GoonerJay24
Well-Known Member
I dunno, he improved massively
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Is The Premier League Tougher Than It Used To Be?
- Thread starter vantoure
- Start date
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I dunno, he improved massively
Country: Nigeria
Player:Saliba
He's not elite though.
Country: Canada
It is a point that seems paradoxical, and I’m curious the different ways people might address it/their thoughts on it. This idea that despite the overall talent pool growing, the talent level is decreasing.
WesleyNHohfeld
Member
Country: USA
Do people think players today are more athletic than 15-20 years ago? I would think the answer is almost surely yes even if you have outliers. Likewise I think players probably have improved their technique too because of better training sessions and the sharing of best practices/tactics. And that's without getting into the intense competition and youth development now in many parts of the world. We know this was true when we take the comparisons to the extreme. For instance, no one thinks Di Stefano's Real Madrid team could compete with the current Real Madrid squad. So what explains a reverse trend between 1995 and 2024?
Someone has a breakthrough, they enjoy an advantage, then other people notice and copy. That's how growth happens generally. It's true that the story gets complicated in some spaces like music, art, or architecture where you could say things have declined, and I confess to not knowing the exact answer, but the general trendline of improvement seems inarguable to me. Maybe football is like music or art in that we've gone backwards for some strange reason, but I think it is safe to say that if the aliens came to play us, we'd have a better chance with the best XI players in 2024 than the best XI players in 1995 (adjusting for everyone's age of course!).
With all that in mind, I think the quality of the players has gone up. Some people respond by saying, well we have no great strikers today compared to the 1990s or 2000s, and I agree that certain player roles have changed etc, but one possible point is that it's harder to be a superstar when the level of competition has gone up. In other words, if defenders got much better and defensive tactics became savvier, then it's unsurprising today's strikers look relatively worse even if they were better in an absolute sense.
Obviously all of this is nonfalsifiable and that's why it's a fun debate, but this seems very intuitive to me!
Someone has a breakthrough, they enjoy an advantage, then other people notice and copy. That's how growth happens generally. It's true that the story gets complicated in some spaces like music, art, or architecture where you could say things have declined, and I confess to not knowing the exact answer, but the general trendline of improvement seems inarguable to me. Maybe football is like music or art in that we've gone backwards for some strange reason, but I think it is safe to say that if the aliens came to play us, we'd have a better chance with the best XI players in 2024 than the best XI players in 1995 (adjusting for everyone's age of course!).
With all that in mind, I think the quality of the players has gone up. Some people respond by saying, well we have no great strikers today compared to the 1990s or 2000s, and I agree that certain player roles have changed etc, but one possible point is that it's harder to be a superstar when the level of competition has gone up. In other words, if defenders got much better and defensive tactics became savvier, then it's unsurprising today's strikers look relatively worse even if they were better in an absolute sense.
Obviously all of this is nonfalsifiable and that's why it's a fun debate, but this seems very intuitive to me!
Country: England
Talent wise, can someone name me a position across the pitch that this era is superior to than in any year within the 00s?
This era is flooded with system players whereby the managers are the stars of the show.
This era is flooded with system players whereby the managers are the stars of the show.
Batman
Head of the Wayne foundation for benching Nketiah
Country: USA
Player:Saliba
This. On average these players might be better athletes but their skill level is considerably lower and most of the self expression has been coached out of the game. Hazard and Özil might have been the last guys with technical quality you could compare (and even then it wasn't close) to the Bergkamp/Henry/Cantona sorts.
Country: England
Player:Saliba
Exactly. Freedom of expression is coached out of modern players, so you’re not going to get those jaw dropping moments of self confidence and outrageous skill of the entertainer that used to take your breath away.
Country: Norway
I think on the whole, this is a discussion that is more or less impossible to land. How do you really verify a statement that the Premier League tougher or not?
In the end you just end up with a loose confederation of warring tribes in this thread.
In the end you just end up with a loose confederation of warring tribes in this thread.
Country: Nigeria
Player:Saliba
Kloop's Liverpool is one of the best team of the last 10 years. Yet their midfield lynchpins were cloggers. The reason why those teams performed above their contemporaries was due to their physical advantage and them having a world class manager who could get blood from a stone.
Like @2Smokeyy said, the manager is the star of the show these days. The only team in the world that gives me peak 2000s vibe is Madrid tbh.
Look at Sp**s with Modric, Van see Vert, Bale, Walker, Rose etc.
That team had genuine world class players.
The few world class players nowadays are all concentrated in handful of rich teams. It means that no matter the money teams like west Ham, aston villa and the likes have, they'll never attract the absolute top players cos those players would want to play for madrid, Arsenal, city, Liverpool, etc. That's just how it is. The midtable teams may have more money, but teams like Liverpool, City, United, Chelsea are pulling away from them revenue-wise. These midtable teams could go to other leagues and bully the likes of Sampdoria or Atalanta but within the PL, they're falling further and further behind the top six clubs.
Like @2Smokeyy said, the manager is the star of the show these days. The only team in the world that gives me peak 2000s vibe is Madrid tbh.
Look at Sp**s with Modric, Van see Vert, Bale, Walker, Rose etc.
That team had genuine world class players.
The few world class players nowadays are all concentrated in handful of rich teams. It means that no matter the money teams like west Ham, aston villa and the likes have, they'll never attract the absolute top players cos those players would want to play for madrid, Arsenal, city, Liverpool, etc. That's just how it is. The midtable teams may have more money, but teams like Liverpool, City, United, Chelsea are pulling away from them revenue-wise. These midtable teams could go to other leagues and bully the likes of Sampdoria or Atalanta but within the PL, they're falling further and further behind the top six clubs.
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Country: Nigeria
Player:Saliba
Also around 2005-2009 the top 4 sides in England were the best team in Europe.
United's greatest ever side (the 07-08)
one that probably had more world class players than this City side, weren't as dominant as this City side cos you had other top teams in England. Even the midtable teams around that time like Villa and Everton were very good. Team flirting with relegations like Sunderland and Stoke was extremely hard to be. Going away and winning in those stadium was like a test of your title credentials not ****e like Burnley and Sheffield we have now.
United's greatest ever side (the 07-08)
one that probably had more world class players than this City side, weren't as dominant as this City side cos you had other top teams in England. Even the midtable teams around that time like Villa and Everton were very good. Team flirting with relegations like Sunderland and Stoke was extremely hard to be. Going away and winning in those stadium was like a test of your title credentials not ****e like Burnley and Sheffield we have now.
