For me it's fairly simply, the 2007 to 2009 team was far better defensively than anything currently offered in Europe and we would smash City and Liverpool on the counter, United was a better version of what Liverpool faced against Napoli and City struggle against teams that can defend deep with ease and counter with blistering pace. If we are talking about a single game, I pick United 7 out of 10 times.
'Pep' Guardiola sack watch
- Thread starter Classical Mechanic
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We were not far better defensively than Atletico are today. We were a great defensive team, yes.
Atletico aren't that good today, I would agree with you if you are talking about the 2013-2018 version.
I honestly don’t think that team at that time is better than last seasons Liverpool or City. We always do this with past tea and. Write 11 names and imagine the best of each one. The game has evolved and the level is higher than ever
You can't really say the game has evolved and the bar is higher because you have to assume the best players would adapt to that. Players are faster, fitter and probably technically better on average today versus even as recently as five years ago because there is so much money flowing into football and such a diverse range of coaches.
No one will ever agree on these kinds of things and it's all forgotten in a few years when the next best teams surfaces. It boils down to trophies - any team who can win a PL & CL double should go into that really elite bracket of great teams, I fear Liverpool might be able to do that this year given the big European names look vulnerable.
No one needs to forget pertinent details in a serious conversation. There are threads on here between knowledgeable people about what teams in South America were dominant in the 19 freaking 60s. So no it just doesn't boil down to trophies. On God I hope in 50 years people are not seriously discussing Chelsea 2012 or Liverpool 2005 as world class teams...
Pep getting sacked is laughable. They'll spend big in January.
Not sure you can really make direct comparisons in this respect though. Football has changed dramatically in the past decade and the best teams tend not to prioritise defensive play to the same extent they did in the past, or use their defences as a base from which to begin attacks. As a result you could argue in training players there's now a greater emphasis on ensuring defenders are comfortable with the ball and good all-round footballers as opposed to being able to just defend.
At the time a lot of the top European teams were more pragmatic and Fergie adapted to suit those conditions as a result. Had that not been the case, there's an argument we wouldn't have based our European football on such a pragmatic approach.
Aye it's a bit strange, we were literally just a John Terry slip away from not winning the CL in 08, but had we failed at that venture I don't think anyone would've hesitated to class around 06-09 side as an elite one, and one of the very best in Europe at the time.
You may have misread my post, I'm simply saying that this former United team would probably be the best defensive unit around today and would in my opinion handle City and Liverpool in most games while also having world class attackers who excels in an area that has given big problems to both City and Liverpool.
No, some simpletons would have, because all they can handle is the simple shit easily looked up on Wikipedia.
You're right, there's absolutely zero similarities between that Pep team and the current one. Especially not in playstyle and philosophy.
Seriously: Yes, Pep's Barca had better players than City currently has and yes, in the upcoming years it became clear that Barca had even better players than United in 2008 (although that was an incredible team) but the most important thing you chose to ignore is that the gap in performance was much bigger than the gap in quality. First and foremost, it's the system that beat you, not the individual quality of both teams. And the system is still the same. SAF's United wouldn't see much of the ball against City just like they did against Barca. And they wouldn't be able to develop pressure on the ball just like it was in 2009. I mean, United in 2009 not only had better players than City in 2018-2019, they also had weaker compeition and still didn't come close to their points total. So what's your argument exactly? As a collective, both City and Liverpool are superior.
The standard is different v the competitors. I mean Chelsea broke the points record 3 years ago ffs. Doesnt that tell you how top heavy the league is now?
3 league titles and 3 CL finals in 4 years. What have they matched that makes their achievements the barometer? They should be matching their goals against us, not the other way around.
This is just recency bias.
Yeah, like I said we can see how Ancelotti can smash every team considering he won 3 CLs with various clubs, after all its the tactics that will beat, not the quality of team. Nothing to do with Barca having GOAT and one of the best ever midfield trio.
We had much inferior players in 2012-13 and we had 89 points, that's with midfielders like Cleverley, close to retirement Carrick.
My point is very simple, you are fecking clueless when you come up with stupid posts like "City will wipe the floor with ManUtd 2008 team".
Regarding not being able to develop pressure, one of the weakest team in recent years was close to wiping floor with City at Etihad with our relentless counter attacks, and that's with inexperienced team and inexperienced/not good enough coach.
This is utter nonsense and the arrogance that’s part of the reason why Spanish clubs have better records vs English clubs.
Let’s not fool ourselves the Premier League is usually always just two clubs fighting for the league, and more often then not it ends up being one club running away with it. The only difference between England and Spain is the cycle changes more often.
This. 2009 was a turning point in modern football, IMO, and the CL final was symbolic of that. On the one side you have Pep: A young coach obssessed with tactics to an almost manic level with a clear top down approach: He knew how he wanted to play, he had in mind what every player should do in every situation and instructed them painstakingly to do so. On the other hand SAF, a manager of the "old school" at that point. A great man manager, great motivator, a father figure to many players and probably one if not the best ever at building up a club but in his philosophy, he was rather opportunistic, adapting his system to his players and giving them much freedom. The outcome is well-known and Guardiola's attitude towards the game inspired many younger coaches to do the same. Not necessarily imitating his style, but the idea of concept football was born and teams began to have a much clearer identity. That's also when Klopp began to have huge success with his high pressing/fast transition style that he still applies at Liverpool. Those coaches simply leave less to chance than their predecessors. They train which runs to make, how to behave collectively when the opponent has the ball, force you to stay in your position when in possession and so forth. I'm not saying that earlier coaches never trained that stuff by the way. Of course they did but never to the same extent or even obsession. Modern coaches have a much more macro oriented approach than the generation before them. Thing is, the German, Spanish and to a lesser extent the Italian league understood this development far earlier than the EPL. Guardiola, Klopp and Conte were the first managers of that kind to work in England and slowly more and more clubs become open to it. That's also why I think that the EPL currently is stronger than it ever was.
And because I understand the worship SAF gets here I just want to make clear that this is no criticism or something like that. He's one of the best coaches in history but his time came to an end around that time. That's only natural and doesn't take anything away from his earlier achievements. That final simply marked the end of a cycle.
Pep's an interesting one. At City he's spent 550 million on 22 players. I genuinely think Sterling is the only player he personally improved.
I think hed be awful if given a bad group of players (Cardiff for example
) but his teams have amazed me at times too. His Barca team played the best football I've ever seen
I think hed be awful if given a bad group of players (Cardiff for example
) but his teams have amazed me at times too. His Barca team played the best football I've ever seenI'd imagine everyone in football would be fascinated if he took over a mid table team. I think he just likes it to be easy though.
Once he fails enough like Ancelotti he'll get his chance don't worry.
KDB, Sane, Fernandinho. All those players showed sustained improvement after he joined...even David Silva. Sterling is just the most obvious.Pep's an interesting one. At City he's spent 550 million on 22 players. I genuinely think Sterling is the only player he personally improved.
I think hed be awful if given a bad group of players (Cardiff for example
I will never understand this logic.
Still managed to win another 2 pl after that. Made it look easy.
And lost 2 titles one on GD and other by 1 point. So much for end of cycle.
People sometimes forget he was 70 plus years and he retired when he was at his top.
Yeah we have spent 900 mil since his retirement and look how close we are to a title challenge.
I feel the same about Pep in some ways but I also see the craziness in it.
Serious conversation here, my good mate genuinely, GENUINELY believes that the best manager in the game is Rafa Benitez. Why? Here is his reason why:
"Fecking Jose, Pep, Klopp all that lot - none of them have gotten relegated to the Championship and stuck it out with NO BUDGET, and got that same team promoted again."
I was gobsmacked.
"Yes mate, because none of those guys would ever consider managing a bottom-half team because they WOULDNT NEED TO because they are actually GOOD! It's like saying Messi can't be considered the GOAT because he has never gotten a team promoted!"
At some point you just have to laugh at the insanity of the proposition.
If you're talking about relative strength (the only thing that matters) then the PL simply isn't at its strongest ever level. It was stronger from 04-09 and from 76-84. In absolute term its the strongest ever but that's because tactical and fitness advancements have taken the game beyond what previous eras could cope with if you transplanted them into this era. Such a perspective is worthless, however. Players and managers should only be judged by the eras in which they operated. When Ferguson had his greatest period as United manager the depth of competition for the title was undoubtedly stronger. All of the top PL 4 appeared in a Champions League final in that era United x 2, Liverpool x 2, Arsenal & Chelsea x1 in a 6 year period and it was no surprise when they made the final like when Spurs did last year. Liverpool won the CL whilst finishing 5th in the league. In the 76-84 era 3 different English sides won the European Cup in 7 out of 8 seasons.
As for Klopp, his style that has finally got him success in England more represents that old school British football seen in the 76-84 era: only Sheffield United and Burnley have played more long passes than them this season and only Bournemouth have scored more set piece goals.
It's funny how things turn out, now tiki taka is dying and being replaced by long passes and 'vertical' football' but then as Sir Alex always said when Guardiola came on the scene 'football always goes in cycles'.
That United team as great as it was, played at a time when Real were crap, Bayern were crap, and Barca emerged as the only other great European team. And look how we fared against them.
Yeah, it's odd to see Klopp being hailed as some sort of innovator when he is playing basic football to highest level. He has workman midfielders and 2 excellent FBs who puts in so many crosses. I mean which team relied so much on crosses, set pieces and dominated PL for 20 years?
SAF always came on top of every challenge he faced, he adapted, changed his teams and always found the solutions. I mean he was so good that he won 89 points with players like Cleverley, Welbeck, close to retirement Rio, Vidic, Carrick, Scholes, Giggs in the team playing many games but somehow he won't be able to achieve those extra 6-7 points spending shit loads of money on big talents.
Our midfield was crap. Giggs and anderson vs xavi and iniesta. They were on another lvl
Juventus were... well. Milan were on their last legs. Great time for English football, but the competition on the continent wasn't fantastic.
And yet that 'crap' midfield of ours would decisively dominate the midfield of today's City and/or Liverpool?
(it wasn't crap, just following your logic)
You see there is something very strange here, during the period of time that I highlighted we had Scholes, Hargreaves, Carrick, Fletcher, Anderson and eventually Giggs as CM options but you somehow only mention two of them.
No that midfield would not dominate todays liverpool or city.
Im talking about who started vs barcalona. And Xavi and inesta still shits on all them anyway.
I'm alive and unfortunate enough to remember a massive Carrick vs Hargreaves thread where at least 34% of the Caf thought at least one of those midfielders were shit.
Nothing to do with your point. Just had a bad flashback.
It's an amusing turn of events really. Since Guardiola came on the scene that type of football has been derided and declared extinct even. Yet here we have Klopp on course to be Pep's points total by turning it up to 10 and playing old school British football with long balls, crosses and set pieces. It's not dissimilar to what Liverpool played in the 70s and 80s although people then didn't really talk about tactics all that much back then and when they did it was in much less grandiloquent terms. Alan Hanson described their style as 'mixing it up' i.e 'play the percentages' if needs be but 'pass and move' too.
Both European finals contested by teams from only one nation for the first time in history says that it was pretty crap last season too.
I'd agree as well. Real reverting to 07 Real, Barcelona some level below their best from some years back, Atletico declined, Juventus as well, ditto for Bayern, and PSG underperforming still.
You cant really compare Carrick or Hargreaves to Xavi and Iniesta. Only prime Scholes come close.
Exactly. Points total is a weak argument. Nobody in their right recent Chelsea teams and fag end SAF teams as better than our 99 one. Liverpool haven't managed one league title and are being compared to a team that won their PL 5 times in 7 years. That's Barcelona like dominance of a top league