That's everything sorted then?

Whether the whole Premier League system is competitive or not, using your football analogy, would anyone accept a team coming say 12th after 38 matches played home and away and plotting a course in an elite knockout competition with second chances for higher placed clubs if they lost their first matches, or teams fielding weakened teams to artificially lower their positions to get a better draw being crowned Champions....

I have a passing interest/intense dislike of other sports, but apart from football they all seem to be regularly re-inventing themselves or introducing new competitions - cricket/yawnion. I haven't a clue who the league winners were in either of those last season but was fully aware of the media frenzy around their respective cup competitions. Interestingly, & I am not sure there is any relevance, but both of those sports appear to have a select bunch of players who never/hardly ever play league games, being reserved for international duty as that is the big money earner.

Hadn't half our team played for Great Britain the day/week before hence the changes? Don't think it was done out of dis-resepect or the like. I'm sure it was forced.

You're right it is irrelevant, let's look at centrally contracting RL players to an international team to play against whom?

No disrespect to the World Cup and the teams in it, but, seriously how many competative teams are there at the moment, would Austrailia and NZ fancy going down the same route?

There isn't a market for it surely? Not even on planet tigertot

You sir, are a right Charlie.

English Clubs haven't done too badly on the European stage over the years. In fact, in the last eight tournaments there have been seven finalists including three winners, one of which are the current holders, not a bad return?

Perhaps the national team is being hampered by the money getting thrown around at foreign imports? Something we need to be aware of?

I said the quality of the teams in the PL has decreased accross the board in the last couple of years, as has the quality of the English teams in the CL. Citeh have spent nearly half a trillion and can't get close to qualifying for the knockout stage, Chelsea have been exposed this season in the CL, and Man U didn't get out of their group last season. Yes English teams have done very well in previous years, but it seems clear to me the quality of the English teams involved is decreasing despite the millions of £££s being thrown around.

I'm not convinced the weakness of the national side is down to the amount of imports playing in the PL, even when English clubs dominated Europe in the 70/80s England were still pretty gash.