Is The Premier League Tougher Than It Used To Be?

[Blood on the Tracks]

Just interested to find out. To all those who think the PL is tougher in 2024 or the quality of football is generally better, I’m intrigued to know when you started watching it?

As that could explain a lot.

94/95, that's when we got Sky

 

[Rex Stone]

Just interested to find out. To all those who think the PL is tougher in 2024 or the quality of football is generally better, I’m intrigued to know when you started watching it?

As that could explain a lot.

You can make the argument footballers are more efficient than ever but the days of the maverick are long gone.

The next Ronaldinho and even Neymar have been coached out of the game at youth level. Vinicius and Rodrygo are great players but they’re hardly thrilling to watch.

South American academies have apparently pivoted to mirror the European ones and even then most of the top talents are already over here by 18.

From an entertainment standpoint I feel like individual brilliance is nowhere near what it was.

 

[jones]

Im just telling what I believe. I think this hold true in many other sports and aspects of life. Like science. Like for example scientist today build on Einstein legacy. They have superior knowledge than he had. I think its advantage.

Good example, how many physicists are there born after Einstein you'd consider greater? Al-Khwarizmi was born 1000+ years ago how many greater mathematicians could you list?

 

[jones]

Just interested to find out. To all those who think the PL is tougher in 2024 or the quality of football is generally better, I’m intrigued to know when you started watching it?

As that could explain a lot.

As a rule of thumb you can generally assume people haven't watched a lot of football before they registered here on AM. For example look at @Blood on the Tracks there's no way he watched anything bar darts and streams of pub quizzes before 2020.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

As a rule of thumb you can generally assume people haven't watched a lot of football before they registered here on AM. For example look at @Blood on the Tracks there's no way he watched anything bar darts and streams of pub quizzes before 2020.

Darts is trash, hate playing and watching it. Very much for the Jeremy Kyle sorts.

Big snooker fan though.

 

[outlawz]

Just interested to find out. To all those who think the PL is tougher in 2024 or the quality of football is generally better, I’m intrigued to know when you started watching it?

As that could explain a lot.

Players today are fitter and press harder, which means less time on the ball demanding more technical ability, which is now a fundamental requirement from goalkeeper to centre forward right throughout the team. So the overall quality of football is absolutely higher.

Now if the question is about entertainment, then the World Cup in Qatar and the CL post away goals scrap has been some of the most memorable in living memory.

Nostalgia has me thinking the days of Ronaldo and Zidane were the glory days, and in terms of individual quality, those days definitely had more stars, but I think the floor is much higher today.

And I started watching football from 1996 FA Cup onwards.

 

[Bagels]

Personal view is that the overall quality of the game has increased for similar reasons in principal to @hydrofluoric acid. The game today has the benefit of all the knowledge accrued from the game of yesteryear. Tactically, scientifically, training methodologies, etc. This is one of the only two tangible differentials I see as relevant, everything else on either side of the arguments is just blown wind. The second is that the talent pool is growing, which means statistically there will be more, better players involved in the game.

I do think that there is growing inequality between the very top teams and everyone else. I also think that there is some truth to the fact that, given the way the game is played today, there are less individual players tasked with putting the team on their back, producing individual moments of brilliance, etc. Though, this is an argument for what you prefer to be entertained by in the sport, not the actual quality of the sport itself. Saying "I prefer a collective tactical approach" or "I prefer moments of individual brilliance" does = the league or sport is now better or worse.

Are the top, top players better now than before? I don't know. I think generally, it's probably six one half dozen of the other. Top athletes have always been just that. The game has changed, so of course it's just expressed differently. Either way, the top, top players represent 0.000001% of the sport, so it's a bit silly to even use that as a barometer for how the sport overall has grown and evolved in any case. Therefore, it's doubly pointless I think broadly because of the points I've mentioned in the first paragraph, the floor has been raised. Even ****/average players now (which represents the majority of players), are actually quite decent. This would represent an improvement in quality.

Arguments around point totals, saying its more difficult now because you have to be near perfect, or that it was more difficult before because you could lose a bunch of games and still win which means it was more equal, are both arguments around the relative quality, and not absolute quality. They do not logically speak to what many seem to believe they speak to. E.g., every team could be 100% better, or 100% worse and the league point tallies could be the same.

Ultimately, I think there is a lot of equivocating and different parameters for what people mean by "better" or "harder" which makes the conversation near impossible, e.g., if you do view "quality" as "what you are most entertained by", then pretty much all of my arguments are moot. Or maybe the concern is actually solely on the relative quality, and has nothing to do with how good teams and players actually are in an absolute sense. This is on top of the fact that it's more or less an unverifiable argument, even if everyone gets on the same page about what they mean when they make these sorts of claims.

 

[2Smokeyy]

You can make the argument footballers are more efficient than ever but the days of the maverick are long gone.

The next Ronaldinho and even Neymar have been coached out of the game at youth level. Vinicius and Rodrygo are great players but they’re hardly thrilling to watch.

South American academies have apparently pivoted to mirror the European ones and even then most of the top talents are already over here by 18.

From an entertainment standpoint I feel like individual brilliance is nowhere near what it was.

Spot on. The CL semis this week were the prime examples. In previous years I’d never skip watching those sort of games but I was struggling to sit through 90 mins for both games and had to resort to the highlights.

Everything just seems a bit rigid for my liking.

 

[GDeep™]

Spot on. The CL semis this week were the prime examples. In previous years I’d never skip watching those sort of games but I was struggling to sit through 90 mins for both games and had to resort to the highlights.

Everything just seems a bit rigid for my liking.

I didn’t watch either game.

 

[Rex Stone]

Spot on. The CL semis this week were the prime examples. In previous years I’d never skip watching those sort of games but I was struggling to sit through 90 mins for both games and had to resort to the highlights.

Everything just seems a bit rigid for my liking.

A while ago data scientists cracked that the most efficient way to play football is press out of possession and keep hold of the ball with it.

Now every team plays the same way and that filters down to the academies where they work on developing players who fit that system.

Not to sound like a Luddite but just like the NBA the nerds have ruined football.

 

[GDeep™]

A while ago data scientists cracked that the most efficient way to play football is press out of possession and keep hold of the ball with it.

Now every team plays the same way and that filters down to the academies where they work on developing players who fit that system.

Not to sound like a Luddite but just like the NBA the nerds have ruined football.

International tournaments are still exciting. Don’t think these systems have affected international football as much.

 

[Riou]

If you are an idiot and had never seen football in the 00s then I can understand why you think today's game is better, otherwise may God have mercy on your soul to be honest

 

[Rex Stone]

International tournaments are still exciting. Don’t think these systems have affected international football as much.

I think it’s harder for international coaches to set up a full pressing system when you get maybe a week to work with a side before a major tournament.

Teams in that format are still reliant on individual quality because you’ve often got 11 strangers on the field.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

On the Sky point, I remember a mate of mines parents had it when I went round his house. The graphics on the football and punditry seemed so advanced to me.

I begged my dad to get it for ages, he was old school, football's meant to be watched in person not on TV, it'll ruin the game etc He used to watch Swansea at The Vetch back in the 60's /70's.

Eventually he gave in and got it, couldn't get him his eyes off football on TV from that point on

 

[Thrice]

I don't know. I still remember the 2003 Champions League final. I don't think you will convince me the game was better 20 years ago when we had prime Catenaccio dominating Europe.

 

[Macho]

You man really trying to big up covid ball stap it

 

[Dokaka]

Spot on. The CL semis this week were the prime examples. In previous years I’d never skip watching those sort of games but I was struggling to sit through 90 mins for both games and had to resort to the highlights.

Everything just seems a bit rigid for my liking.

I don't think anyone disputes this tbh. The game is less entertaining to watch, I genuinely haven't met anyone who says otherwise unless they're like teens who never saw anything else. Modern analytics have "ruined" other sports too, but teams follow the numbers because it works and winning means everything.

 

[Rex Stone]

I don't think anyone disputes this tbh. The game is less entertaining to watch, I genuinely haven't met anyone who says otherwise unless they're like teens who never saw anything else. Modern analytics have "ruined" other sports too, but teams follow the numbers because it works and winning means everything.

I know in baseball they’ve supposedly altered the game to make it more entertaining and move away from the analytics push but don’t really follow it.

I think they’re looking at it with the NBA so wonder if there’s something there for FIFA to think about.

 

[grange]

I know in baseball they’ve supposedly altered the game to make it more entertaining and move away from the analytics push but don’t really follow it.

I think they’re looking at it with the NBA so wonder if there’s something there for FIFA to think about.

Baseball leaned into analytics even more and nearly every team is hiring multiple math majors in their front offices. Stats that used to mean something (batting average, ERA) no longer mean as much when evaluating player performance. They added a pitch clock to speed the game up. They also experimented with automatic base runners in extra innings to further speed the game up but haven't fully committed to that. When a new season starts, some of the fun is trying to figure out if they're using juiced baseballs (balls altered to carry more in the air) to increase homeruns.

 

[outlawz]

I think its more that people grow older, and start growing out of the game, or become desensitised to it. There's something about doing or watching something for the 300th time that it just doesn't carry the same novelty or experience. It's like sex or a different form of entertainment, it eventually gets old.

The fact that kids of today are enamoured by the game just as deeply as the olders once were tells you that the game is as enjoyable and interesting as its always been. People becoming jaded by it says more about them then it does the game itself.

The Real Bayern game two nights ago was highly entertaining, likewise the first legs of Real City and Arsenal Bayern matches. The WC final was the best final in history and the tournament was arguably one of the best ever. Football is different today, but as entertaining as its ever been, imo.