, Italians, Brazillians, Scandinavians... With the chances of MUCH-better weather - on a regular basis, too - and just as many thousands for kicking the ball around a field, 90-minutes each-week; why would any player want to give all that to come and play in England, once these changes have happened?
Already, we've seen an impressive number of world-class players jet-off to play for a Lazio or Inter Milan after a spell with even a team of Man United's calibur. Look at Jaap Stam, for an example. Once regarded as one of the best centre-backs in the world during his time in the Premiership, and now, despite reported interest from clubs including Arsenal he has said he's rather stay in Serie A - where his career has since been tarnished due to positive drug-testing and the like - and now looks set to sign for AC Milan in the summer. Then, there are players like Robbie Keane and Steve McManaman, who have both previously left English clubs for "the oppurtunity" to play abroad (even though, they did return, eventually). It may still not be a kind of 'trend' for British players; leaving their homeland to go and play abroad; but, with sky-high profile players like David Beckham doing it and more-and-more clubs showing greater and presistant interest in England's regulars, one-change-too-many (or too-big) could be just the kind of thing to help them over-the-edge and out of Anfield.
You may believe the Pop-star-like amounts of media coverage one single-player can recieve has something to do with it, because of what it can do to one-man's profile (and wage packet)... Although, if anything, they are the one-thing capable of giving players that `extra-something´ that would make them want to escape from all the doom and gloom of life in England. No matter who you are, they'll get you. Pages-and-pages, full of praise and nothing else, one-week; next thing you know, they're the ones leading the chants of "Ranieri Out!" -- and it's not like newspapers alone don't get read! One silly mistake (a number of ex-United 'keepers come to mind...) and they can kill your career. (Whatever did happen to that Fabien Barthez???)
What's more, Premiership news seem to go across the globe, thanks, mainly, to the commercial selling-power of clubs like United and Chelsea.
There is no escape!
Now, name me one player who would be happy with all of this.
Go on, I'm listening!!
Who would want to play in a competition where not only is the weather always bad and it's often all "one-way traffic", but, from being ontop-of-the-world one-minute, you can be right back where you started in this game, the very next.
Had José Antonio Reyes not scored those 2 goals against Chelsea, he would still be "just another waste of money", to this day.
Why play in the Premiership when you could be livin' it up in the sun, with all the sexy women, easy money and (as some would surely agree) "easier", legs-still-in-tact football?
These days, it isn't always just about playing-the-game, when you're living at the top. And when more clubs are going to suffer slow and painful destruction as they draw 'helplessly' closer to the the pits of Administration, things have, simply, GOT to look a lot more appealing elsewhere.
So, before things get really out of hand, at a time where there is a Roman Abramovich at each of every Top-10 side, with money, quite literaly, making the ball go around; I want you to remember the Premiership as it has been, at it's best.
Ignore all thoughts of money, fat wages and anything else which has slowly-but-surely pulled the greatest players apart. Instead, think back to the magic legends like Eric Cantona have conjured out of nothing. The never-say-die attitude of a team like Leeds or Charlton, when things were really looking bad. And to those nail-biting end-of-season climaxes, where one bad result could see us waving 'Goodbye' to West Ham United.
Remember the Premiership, as they world's very best.
The strong influence of foreign players; like Arséne Wenger's French legion at Highbury? Or the "Russian Revolution" over at Stamford Bridge?
The overall range of `quality´ on offer, wherever you look? After all clubs like Manchester United are Arsenal aren't where they are for no-reason.
Or perhaps it is simply the way in which our top-division runs; currently, unlike any other top-flight competition on the continent.
Just look around you at what goes on in Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga, and you'll see how differently-run much of it really is.
For a start, teams in Germany, Italy and Spain will have only recently come back from what's known as a mid-season `Winter Break´ - something managers like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arséne Wenger have been wanting to see for several years, now; but neither the FA or FIFA have ever really given them the time-of-day, for 'this-and-that'. Aswell as that, there's the January Transfer Window - the only time after 31st August for clubs to make or lose addittions to their squad where a price-tage is involved. And, as you'll have noticed, it was this second system that was drafted-into our Premier League competition 2-years-ago, to "help" clubs in whatever way the 'big-men upstairs' saw beneficial.
However, it was only recently (thanks to the words of England head-coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson) that the FA and co. agreed that the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea could well benefit from the addittion of a 2-week break to assist their players in maintaining a high-level of fitness for the remaining 5-months on the home-straight. With the exception of this element, there is really much you could pick-up on to say that this league is really any better than what we have abroad, elsewhere.
3 points for a win; 1 for a draw. The top team is crowned `Champions´ while the bottom-few drop-down a division. And clubs like Man United and Arsenal are only really as big as the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Juventus, when you think of it. I mean, besides gum-chewing Scotsman, over-weight referees who can't do their jobs and hooligans running-wildm wherever you go; what else does The Premiership have to offer? - especially, now, we'll be losing two-weeks after Christmas...
Before you know it, it'll all be too much of the same.
England's Premier Division will be just like the top-flights of any other football-mad country in Europe. We may well have our fair-share of foreigners ourselves - who do play a big part in `The Difference´ - but things are really quite the same over in any other country, too. Frenchman, Italians, Brazillians, Scandinavians... With the chances of MUCH-better weather - on a regular basis, too - and just as many thousands for kicking the ball around a field, 90-minutes each-week; why would any player want to give all that to come and play in England, once these changes have happened?
Already, we've seen an impressive number of world-class players jet-off to play for a Lazio or Inter Milan after a spell with even a team of Man United's calibur. Look at Jaap Stam, for an example. Once regarded as one of the best centre-backs in the world during his time in the Premiership, and now, despite reported interest from clubs including Arsenal he has said he's rather stay in Serie A - where his career has since been tarnished due to positive drug-testing and the like - and now looks set to sign for AC Milan in the summer. Then, there are players like Robbie Keane and Steve McManaman, who have both previously left English clubs for "the oppurtunity" to play abroad (even though, they did return, eventually). It may still not be a kind of 'trend' for British players; leaving their homeland to go and play abroad; but, with sky-high profile players like David Beckham doing it and more-and-more clubs showing greater and presistant interest in England's regulars, one-change-too-many (or too-big) could be just the kind of thing to help them over-the-edge and out of Anfield.
You may believe the Pop-star-like amounts of media coverage one single-player can recieve has something to do with it, because of what it can do to one-man's profile (and wage packet)... Although, if anything, they are the one-thing capable of giving players that `extra-something´ that would make them want to escape from all the doom and gloom of life in England. No matter who you are, they'll get you. Pages-and-pages, full of praise and nothing else, one-week; next thing you know, they're the ones leading the chants of "Ranieri Out!" -- and it's not like newspapers alone don't get read! One silly mistake (a number of ex-United 'keepers come to mind...) and they can kill your career. (Whatever did happen to that Fabien Barthez???)
What's more, Premiership news seem to go across the globe, thanks, mainly, to the commercial selling-power of clubs like United and Chelsea.
There is no escape!
Now, name me one player who would be happy with all of this.
Go on, I'm listening!!
Who would want to play in a competition where not only is the weather always bad and it's often all "one-way traffic", but, from being ontop-of-the-world one-minute, you can be right back where you started in this game, the very next.
Had José Antonio Reyes not scored those 2 goals against Chelsea, he would still be "just another waste of money", to this day.
Why play in the Premiership when you could be livin' it up in the sun, with all the sexy women, easy money and (as some would surely agree) "easier", legs-still-in-tact football?
These days, it isn't always just about playing-the-game, when you're living at the top. And when more clubs are going to suffer slow and painful destruction as they draw 'helplessly' closer to the the pits of Administration, things have, simply, GOT to look a lot more appealing elsewhere.
So, before things get really out of hand, at a time where there is a Roman Abramovich at each of every Top-10 side, with money, quite literaly, making the ball go around; I want you to remember the Premiership as it has been, at it's best.
Ignore all thoughts of money, fat wages and anything else which has slowly-but-surely pulled the greatest players apart. Instead, think back to the magic legends like Eric Cantona have conjured out of nothing. The never-say-die attitude of a team like Leeds or Charlton, when things were really looking bad. And to those nail-biting end-of-season climaxes, where one bad result could see us waving 'Goodbye' to West Ham United.
Remember the Premiership, as they world's very best.