Just look at Tottenham, who have the 2nd highest goal total- and the 4th worst defense. For all of their scoring prowess, their GD is a paltry +9.

Finally, please stop the attacks on the people who take their time to contribute something to this community- Michael doesn’t get paid to do this, and while you’re free to disagree with his opinions, that doesn’t give you the right to attck him personally.

Besides, it’s not his fault that your team sucks…

I just can’t agree that goal differential can simply be dismissed as “semantical”. Sure, it sounds like an arcane accounting stat, but it’s really the sum of your play throughout the year – how well you defended and how deadly you were in attack. It is NOT value neutral – it is empirically representative of better played football. In your example of Bolton making the UEFA cup – should they have been penalised for having a negative gd (assuming they finished tied with another team)? Absolutely! There are guardians of the game, and in their infinite wisdom they have chosen to reward the team that scores lots of goals. If my team defends well all season and also puts more in the net than your team, shouldn’t my team be rewarded? Emphatically!

All of these teams were aware of the rules when the season began – it was no surprise to Sheffield United that they were in danger of going down for having a poor GD – and being aware of it, they tried to score more while working for clean sheets. They lost that battle as surely as if they had gone down on points.