What club should I adopt as my favorite in the Premier League this year?

There is only Blackpool

Oh shoot, didn't see the second stipulation.

I would say Spurs, not just cos I'm a Spurs supporter-they tick all your boxes, and have just qualified for the major European club contest (Champion's League) for the first time, playing pretty great football. No shortage of drama.

Bonus- feature heavily in ILX debates/arguments.

Another contender- Liverpool have history, and they won't be in contention for anything. They do play awful football though, but there's a new (better) manager just taken over.

Either of those two will be appearing fairly regularly on TV so getting them on illicit streams is also fairly easy.

im gonna start pretending to give a shit about the tottenham spurs because of the san antonio spurs and pretend like they are sister teams

thanks darragh, the TV angle is also big -- I should have added that as a prereq! since at least the justin.tvs of the world show replays given the time delay!

don't take my word for it, i'm not exactly neutral.

voted for Blackburn because it'd be fun to have a Big Sam stan, now feel guilty after seeing Darragh's earnest helpfulness.

spurs or everton

sheffield united not on the list for what i can only assume are hateful reasons

gonna be relegated straight away, innit?

jeez how on earth could it be 'fun' to have a big sam stan? that's be like some sick initiation ceremony where you hung a rookie with bacon and throw them into a bearpit

ILX needs a Wigan Athletic fan

NOOCASTLE MON

i have a bad feeling this poll will have me rooting for some club that has 3,000 fans worldwide.

Arsenal, Spurs, Man City, Liverpool are in contention to make it ot Champions' League. City are popular in Manchester and have a lot of new players coming in. Arsenal have excellent finances for a big side that hasn't been taken over by a foreeign oligarch or nabob and they play some lovely football at times. Spurs have improved in recent years and can be a lot of fun to watch. 'Pool are just about to be overtaken as the winningest team in top-flight English football but their star forward, Torres (of Spain) has been struggling w/injury and post-operation recovery and their long-standing mgr has just left. Villa and Everton are good-to-middling sides that won't likely break your heart but won't leave you with too many euphoric ones. They are both very ably managed by well-respected men.

My team isn't in the Premier League so I tend to root opportunistically; often against Man U (except against Chelsea) unless their football is too attractive to slag off. Incidentally, if you're American, Dempsey and Eddie Johnson play for Fulham, giving them exposure to high-quality football that the US team needs, so I often root for them (or at least Dempsey) to win.

We really, really, really need a Newcastle supporter on the board, and I think they fit your criteria perfectly. I would love it - love it - if you chose them now*. Liverpool, Villa, Spurs and Everton we have covered. The only other sensible choice is West Ham imo, but they may well be relegated this year - though that's kind of fun in its way too.

* this is a historical gag that will be revealed if you take me up on this

discount 1 vote for blackpolol, add 1 to spurs due to my hastiness

hahaha wait of course Newcastle United is the right answer

--No sad sack clubs that will just get relegated.

Waiting for someone to say "Clearly you don't understand football supporters at all."

im gonna start pretending to give a shit about the tottenham spurs because of the san antonio spurs and pretend like they are sister teams

― ॐ nom nom (m bison), Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:25 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lawl I did this in reverse when they briefly showed the NBA on terrestrial TV here, when I was about 13

discount my Wigan Athletic vote

Everton imo

I think, for a discerning fan, Fulham, Villa, Everton have a cache that will mark you out as something of a connoisseur to thos in the know abroad.

I will go with whatever the official final poll tally is, because voyeurs shouldn't be liars. but um I'll try to remember to discount the votes of the two people above but nobody else!!!

hmm yes i am interested in following a club that will make everybody think higher of me

Wigan are a bit of an anomaly; rugby region football club where most if not many of the local prolly support Man U.

San Te, where are you?

xxp not newcastle then

united states, in the midwest (commuting back and forth between Illinois and Indiana)

Word of advice:

Don't go with the final tally. It will be a joke vote to trick you. Read the discussion and go where that leads you. ILX football posters are a nasty bunch.

Spend a season just watching soccer and see whose style of play or stadium or fans or whatever appeal to you most.

Picking a favorite sports franchise out of a hat without any real connection is pretty much a guaranteed failure.

If you're in the Midwest already, why not go for the Columbus Crew? Then you could package together West Ham (I think that's their friendly/sister club).

Bonus to West Ham: you get that movie with the hobbit.

heh i haven't quite got around to the MLS angle yet, figured i'd take one step at a time. thanks for the idea though, very intriguing.

Spend a season just watching soccer and see whose style of play or stadium or fans or whatever appeal to you most.

Loading all the bases towards spurs here btw

Wigan are a bit of an anomaly; rugby region football club where most if not many of the local prolly support Man U.

... or Liverpool

Thinking out loud, a couple of things:
-- might consider team's frequency of Special Matches, ie classic derbies, historical grudge matchups etc;
-- team based in major city may be useful if you ever travel to the UK and feel like trying to get to see your team;
-- am curious about Ismael's Newcastle point; was going to mention them since they are in the interesting just-returned-after-one-season-down position.

I'll just out my prejudices here and say that amongst many of my football following friends, much of this stems not just from the team but the team's supporter culture. Here in SF, I generally loathe the Chelsea supporters, generally tolerate the Man U supporters (esp the long-term ones) and the Gunners (Arsenal) fans. Most of the other supporters have very specific reasons for supporting whomever they do; family or connections or whatever. Newcastle fans are somewhat like England fans imo, they have a far higher opinion of their club than it deserves and a far higher expectation of them. I have a few Magpies fans who are salt of the Earth, but too often I can feel my eyes rolling back in my head when Newcastle fans prattle on...

Also, listen to Darraghmacand vote based on watching games and reading the thread. Have you got FSC or access to it?

Arsenal
If you want to be spectacularly irritating and admire pretty football that never ever wins anything.

Aston Villa
If you want a young, exciting team of mostly English players with a very good and likeable manager and a chance of the big time. Also some moral high-ground for being sensibly run.

Birmingham
If you are the most boring man in the world.

Blackburn Rovers
If you don't really want to see or say anything of interest for a season.

Blackpool
If you're all about plucky underdogs and the most quotable manager in the country.

Bolton Wanderers
I can't actually think of any reason why you'd choose Bolton.

Everton
See Aston Villa above, with the added bonus of Mikel Arteta who is one of the best players in the league. Also someone needs to share Steady Mike's pain.

Fulham
More plucky underdogs, although I think you may have missed the boat on this one.

Liverpool
Officially now also plucky underdogs. This season can't be much worse than the last one.

Manchester City
If you want batshit thrills and and absolute boatload of money and the genuine possibility of potentially becoming one of the biggest clubs in the world at some point.

Newcastle United
If you like chaos, comedy, disappointment and standing in the rain bellowing with your gut hanging out.

Stoke City
If you want that periodic giantkilling feeling and don't mind not having things like attractive football or 11 players on the pitch.

Sunderland
There is no reason to bother with Sunderland.

Tottenham Hotspur
What Darragh said, they're on the up and will be exciting this season.

West Bromwich Albion
If you want to play attractive attacking football all season, get smashed and then go down.

West Ham United
Do you like chirpy cockneys, bubbles, racism and porn star barons? If so West Ham are your team.

Wigan Athletic
They might unearth one kid who'll go onto signing for Man United.

Wolverhampton Wanderers
Noodle Vague will like you.

yep I do have FSC

Matt DC OTM, apart from Spurs

Columbus Crew? Bullshit, I say. FIRE.

(xps to San Te/milo z)

Come to a Fire match and I will buy you a beer.

Bolton Wanderers
I can't actually think of any reason why you'd choose Bolton.

The fact they've been cheerfully punching above their supposed weight for many seasons now, are playing better football than ever, and have an array of likeable players who occasionally get it together against the big sides?

If you like your football brave and simple and unadorned by excess wealth, you'll love the Evertons and Villas and Fulhams.

If you want flash, you'll like whoever has at present, likely Chelsea or Man U (though either can be efficient but dull at times). Man City have a lot of new signings this year and you'll get in good with a certain kind of Mancunian for not being a United fan.

Fwiw, the only time I root against West Ham is if they're playing my team. I have no idea why this is.

Bolton also have Owen Coyle

On balance I think you should go for Spurs, Villa, Everton or Liverpool.

Man City have a lot of new signings this year and you'll get in good with a certain kind of Mancunian for not being a United fan.

I don't think so, not joining up after they became the richest team on earth. Best to avoid City imo.

xp wolves a good shout but its better to pick a club we dont have a supporter of already imo

I'm always fascinated by the existence of a team named "Crystal Palace", where is the crystal palace

Status:
Destroyed

Bathos of wikpedia infoboxes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace

shame they haven't rebuilt it

silby i beg pls to join ilf as a follower of crystal palace

Good to see our overseas marketing paying dividends

dollar parity has a way of focusing yere minds id say

palace are "my english team" in the most desultory manner possible

i think this was purely because they're the eagles and their rivals are the seagulls.

eagles v seagulls

very sad there are no takers for plucky little Bournemouth. no I take that back - shit ground no fans!

silby i beg pls to join ilf as a follower of crystal palace

― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Thursday, August 8, 2019 1:38 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'll take this under advisement, but I can't even manage to think about baseball more than twice per year so it's long odds

what's the most web-1.0-bauhaus aggregator of football match outcomes, I don't want to have to watch any video content to engage with this bit

its here id say, depending on whatever the fuck aggregator means in context rly

FlashScore seems pretty minimal

sez Crystal Palace lost to something called the Young Boys in something called the Uhren Cup

Young Boys bit of a shady name for a team honestly

https://seeklogo.com/images/S/sport-boys-logo-E6FFB0817F-seeklogo.com.gif

sounds just like some Vichy France era type enterprise ... hmmmm

https://www.hafetschutter.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/YF-Titel.jpg

... now confusingly renamed Young Fellows Juventus.

https://alchetron.com/cdn/fa-red-boys-differdange-29c340d6-d726-42ab-994d-a0bbd6aca7e-resize-750.jpg

let me know when there's an All Boys League

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQQvVoQLiRLDGTvY99wei32STkLIn46Wv9DKQAqb4OBo5EgJ_h1hw

... named after Isaac Newell, from the English county of Kent, one of the pioneers of Argentine football.

we have like 3 palace fans already - bananaman begins, flowersdie and ambrose (latter two may be same person). we don't need any more

what's the team for contrarian bourgeois intellectuals

arsenal

figures

Was Arsenal, but definitely now Spurs.

dont mind him its arsenal

Most of ILX support Spurs, enough said?

but id submit a decent range in that, otherwise id acknowledge the point

Lol at that Norwich own goal

Ok so darragh voted for both Arsenal and Crystal Palace for me, Tom for the Spurs, imago implicitly for something other than Crystal Palace just for diversity. I’m leaning toward Arsenal I suppose unless someone has another idea. Do I have to read that Nick Hornby book?

i didnt vote for arsenal

Oh sorry for being misrepresenting your stance, you’re right of course you just answered my question.

Anyway I’m going to try out this bit for at least one weekend

And I didn't vote for Spurs.

Silby, Crystal Palace are nicknamed the Glaziers which is pretty badass and their stadium is super cool, if they ever clear the hump and move into a corporate monster stadium you can proudly date your fandom to humbler times.

It must be ten years ago now but I remember reading a BIll Simmons article about picking a team to follow. I wanted to follow a London team and was drawn twd Spurs but resisted for a long time because I really don't like that guy and didn't want to join all his dumb readers.

But ultimately they won out by process of elimination, mainlly because I liked those white kits and for deeply rooted baseball reasons can't support a team that wears red.

Support Brighton

Sorry can’t abide a seagull

American Arsenal fans are the absolute worst.

Uh oh! Sorry specific user such as imago I’m gonna have to join the Crystal Palace section

the actual reason i was against it is that i support one of their rivals. we are now foes haha

Also u will likely have to pick a new favourite premier league team next year silby. But welcome aboard. Imago's puce faced rage when we fluke a win makes it all worthwhile

So far I have seen all of the Premier matches, 1.5 of the Europa matches. They're sticking better than Everton did when I tried to root for them. I like their style of play and logo

I have a Wolves jersey en route via DHL.

Also I lied when I was San Te I had never been to Indiana prior to this year

We're still a bit up and down and this season is gonna be a big test but when we're playing well we're lovely to watch. And Nuno has a brilliant attitude which shows thru the team imo

9-10 years in the making, it finally happened, the adoption has stuck! with today's finale against Chelsea, i'll have seen 35 of the 38 league matches this year, and probably half of the Euro Cup ones.

like I said upthread, Everton and I didn't click when I tried them out a few years ago, but Wolves and I connected pretty quickly as I enjoy their style of touch-pass play and their scrappy attitudes. they've quickly earned a place in my heart next to my hometown boys. now just gotta keep the fire going for next year!...or I guess this year, in 1.5 months? oof!

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/d1/d165129c077b7333cc03b5ecfffda74f1a5607232f9ab6652348d76111f55a9f.jpg

lol!