Something they have been unable to sustain for longer than two consecutive years. Unlike our two teams which managed to be more dominant.
Kevin De Bruyne
- Thread starter Robbie Boy
- Start date
With "7 titles in 9 years" you were obviously referring to the 1992 to 2001 period. In the period, one English team made it into a UCL final. I'm too lazy to check the UEFA ranking but I'm pretty sure it will back this up.
We were speaking about 92 to 01. But it is actually irrelevant which period you're referring to, the EPL was never as strong as it currently is in the UEFA ranking.
The EPL wasn't weaker. There's more money in the league now compared to 10 or 20 years ago, but that doesn't make it weaker.
What iceberg is that? Even what you've stated is far from irrefutable, so feel free to expand further.
And again, burying counterpoints made because they don't fit with what you're trying to press is a weak form of discussion, or do you think squad depth and strength has nothing whatsoever to do with the daft points totals and output we're seeing?
Honestly, I'm finding you being obtuse because you cannot possibly deny this is a massive period of downtime and weak performance for: Chelsea, Bayern, United, Barcelona, Juventus, Atletico with AC Milan and Inter completely stricken from the landscape. Throughout the intervening years the obstacles to get to the final, let alone win it were vaster than now, by a distance. Liverpool skated to a final with a weak bracket and City are not facing a who's who of teams to get anywhere; even Real were expected to be weak and it was Benzema's godly level dragging them through the competition.
Who you beat, when and how you beat them are always factors in determining strength, it's also how golden and silver eras are defined in any competitive medium and always will be. It is not a new concept nor some caveat drawn to do City or Liverpool down.
You can only beat who is in front of you, so the saying goes, but that is never confused for relative strength, it simply means you best what was there, good or bad, which is what's been happening. And I'll once again refer to Belgium when you refer to point accumulation on those scales.
You clearly have no idea about statistics. You’re cherry picking data and I’m merely pointing out how stupid that is. If you’re taking penalties out then you need to remove all chances that have a likelihood equal to or greater than penalties. Where’s the cut off point? Is it the 60% chance of scoring you’ve just listed? Less? More? Have you thought this through at all?
Penalties are a skill, like getting into a position is.
Its was that weak Manchester City kept getting relegated out of it.
You are reaching harder than a man falling off a cliff but sure. You don't actually respond to points so no real reason to discuss anything with you.
There are so many facets to this. Let's start with the obvious ones: Sports science is improving. Performance diagnistics, nutrition, medication, recovery, injury prevention, the cognitive part of how to transport your idea into the heads of the players (through modern training exercises (there was a really interesting article how Tuchel had cut games completely from his training routines), but laso technological advances and visualization tools), etc. Very important also: You have much more tools, at times even AI preparing analyses, advanced metrics, visualization tools, and so forth. Plus the increased budgets of football clubs means they have much more resources at their disposal - complete scouting teams that take care of the tactical analyses. Somebody identifies a tactical weakness in the upcoming opponent's line up and the coaching team knows what to train to exploit it. Barca and Liverpool for instance have some of the largest football innovation hubs in the world, working together with dozens of startups. A few years ago I read how Valverde's team prepared the players on their next opponent's, e. g. handing out Messi detailed scouting reports which players have which habits and where spaces in the opponent's defensive line up tend to emerge, etc. And also the availbility of data you need to scout and improve your players: There are so many providers of sports data these days that are used by professional football clubs.
In the end, football clubs are businesses and businesses are always looking at how to improve their processes, tools, productivity, etc.
To be honest, I don't really know what you're referring to? I brought up many arguments, even factual ones.
Of course it does! But that's part of the equation, you can't just ignore it. We're talking about the end result here (which team/period was more dominant/better), not how you got there or how impressive that was (I'm not arguing that what SAF did with United isn't more impressive than what Guardiola did with City, that's an entirely different debate).
As said: The question is why did they fall short? And were they really that much worse or were they simply outpaced by certain contemporaries? I'd also remove Bayern and Atletico from that list. But what you're ignoring is that there have been new clubs that emerged: City and PSG at the very elite level first and foremost but also Liverpool (who reached 3 CL finals in 5 years).
I mean, even assuming that this is true, what makes you believe that we currently have a weak pool of elite teams? The concentration of top players at top clubs has never been higher, the financial gap to the runner ups has never been bigger. There's really not much speaking for your argument.
I don't know about the uefa rankings but the league definitely performed better in Europe from 2005 to 2009.
2005: prem team wins it plus 2 prem teams make it to the semis
2006: prem team in the final
2007: prem team in the final , 3 make it to the semis
2008: all english final , 3 make it to the semis
2009: prem team in the final , 3 make it to the semis.
We did a clean league sweep in the years that 3 made it to semis also that performance hasn't been replicated yet.
(3 teams out of 4 making it to the semis is insane and I think even Spain while having 2 super teams has managed to do it, I think the only other time it has happening was 3 itallian teams making it to the semis in 2003).
Spain did it in 2000 as well.
There's not a big difference in the UEFA coefficient rankings between the late 2000s and the last 5 years or so. England's country ranking for each season being:
2005 - 1st
2006 - 4th
2007 - 2nd
2008 - 1st
2009 - 2nd
2010 - 1st equal
2011 - 1st
2018 - 1st
2019 - 1st
2020 - 3rd
2021 - 1st
2022 - 1st
And 2005 was the first time since 1984 that England had the highest ranking.
Yeah forgot about barca making it to the semis that year.
To be honest I'm not sure if the uefa coefficients is the best measure of things as there's clearly some lag there involving the rankings (England not being first from 2005 to 2009 while being first afterwards when la liga had clearly surpassed it by that point. )
I do admit that the discrepancy has grown somewhat since though, Italy is absolutely dog shit and Spain has been reduced to a one man act.
Oh the irony
Why would we remove chances? You're equating a penalty with an open play goal when it comes to discussing players' goalscoring abilities. I pointed out that penalties are dead ball situations where the average conversion rate exceeds 70% and that the penalty taker doesn't necessarily have to have played a role in winning it. Your response is go on a random tangent about how tapins also have a high conversion rate oblivious to how irrelevant it is to the point I'm making, while repeatedly harping on about scoring a penalty takes skill.
That's the five year coefficient. He quoted the yearly ranking if I'm not mistaken.
That stat isn't really comparative:
Firstly, the penalty will almost always be taken by the best finisher; you cannot guarantee that the chance in open-play will be taken by the best goal scorer, which is why the percentage of goals scored from open play is so much lower. It will be better to look at strikers/known goalscorers than every player on the pitch. Look at the conversion rate for the top 15 scorers and you will see that all of them have conversion rates over 20% (there are a few players over 30%), which is much higher than the 9.6% you have stated.
Secondly, that stat is massively affected by players making stupid decisions e.g. taking shots that practically have no chance of going in. The conversion rate of these shots is too low. This, again, will have a huge impact on the conversion rates of open-play chances. Less stupid shots taken = massive rise in conversion rate; why else do City try to play it into the box so much? It is the best way to score. In the box, the conversion stats go higher than above; Kane has a conversion rate in the box of 38/39%. That is a better comparative to the penalty conversion rate, making the difference a whole lot less.
Even then, the in box chances include headers - only 12% of headers are scored, so shot conversion rate will be higher than that for Kane.
Finally, Lampard actually has a better conversion rate of open-play chances, anyway: 15.6% to De Bruyne's 10.2%. And yes, that is after the removal of penalties. He just was a better goal scorer than De Bruyne.
It’s the era of stat padding with huge squads. When United won leagues back then we didn’t really play out seasons very well when we were well clear. We would have leagues won by Easter and just coast.
I remember in the RVP season when we were on course for 31 league wins to break Chelsea’s record of 29 and just fell off a cliff after the Villa title clincher. I think Citys record is 32 but they chased that after being 20 odd points clear of us in second.
There are loads of examples of that not being the case. DeBruyne for example has over an 81% penalty conversion rate but according to the poster whom I was quoting, he was "shit at it". Mahrez who was a lower penalty conversion rate was preferred to DeBruyne on several occasions.
Messi is "only" at 78% for penalties and he's been preferred to better penalty takers.
Even then, the reasoning is a little suspect. If you had Matt LeTissier in the team and he was preferred because of his superior conversion rate (as you see it) the doesn't mean that the average penalty taker wouldn't have padded his goals with 7 goals out of 10 penalties compared to LeTissier's 9 or 10. When the comparison is between a player on that team (who doesn't have the opportunity to take 10- 15 penalties because there's a superior penalty taker on his team) and another on a different team who's given 10 extra penalty kicks, using the goals total is misleading.
So winning more games in a year is not a valid way to look at how dominant you were because in the past teams just stopped trying after a certain point?
That’s because as per usual you’re talking absolute bollocks. You want to remove some chances so I’m asking why others don’t get removed despite having an equal or greater likelihood of going in, and you don’t have an answer other than that you think penalties aren’t real goals for some reason?Oh the irony
Why would we remove chances? You're equating a penalty with an open play goal when it comes to discussing players' goalscoring abilities. I pointed out that penalties are dead ball situations where the average conversion rate exceeds 70% and that the penalty taker doesn't necessarily have to have played a role in winning it. Your response is go on a random tangent about how tapins also have a high conversion rate oblivious to how irrelevant it is to the point I'm making, while repeatedly harping on about scoring a penalty takes skill.
If dead balls don’t count are free kicks removed? Can you make your point make sense because as it stands you’re not making any at all.
Not really if you have the league wrapped up early.
There’s a difference between focusing on Europe when you’re 15 clear and bringing on the likes of Eagles than keeping the foot down and wondering why you lose your legs in second leg CL ties v Spurs. It’s just mismanagement.
I personally think Liverpools league winning side was better than any City side but they gave up after officially winning it and played out some games in the run in while hungover. That’s not reflected in end of season stats but that’s why we watch games and not rely on final league tables to tell the tale of a season.
Good teams like us at that point in the season have more than just the league to consider.
I agree with this. For me the Chelsea team that conceded only 15 goals that season is right up there too.
Oh the irony
Why would we remove chances? You're equating a penalty with an open play goal when it comes to discussing players' goalscoring abilities. I pointed out that penalties are dead ball situations where the average conversion rate exceeds 70% and that the penalty taker doesn't necessarily have to have played a role in winning it. Your response is go on a random tangent about how tapins also have a high conversion rate oblivious to how irrelevant it is to the point I'm making, while repeatedly harping on about scoring a penalty takes skill.
100% agree on this. I fail to understand how anyone can not grasp the point you are making. If you sign a midfield player who scored 12 goals for his previous club last season, but he only scores 1 goal for you the following season, you shouldn't be surprised that this is the case if 9 of his goals the previous season were pens but he doesn't take penalties for you; the guy was never a goal scoring midfielder, he was a midfielder who took penalties (and took them well).
And there's clearly a lot more to getting on the end of tapins than stepping up to take penalties (even if you take them well). I believe it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
Only counties the prem years.
The outstanding teams would be:
Our 94 team
Our 99 team
Our 2000 team
Arsenal 2004
Chelsea 2005
Our 2006 team
Our 2007 team
City 2019 team
Liverpool 2020 team
City 2021 team
In my opinion the strength of the league and what else the teams achieved must be considered , the centinial city team that is raved about walked over a piss poor league while shitting the bed in Europe, the at least did clean domestic sweep in 2019 while having decent opposite and reached the cl final in 2021.
Chelsea's 2006 team was basically the same team as 2005 but with the addition Essien. That team won the title again that season.
England wasn't first afterwards... I remember all too well the fight for the third place in 2017 (representing the 13-17 period). Spain was far ahead and Germany was clear in second... Italy and England were neck and neck for the 4th place.... Only our Europa league success coupled with Roma loss to Lyon in the Europa 1/4 and Juventus' loss to Madrid in the CL Final kept Italy from surpassing England that year (England was quite poor in the CL those years). Back then, it was only 3 CL spots for the 4th placed league (and Italy was always 3 or 4 points behind England... While Spain had a 20+ cushion) and you had constant uncertainty regarding the future.. Since 18/19 it's been less uncertainty with all top 4 leagues guaranteed 4 spots in the CL.
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I don't think so... Unless he is comparing top 3 countries between them (EN, SP and IT back then). Germany got the highest coefficient in 2010 and Portugal got the highest in 2011 (Insane Europa League campaign). Unless it is the total points earned, but that makes no sense, you can't expect Portugal with 5 spots and Germany with 6 to outperform a country given 7 spots. You can only compare total points relative to the number of teams allowed in European competitions.
They were on a bonkers streak that season. They went like 20+ games or something having dropped only 2 points. We're all that stood between them and a record winning run. Glad they relaxed after winning the league and we didn't have to hear about their centurions. Pep would've easily kept that run going up to 100+ points.
Yes, it's the yearly ranking.
Anyway, here are the UEFA coefficient leaders (yearly basis) of the respective years since the founding of the EPL:
1992: Italy
1993: Italy
1994: Italy
1995: Italy
1996: Netherlands
1997: Spain
1998: Italy
1999: Italy
2000: Spain
2001: Spain
2002: Spain
2003: Italy
2004: Spain
2005: England
2006: Romania
2007: Spain
2008: England
2009: Ukraine
2010: Germany
2011: Portugal
2012: Spain
2013: Germany
2014: Spain
2015: Spain
2016: Spain
2017: Spain
2018: England
2019: England
2020: Spain
2021: England
2022: England
I think this paints a relatively clear picture. In the last five years, England has twice as many first place finishes than in the 25 years before. Spain has 12 first place finishes, Italy 7, England 6, Germany 2.
At what point?
Man City have literally been in the Champions League Final, Semi Finals and FA Cup Finals during this period.
Since we're doing 5 year club averages. Let's do players as well. No cherry picking, this is pretty much any of the players' best 5 successive years in terms of output:
50+ assists and 80+ goal contributions total, only this side of the century (source: transfermarkt):
* would probably easily have made 50 if he'd stayed for 5 seasons instead of 3,5.
Some other names with a decent amount of assists and a good amount of goals:
40-50 assists: Rooney (93+45), Sterling (78+44), Son (75+43), Drogba (73+42).
30-40 assists: Kane (117+30), Ronaldo (80+32), Mane (77+30), Hazard (62+38).
Just stats, make with it what you want. PL only. I'm sorry about the lack of sorting.
I think it's crazy how close Fabregas and Eriksen are to KDB on way lesser scoring teams.
As for what was discussed earlier - taking away penalties KDB and Lampard both get 100.
50+ assists and 80+ goal contributions total, only this side of the century (source: transfermarkt):
| De Bruyne | 2016-21 | 152 games | 35 goals (4 pens) | 69 assists | 104 contributions | 466 team goals (22,31%) |
| Fabregas | 2006-11 | 144 games | 30 goals (3 pens) | 69 assists | 99 contributions | 360 team goals (27,50%) |
| Eriksen | 2014-19 | 181 games | 42 goals (0 pens) | 56 assists | 96 contributions | 354 team goals (27,11%) |
| D. Silva | 2011-16 | 151 games | 31 goals (0 pens) | 60 assists | 91 contributions | 415 team goals (21,92%) |
| Henry | 2001-06 | 171 games | 130 goals (17 pens) | 59 assists | 189 contributions | 392 team goals (48,21%) |
| Salah | 2017-22 | 180 games | 118 goals (18 pens) | 50 assists | 168 contributions | 420 team goals (40,00%) |
| Lampard | 2005-10 | 169 games | 71 goals (23 pens) | 52 assists | 123 contributions | 372 team goals (33,06%) |
| van Persie | 2008-13 | 145 games | 94 goals (9 pens) | 52 assists | 146 contributions | 383 team goals (38,12%) |
| Young | 2007-12 | 169 games | 33 goals (5 pens) | 53 assists | 86 contributions | 314 team goals (27,38%) |
| Özil | 2013-18 | 142 games | 27 goals (0 pens) | 54 assists | 81 contributions | 355 team goals (22,82%) |
| Suarez* | 2011-14 | 110 games | 69 goals (0 pens) | 39 assists | 108 contributions | 278 team goals (38,85%) |
Some other names with a decent amount of assists and a good amount of goals:
40-50 assists: Rooney (93+45), Sterling (78+44), Son (75+43), Drogba (73+42).
30-40 assists: Kane (117+30), Ronaldo (80+32), Mane (77+30), Hazard (62+38).
Just stats, make with it what you want. PL only. I'm sorry about the lack of sorting.
I think it's crazy how close Fabregas and Eriksen are to KDB on way lesser scoring teams.
As for what was discussed earlier - taking away penalties KDB and Lampard both get 100.
So City look poor when you watch their games over the last 5 years?
Jesus I think basically nothing City have won means anything due to them essentially being lottery winners but the red tinted glasses in here are mental. We also lost Semi Finals and Quarter finals.
In what way was Liverpool better than any of the City teams?
This looks like the "most improved nation" list based on the fact that it has Ukraine and Romania.
England was top of the list from 2007/08 to 2011/12, what more can you ask.
It's the same metric, just over a different time frame. Ukraine and Romania were on top because their teams performed very well on average in the UEFA Cup. Romania got two out of three teams to the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup and one to the semis. In 2009, Donezk won the UEFA Cup and had two teams in the semis.
I think it is more telling that in those years, Romania and Ukraine could make it that far. It would impossible now because the gap to the elite leagues has grown so much. Another indication that the 00s were a rather weak phase for international football, IMO.
Your 2005 team had an unbelievable drive to win only bettered by few other teams and I felt your subsequent teams lost some of that also you got a tad unlucky in the cl that year.
Yeah prem was really dreadful in that period but I'm still confused, wasn't what gio referred to the uefa yearly rankings?
Wikipedia has similar numbers.
We're so far part on this that I'll stop here - I accused you of arguing in bad faith, clear in how these things have always worked in Europe, but you seem to genuinely believe in your position and that this is somehow a strong period in Europe, just with different teams at the top. To me that's absurd, so there's little point in us going back and forth at polaric ends of this spectrum.
My point is rather that it makes no sense to think that way because football can change very rapidly and if there's any way to compare across eras, then it is to compare a player/team with the respective contemporaries. In this context, I find your line argument pretty absurd as well (no offense). The argument basically went like this
"City and Liverpool are dominating the EPL like never before"
"They only do so because the competition in the EPL is weaker than in the old days"
"But EPL clubs have never performed as well in European tournaments in comparison to other leagues as it currently is"
"That's because the international competition is as weak as never before"
I mean, imagine how much the standard of football outside of England must have dropped to be dominated in this fashion by an EPL that is weak as well. And that's although elite players have never been so unevenly distributed as right now. Even if you don't agree, you must admit that this has some "everything was better in the past" vibes.
I don't take offense; if you genuinely believe in your position, then I can't say more than that, my thought was you were arguing in bad faith knowing full well how things are across the continent and in the league, but your stance differs from that, so you weren't arguing in bad faith.
I have no hesitation in calling any period great, good, average or poor, no matter who carries the torch during that period of time.
Numerous teams are a shadow of themselves and that's in and of themselves and their own internal struggles and mishaps (ageing players; failing to replace players; managing or coaching upheaval; burnout; end of cycles; gone stale and so on and so forth) it means a lot when those are the powerhouses who were making competition what it was.
You say others then enter the fold and make this immaterial, whilst citing the likes of a really average PSG and City side as well as a Liverpool team who really looked the part for a short period of time. By your belief, in linear improvement and development, those that come after what went before, simply take all the good and leave the bad whilst enhacing those positives. I don't know how you conclude such a thing has happened - it's not evidenced by the football played in the CL, so where or how do those conclusions get drawn for you?
But yeah, this is pretty redundant as we're miles apart on this, but one of countless examples I'd give is I'd readily expect the peak Atletico sides to beat City and give Liverpool an absolute nightmare of a game (or 2 legs) both at their primes whatever you perceive them to be. That's one of many obstacles that no longer there for teams to face, and they were one of many others just a few years ago.
What a random metric. They only won 4 in 5 and would be at 5 in 5 if it wasn't for a 99 points season by LiverpoolAnd while doing so probably collected +10 points on average or so.
Somebody should make a table listing the highest points totals in EPL history. Pretty sure the top 5 places would all go to City and Liverpool under Pep/Klopp.
Still going around the points total loops. Amazing.