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Is The Premier League Tougher Than It Used To Be?

Is It?


  • Total voters
    148

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
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Player:Saliba
Ah yes, Artete last season had to deal with the "importation" of the likes of Sam Allardyce, Sean Dyche, Steve Bruce, David Moyes, Roy Hodgson, Dean Smith, Chris Wilder, Scott Parker and Frank Lampard. Truly the peak of the "importation of superior foreign managers" in the PL.....

Do you actually process the drivel you post before hitting send or is it just an uncontrollable, ignorant stream of consciousness simply to try and defend Arteta at any cost?
Perfect
 

Blood on the Tracks

AG's best friend, role model and mentor.
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Player:Rice
It shouldn't even be an Arsenal debate really, or Wenger related. Wenger being one of the best managers ever and Arteta being a poor manager currently shouldn't cloud the debate.

You'd struggle to find many sports that are highly financed that were of a higher quality 10-15 years ago as compared to now.
Sure you might get 1 exceptional sports star or team that were better back in the day but not overall.

Tactics, coaching, diet and nutrition etc all have evolved since then, and in an upward trajectory. That's without even factoring in the ridiculous amounts of money on the PL or the pull it has with top class oversees managers.

It's like listening to Geoffrey Boycott talk about fast bowlers bowling faster in the 1970's than they do today 😂 Nah, it's a mix of nostalgia and they fact you weren't wearing a helmet probably made them seen 10mph+ faster than they really were.

At the end of the day we're Arsenal fans and we want to believe that the days we were fairly successful were the time's football was at its peak. It would make our achievements even greater.

Common sense tells you otherwise though.
 

Oxeki

Match Day Thread Merchant
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It shouldn't even be an Arsenal debate really, or Wenger related. Wenger being one of the best managers ever and Arteta being a poor manager currently shouldn't cloud the debate.

You'd struggle to find many sports that are highly financed that were of a higher quality 10-15 years ago as compared to now.
Sure you might get 1 exceptional sports star or team that were better back in the day but not overall.

Tactics, coaching, diet and nutrition etc all have evolved since then, and in an upward trajectory. That's without even factoring in the ridiculous amounts of money on the PL or the pull it has with top class oversees managers.

It's like listening to Geoffrey Boycott talk about fast bowlers bowling faster in the 1970's than they do today 😂 Nah, it's a mix of nostalgia and they fact you weren't wearing a helmet probably made them seen 10mph+ faster than they really were.

At the end of the day we're Arsenal fans and we want to believe that the days we were fairly successful were the time's football was at its peak. It would make our achievements even greater.

Common sense tells you otherwise though.
All these are opinions though. Not one shred of evidence has been provided to back the claim that the PL is tougher in this era.
 

Trilly

Hates A-M, Saka, Arteta and You
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Country: England
Both can be true - We are a worse team and also the mid-table teams got better.

In the past, even when we lost matches, we used to dominate most part of the matches only to lose by a counter attacking goal. These days, we get spanked by random teams. So we are obviously worse than before/ I tried to use the same points argument to prove that mid-table teams are stronger these days. Like the 10th position team scoring 59 points last season which is out of the norm. I don't think that is a clear evidence though. I just feel that all teams over the years have an upward trajectory in quality. It was accelerated by the TV money and some shrewd management by mid-table clubs. Arsenal on the other hand stagnated and even dropped its quality in the recent years.
Yeah I think the eye test supports this, it’s just hard to prove it so I don’t bother.

Never seen a mid table team play the type of football that some of them have shown in recent years.
 

AberGooner

Established Member
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Player:Gabriel
The only difference between 10-15 years ago and now is the inflation in fees and wages, that's got nothing to do with quality on the pitch.

Shearer would've been on a lot less than Kane back then for example, that doesn't mean he's any less of player. Villa bought someone like Angel for 9.5m many years ago, a huge fee at the time, that's a 20-40m signing now. The money has always been there, thoughout the league.
 

Trilly

Hates A-M, Saka, Arteta and You
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Country: England
All these are opinions though. Not one shred of evidence has been provided to back the claim that the PL is tougher in this era.
It’s Impossible to prove.

If we did it scientifically you’d need a control to compare against which Abou is attempting to do by using European football and how well English teams are doing compared to those teams. Even then that doesn’t work as we have to assume that European football has remained at the same level.
 

Macho

In search of Pure Profit 💸
Dusted 🔻

Country: England
At the end of the day we're Arsenal fans and we want to believe that the days we were fairly successful were the time's football was at its peak. It would make our achievements even greater.
It’s really not this at all, Id even argue our past success is borderline irrelevant given what flies today.

A lot of the regular posters here I even doubt experienced any of the Highbury years just from some of the things they say, so I disagree.

My point is it’s a tired debate with opinions being presented as facts.
For every reason you’ve given as why the league is harder today, I could easily find a reason why it was harder 10-20 years ago. The lack of PED testing, the calibur of managers in the league, it would be too easy.

I think where most of you guys arguments fall down is City, Chelsea, Man U have gone absolutely no where in the past 10 to 20 years. The big clubs are still the big clubs, except Arsenal which is my gripe at the end of the day.
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
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Player:Saliba
Yeah this debate is lame, there is genuinely no reliable way to measure the difficulty of the league year by year, that's why @Makingtrax is laughing at you guys it's purely opinion based.

All the Wenger Out guys get satisfaction from proving the league is harder now
Wenger in guys are going out of their way to prove that is not the case

That's all that's happening here, the posters on each side is the big giveaway.

We should really do a deep dive on why it's been the best 2 weeks of Arteta's footballing life to date.
Any half decent manager could do better than declining Wenger they said. Now it’s clear they can’t, the league must be getting harder. This is the trouble with non evidenced based posting, you’re forced to lurch from one half baked idea to the next.
 

AberGooner

Established Member
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Country: Scotland

Player:Gabriel
It’s really not this at all, Id even argue our past success is borderline irrelevant given what flies today.

A lot of the regular posters here I even doubt experienced any of the Highbury years just from some of the things they say, so I disagree.

My point is it’s a tired debate with opinions being presented as facts.
For every reason you’ve given as why the league is harder today, I could easily find a reason why it was harder 10-20 years ago. The lack of PED testing, the calibur of managers in the league, it would be too easy.

I think where most of you guys arguments fall down is City, Chelsea, Man U have gone absolutely no where in the past 10 to 20 years. The big clubs are still the big clubs, except Arsenal which is personally my problem.

Pitches, leniancy of referees and diets/training are other big ones for me. A big reason why I find it impossible to say who's better now or then whether it be teams or players.

Maybe less so from about the late 90's, certainly in the PL but when you see some of the pitches they where playing on in years gone by it's unbelievable they where able to play to a high standard.
 

Blood on the Tracks

AG's best friend, role model and mentor.
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Player:Rice
It’s really not this at all, Id even argue our past success is borderline irrelevant given what flies today.

A lot of the regular posters here I even doubt experienced any of the Highbury years just from some of the things they say, so I disagree.

My point is it’s a tired debate with opinions being presented as facts.
For every reason you’ve given as why the league is harder today, I could easily find a reason why it was harder 10-20 years ago. The lack of PED testing, the calibur of managers in the league, it would be too easy.

I was a Wenger In guy till the bitter end but to me there's clearly an element of rose tinted glasses with the fans who think the league was better 10 or so years ago.

It flies in the face of logic to me. High end, exceptionally well funded sports increase in quality over time due to advancements in various fields though there may be individual anomalies. 10 years is a long time in sports and advancements are made pretty rapidly on many fronts. That's just common sense to me.

If we went back and randomly watched a couple of matches between mid- lower placed PL sides from a decade ago I think it would be fairly noticeable that the technical quality, intensity and tactical side would generally be lower than the equivalent match today.

What would be interesting I guess would be hearing from some players who started off their PL careers 10-15 years ago and are still playing now and get their thoughts on the subject.
 

Oxeki

Match Day Thread Merchant
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Country: Nigeria

Player:Saliba
It’s Impossible to prove.

If we did it scientifically you’d need a control to compare against which Abou is attempting to do by using European football and how well English teams are doing compared to those teams. Even then that doesn’t work as we have to assume that European football has remained at the same level.
I made a post yesterday about the quality of players that midtable clubs could sign a decade or two ago being largely the same as the ones the can sign in this era. The only difference is that there's just money. The cost of signing any half decent player a decade ago had probably double or in some cases tripled. That has reflected the huge bump in TV money and increased revenue. Infact, there's evidence to suggest that less top quality players are being produced these days. This has led to the oil money and state-owned clubs gobbling up the few top players.

Even in the CL, from the mid 2000s to the early 2010s, the PL absolutely dominated football more so than now.

You could argue that PL is by far better than other leagues and it would be a debate with lots of merit. This is due to their increased revenue relative to other leagues. But within itself, the competitive level has remained the same imo.

That "the PL now have more quality coaches" argument that @AbouCuéllar is trying to spout is just ridiculous. The PL has always had quality coaches. This was a league that used to have Benitez, Wenger, Fergie, Mou, peak Ancelloti etc
 

Blankety Blank

emoji merchant
Conte took over Mourinho's misfiring almost-relegated chelsea and won the league with them the next season. OR was the UCL poorer last season as Lampard's listless chelsea was turned into UCL winners by a new manager, without any serious addition?
Totally pointless comparing us to Chelsea who operate on a different stratosphere & have far better players.
Mourinho lost the dressing room, cracked up, caused a toxic atmosphere & Chelsea turned to ****. We all know it had nothing to do with the squad. It was Black & White.

The difference here is our squad is simply not good enough due to decline in the quality, some poor purchases & other EPL teams improving.

As for Lampard he was potted well into the season as Abramovich had spent massive money expecting an already top 4 club with a great squad to mount a title challenge & it didnt happen.

Lampard was underperforming but maybe it does show how hard the EPL is as i dont think he lost a game in the Champions league tbf.
Tuchel a recognised top level manager was available so they decided to replace him as he looked like a great fit with the German connection
As said they operate on a different level to us & the squad is light years ahead.
 
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Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
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Totally pointless comparing us to Chelsea who operate on a different stratosphere & have far better players.
Past managers were vilified for losing to Chelsea, now suddenly they’re in a different stratosphere. :lol: How perceptions change in such a short time.
 

ArsenesCoatMaker

Established Member
Pulis--to think this was a manager that had his teams punching above their weight in the first half of the last decade, and who was successful...that enough should tell people something about how the league finally evolved in the second half of the decade--etc

I don't think this is true. The Pulis Stoke would be hard to play against today. Set up to defend and destroy opposition in 50-50s kicking them off the pitch against physically much stronger players, while turning the team into set piece beasts with far taller heading players. That and the fact he had a Rory Delap who could turn all throwings near the box into essentially free kicks.
 

Blankety Blank

emoji merchant
Past managers were vilified for losing to Chelsea, now suddenly they’re in a different stratosphere. :lol: How perceptions change in such a short time.
Of course they are in a different stratosphere. They have won the Champions league & titles recently Chelsea have been much stronger than us for a very long time.
Geez they won the ECL last season & have now added Lukaku ffs its crazy.


Arteta beat them twice last year tbf & won the FA cup by dispatching them the year b4 👍😁


We are still however miles away from them & the other teams in the top 4 imho.
Best we can realistically expect at the moment is top 6th & a cup run & that is regardless of who we employ as manager.
 

Haphazard

Active Member
I don't think this is true. The Pulis Stoke would be hard to play against today. Set up to defend and destroy opposition in 50-50s kicking them off the pitch against physically much stronger players, while turning the team into set piece beasts with far taller heading players. That and the fact he had a Rory Delap who could turn all throwings near the box into essentially free kicks.
Pulis's stoke also had the most biased referees at their home ground, they could literally get away with murder and the refs would issue a yellow. This whole idea that they were tough is only because their players got away with any foul.
 

scytheavatar

Established Member
I was a Wenger In guy till the bitter end but to me there's clearly an element of rose tinted glasses with the fans who think the league was better 10 or so years ago.

It flies in the face of logic to me. High end, exceptionally well funded sports increase in quality over time due to advancements in various fields though there may be individual anomalies. 10 years is a long time in sports and advancements are made pretty rapidly on many fronts. That's just common sense to me.

If we went back and randomly watched a couple of matches between mid- lower placed PL sides from a decade ago I think it would be fairly noticeable that the technical quality, intensity and tactical side would generally be lower than the equivalent match today.

What would be interesting I guess would be hearing from some players who started off their PL careers 10-15 years ago and are still playing now and get their thoughts on the subject.

Football is a dying sport, the quality of the talent pool has been getting worse and worse every year since about 20 years ago. Guys like Sancho and Pepe would have been considered no better than Shaun Wright-Phillips if they were playing 15 years ago, yet now they are worth 70-80 million. Kids simply no longer invest many thousands of hours of their lives playing the sport like they used to 20 years ago. Nowadays they would rather invest those time into Fortnite instead.
 

Blood on the Tracks

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Football is a dying sport, the quality of the talent pool has been getting worse and worse every year since about 20 years ago. Guys like Sancho and Pepe would have been considered no better than Shaun Wright-Phillips if they were playing 15 years ago, yet now they are worth 70-80 million. Kids simply no longer invest many thousands of hours of their lives playing the sport like they used to 20 years ago. Nowadays they would rather invest those time into Fortnite instead.

I'm not sure it's a dying sport at all.

I think the issue is if there's a kid at say 8-9 years old who looks like a talent he's going to get swallowed up by an academy and be drilled and overly coached to the nth degree where you lose that individuality. I don't think there's a lack of natural talent out there.

Even real talents like Saka, Sancho and Bellingham feel like manufactured footballers to me to some degree, they're great but they're percentage players often. Maybe Rooney was the last English player who came through as a street footballer type. Grealish has a bit of that individuality about him too I suppose.
 
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