Why the feck these lot not being linked with the likes of Southgate?
Klopp to leave Liverpool at the end of the season
- Thread starter RonaldoVII
- Start date
If you just took the 99 United team as it was without the context of them having modern day sports science, training etc. they'd struggle against a lot of the better PL teams. Fitness levels in football are night and day from over 2 decades ago. Technical level and tactical level are very different.
If you are saying had those players come through now and had access to all the modern extras that players now have, yes they'd batter everyone and I would think win the league.
Because the press are all dippers.
It goes both ways. The technical and tactical aspects now are just different, and a product of the changes to ground management and protection for players. Somehow I don't think the teams of today would be playing the same game slogging through a muddy, bobbly pitch, and getting crunched by the opposition.
It's daft to compare eras. The default is to just pluck a team from 30 years ago, drop it in todays league, and say "yeah they wouldn't have a chance therefore football now = better". Teams are necessitated by the conditions of their era, and today's teams wouldn't stand a chance in the league of 30 years ago, either.
There's no point in comparing like this though, because there's no possibility of knowing this. The teams on paper were not worse obviously, but the advances in a lot of areas would certainly swing the advantage in favor of current teams. It's the same in most sports really.
As good as our team was in '08 (to me player for player the best team the PL ever saw) I think even that team would struggle today if you just put that team exactly in todays football. But that's just how sports evolve over time.
This is just a completely pointless exercise. You pick Henry's Arsenal whilst the current Arsenal could wipe the floor with the Arsenal of Wenger's last few years. Chelsea even in their current state would beat pre-Abramovich Chelsea, Tottenham are currently better than in a lot of their previous seasons, and you pick the best Liverpool side of the last 20 years preceding Klopp to compare it to today's squad.
I disagree - I think our 08 team would win the league and blow away the likes of the current pool side. There's simply too much talent - the level of each player both skill wise and mentality is so much higher than anything in today's game man for man.
if we're talking fitness - i'd like to dispel this myth.
I'll use beckham as an example. Theyve actually done a study on how much players currently run in a game, the player in the prem who covered the most distance in a single game for the entire season was Dendoncker, when the study was done at the record was 13.2km. Beckham on average RAN 14KM per game, his highest for england being 16km. That means that on average Beckham ran more every single game then the highest single running distance per season since.
And it tells you absolutely nothing. I could run 20k during a game and be the dumbest player on the pitch.
You are talking about overall consistency as an individual team here vs. for a top team in the context of a league. In my opinion, in that past it has been easier for top teams to consistently remain at the top, vs these days(ignore cheats like City).
Didn't really say what I wanted to say well there, I moreso mean that the level of teams towards the middle to top of the table has gotten better, there are always teams that come up and have a mare, or certain teams that fall apart and end up dropping down.
Yeah agreed. I remember SAF saying something about how great players would be great regardless of era, which I think is true.
I don't think it's a bad thing to accept football today is better than 30 years ago, it takes nothing away from the football at that time, in the same way we will likely look back on today's game and think it's quite basic in 30 years unless everyone's moved to online gaming by then and playing some virtual pro career in the mateverse.
Its the easiest its been for teams like City to stay at the top as the quality of the league has been poor over the last 5 or 6 years with very few teams being capable of giving them a game and taking points of them.
I actually prefer the football of 20/30 years ago. There was just more flair, personality, and individualism to it. Also the physicality and contest to it.
I disagree, the only reason City have been able to do what they've done is from cheating their way to having 2 full teams of excellent players.
I raise you 115 charges FC. Almost guaranteed to win every 3 days.You really don't know how to read, do you?
No one had access to all those things, which is why, and I quote myself in the post you responded to, "it was easier to dominate if you just had a manager that was so much better than everyone else".
I don't think there's any reason to think we'd blow away the current Liverpool side. We didn't blow away the competition that year as it was. We won in the last fixture.
I agree that the individual players had more talent man for man than any team today, but as a team they weren't better than todays best teams.
Neville and Keane were themselves linking Southgate to us.
If the Nazis had invaded modern nuclear armed France…
If Muhammed Ali had fought Tyson Fury….
They were discussing the link. But I get your point.
Not sure if you're being obtuse on purpose?
The entire point of my post is to show that the modern game hasn't improved in terms of fitness in that the united teams of past years would have no problem keeping up the modern game in terms of physicality - which is shown by the fact that Beckham ran more on average every singe game than the highest recorded distance covered in a single year since.
Saying "i could run 20k during a game be the dumbest player on the pitch" has nothing to do with my point, whatsoever since nothing in my post is referring to tactical intelligence.
You could say he was trying to move the goalposts.
They don't generate nearly as many clicks.
The numbers don't really reflect this. Since the Premier League switched to 20 teams:
- The rolling five year average of points for the top two has grown from mid-to-high-70s to around 90 points. I expect this to fall to mid-80s in the coming seasons.
- The rolling five year average of points for the third and fourth place teams has grown from upper-mid 60s to around 70, peaking in the years running up to 2018 in the mid 70s and falling since then.
- The rolling five year average of points for the fifth and sixth place teams has grown from around 60 points to mid-60s, however it peaked in the years running up to 2018 and has fallen since then.
- The rolling five year average of points for the seventh and eighth place teams has remained pretty steadily in the upper-mid- 50s, this consistency remains until you get to the bottom six, when average points start dropping more and more compared to the late 90s/early 00s.
You simply can't explain the third place behind Solskjaer with "other teams are better" when a) the numbers don't really reflect this claim and b) Brendan Rodgers' Leicester and Frank Lampard's Chelsea were the competition for top four, and Arsenal were finishing 8th. The fifth place finish last season is even more of a disaster, being bettered by Arsenal's first top four finish since 2016, ten Hag's first season at United, and Eddie Howe's Newcastle.
Last edited:
Would love to see Klopp replace GS as England manager, I think he would get the best of the lads 
Slow news day..so here goes
Exactly.
Because Utd sells
He's got his eyes on the Old Trafford hotseat.
Agreed,
There is a serious love in with Klopp by some posters on here it’s very strange.
Is that 62% claim true? That sounds unreasonably high.
How is compared to other PL Teams?
No, don’t look at the need to shift goal posts, look at the need to lower the bar.
Klopp is brilliant, though.
Seems others have hurled this poor argument into the trash for me.
This narrative of how difficult it is for single PL title manager Klopp is amusing - the PL is so difficult now because a great manager’s valiant efforts are just not enough. It’s “other” factors that lead said all time great to finish behind Ole’s United. It’s probably those pesky diets I tell you! I miss the good old days when the greats like Sir Alex telling Robbo to put away his drink lead to multiple league titles and trebles.
How are the margins smaller? Bayern win the league 10 years on the bounce. Madrid and Barca were absolutely bossing it till Atletico came and won it with er one league title. The premier league has seen new highs for points totals in recent years and as highlighted by a poster before new lows for relegated teams. If anything technology, diet, pitches, refereeing, tactics only allows merit to count even more and does away with other factors levelling the playing field. But either way, these are just excuses made for Klopp which you aren’t doing but are trying to justify the reasons for. And beware of the double edged sword, if Klopp / every manger’s efforts are given less weightage then their successes must also be attributed far more to other people. And I don’t disagree with that either - managers are more more coaches these days so credit does have to be shared - but Liverpool have had the team, cohesion, tactics to be in the top 2 every year and falling out of that and out the top 4 isn’t related to the modern game but team inconsistency.
It’s not harder to be consistent. It’s hard to be among the greatest ever as it always has been.
so all german football has to do is stop their players and managers being farmers and then you would be relevant again on the world stage?
In a way. There is an easy fix for playing hungover (stop drinking) but there is no easy fix for just being a shit player.
It was a rumour that stuck because it's fun to diminish what Liverpool won. There was never any evidence at all.
Wonder how they measure it.
Are you capable of having any form of discussion without being a flaming bellend?
Fair enough, my opinion is subjective and based on watching football for the last 25 years, to me it seems harder for non-cheat teams to remain incredibly consistent, any type of off season from a performance perspective is very hard to mask. Most teams are there to take advantage of you when you're not on your game, i felt moreso than in the 90s, but maybe I'm wrong! I'm not sure your numbers really go against my exact argument though, but I also don't have the patience to continue arguing my point when it's probably not correct
Last edited: