Based on what exactly?
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Based the fact that they have better players and are better coached than all the other teams.
Who would you think have a better chance against us if they turned up at Anfield - Bournemouth or Lens?
I think Mascot is very righ that the premier League is much stronger than all other leagues (due to concentration of elite footballers aka money).
But there is a Cut Off (Wolves would not win the Norwegian league or do anywhere near as well as Bodø/Glimt in Europe, even with all their TV money) and it’s higher up on the table than Mascot thinks (in my opinion).
But Top 8-10 in England would be competative in any European league for sure. Unfortunately.
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In the first place, they don’t have better players.
2ndly they do not play better football
Third, they are not better coached.
Some of you need to realize that there’s far more to the global game than the PL…
As to your question, its frankly poorly thought out. That’s not a basis for assessing the strenght of leagues. Bournemouth is an English team playing in same league as LFC…
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By the way, don’t think this is a run thumping patriotic salute the glorious might of the premier league. It’s a shit situation, which leads to rubbish, stale attritional football.
The fact remains West fucking Ham are the twentieth richest club in Europe.
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Well Lens are just behind PSG
We know, mate.
You are not the jingoistic type. Pretty sure you lament the situation like most of us. Because honestly, it is not a good situation for…sportsmanship (see our complaints on this forum about City winning the league with their inflated money, same-same really).
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Outside the top 4, all others would struggle.
For one, the refereeing standards are different and you couldn’t get away with what the likes of Sunderland do in the PL
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I think they do, and we’ve just seen our football club brush aside the third best team in France and get beat by Bournemouth within the space of a week.
And I never said they play better football.
I don’t think Premier league refs are as bad as most people. What I do think, is that they have failed to get better at the same rate as speed of play has.
So in short, I am not so sure that the average Prem ref is worse than the average ref in Italy. But I stress that I have not seen stats on this, but speed of play in the prem is quite fast.
But maybe you are right.
Getting beat by Bournemouth proves nothing, especially given where we are atm. Its not a basis for comparison because it ignores every other thing except the result…
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They are just ahead of Marseille, who we (in our wretched form) beat easily in their own stadium.
Its not necessarily that they are bad. Its about the football culture and how the refs interprete the game within it..
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Yeah, I don’t think this science is so exact.
Marseilles is, imo, on an average day better than bournemouth. Certainly the stats show that.
And really, most every team steps up and approches a Champions League game with far higher intensity and concentration than a normal league game. You cannot say that just because we were untroubled by Marseilles, they are inferior to a team we may lose to in the league (this season we have lost to most weaker sides in the league, many of whom are clelarly worse teams than Marseilles)
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So much this.
For years the English would say that PSG could never win the CL because they play against scrubs in their Farmers League.
Then they finally get a proper manager and win it.
Then the narrative changed to their having had the luxury of resting in their domestic league!!!
Officially, my position is in the middle of yours and Mascot’s positions. If anyone cares.
I can see I’m not bringing many people with me on this 
, but I stand by it.
The distorting effect of the money in the Premier League has totally warped European competition to the extent that a bottom half premier league club would be comfortable champions league qualifiers in any of the other four big leagues.
Look at the CL standings last night. Of the eight qualifiers only three weren’t English. One of them was Spurs, for Christ’s sake.
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They are also a really, really good team. My argument is that every single other team in that league would struggle to stay in the PL
Bournemouth play us at least twice a year. They know every blade of grass at Anfield. They know how the crowd will react. They know what they can get away with.
They know every ref that would officiate a game at Anfield…
Its different for a team from another footballing culture..
In American football, its the equivalent of conference games, where form, status and all goes out the window…
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