Liverpool 2020 vs Invincibles/Chelsea 05

Too many anomalies, football changes far too often to measure these things. They all lost to poor teams, they all under performed in one cup or another. Competition levels vary as the Premier League goes up and down in overall quality, the gap between the best and the worst team grows or narrows and European teams transition from better to worse. You can argue against every team put forward.

Only thing that can't be argued is Pep's Barca being the greatest team of all time. From a simple perspective of how each game was played, no other team has ever been so dominant. I can't stand Barcelona as a club but I would happily watch that side every weekend for the rest of my life. They lost matches being the better team.

comment by WB2 (Emery'll Get Me Killed) (U8276)
posted 3 hours, 42 minutes ago
Every generation says it but the money now in football has made it true this time. A better way to put it would be there are less great players today. Rather than saying today's greats aren't as good as yesterday's. "Back in the olden days"well there was basically just Real Madrid, with a blank chequebook. Everyone else, even the ones with money to spend, couldn't throw it away for any player any time. That was strictly Galactico domain. Fast forward to today and we have City, Chelsea, PSG, Barca, Real.

Man City have undoubtedly taken several players whom may have gone on to become one of the greats...if they'd stayed put and got playing time. Instead they transferred and rotted on City's bench. Teams never used to be able to waste millions on a squad player, so alot of players the likes of City have bought, back then, would have stayed put and some, continued to flourish to full potential at their previous clubs.

When you multiply that by the number of teams I've mentioned and think how many promising players they've transfer swept for then stuck on the bench, in the last 20 years. You're talking about alot of greatness killed off. An entire generation of that happening, year after year, has begun to show in the overall amount of outstanding talent we're seeing. It's not just UK and PL either. Just look at the national teams now compared to when we were invincible. We had a gluttony of worldwide superstars then, nowhere near as many see and argue over now.
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You completely missed one of the biggest changes in football in the last generation. It used to be that young players would start off at clubs in the lower leagues and would then be sold to clubs in higher divisions as they prove they are good enough.

That is no longer the case. now the best young players are all signed up to PL academies and it is very difficult for anyone who was not part of a PL academy to break into a PL team. Even to the point where people have said that if players in this country did not come from a PL academy they wont even be considered for a PL team.

comment by Wahl Icht - (U22332)
posted 2 hours, 21 minutes ago
comment by Herbie (U7136)
posted 20 minutes ago
comment by Wahl Icht - (U22332)
posted 3 hours, 3 minutes ago
Man City 17-19 vs Chelsea 04-06 would be a great matchup to watch. Current Liverpool and invincibles would both lose to those teams.
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Even though a worse 05 Arsenal didn’t lose to that Chelsea side. Ummm, ok then.
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Well the 04 Arsenal team lost to the 04 Chelsea team in the first place didn't they
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Huh?! Hang on, in this very thread you said this FFS:

posted 5 hours, 27 minutes ago
“We’re taking about the best teams of the premier league era so why bring up the Cl”

So why on Earth are you bringing up a CL defeat for arsenal if you yourself have been denouncing City getting spanned by pool in the same competition? Do you even have a clue what point you’re even making anymore?

Every comment after I made I mentioned the Cl because I realised it was wrong to ignore CL results when comparing teams. You’ve picked one comment and ignored all the other ones I’ve made.

comment by Wahl Icht - (U22332)
posted 1 hour, 12 minutes ago
Every comment after I made I mentioned the Cl because I realised it was wrong to ignore CL results when comparing teams. You’ve picked one comment and ignored all the other ones I’ve made.
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At no point do you claim your criteria has changed. Your other mentions of it include “City, Chelsea, Arsenal flopped” and “City we’re unlucky”. Funny that City are given the benefit of the doubt for being unlucky despite losing to a that finished 5th in their league yet Arsenal’s 2004 side lose to their league runners up (who went on to form the nucleus of that great Chelsea side the following year) in equally unlucky circumstances and it’s used against them. Bear in mind this is an Arsenal side (01-05) that won 2 league titles, 3 FA cups, went unbeaten away from home in 2 out of three seasons, scored in 55 consecutive games and strung together 2 unbeaten league runs of 30 and 49 games including a win streak of 14 in a row.

You’re chatting complete nonsense flippantly dismissing that side’s chances against Chelsea 04-06 and City 17-19 and you know it.

I just think those teams were stronger than the invincibles. The invincibles never lost, OK but those teams had a ruthless efficiency that the invincibles never had

That Chelsea teams defence at that city teams midfield... I just think they’re superior to the invincibles in my opinion

comment by Wahl Icht - (U22332)
posted 2 hours, 29 minutes ago
I just think those teams were stronger than the invincibles. The invincibles never lost, OK but those teams had a ruthless efficiency that the invincibles never had

That Chelsea teams defence at that city teams midfield... I just think they’re superior to the invincibles in my opinion
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And that’s a fair enough opinion to have. It was your reasoning before that was all over the place.

Completely disagree about Man City. They’ve beat up on a league that Leicester City we’re able to win and an awful Utd side we’re good enough to come second in. Please. I think they’d get picked off handily by Arsenal of that era in the manner they regularly have by Liverpool in the last few years. I do think that Chelsea side was probably better though.

comment by jlou1978 (U15376)
posted 21 hours, 8 minutes ago
comment by Dubbed* (U21815)
posted 8 minutes ago
comment by jlou1978 (U15376)
posted 20 minutes ago
comment by Dubbed* (U21815)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Analog (U17200)
posted 6 minutes ago
comment by Dubbed* (U21815)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Analog (U17200)
posted 2 minutes ago
‘I still maintain even though football has improved in terms of tactics and fitness, there was more individual talent around back then as well as ten years ago.’

I swear every single generation says exactly this. So basically the players of the 1940s or whenever had unprecedented levels of talent compared to today
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They do, yes. But the thing is. Look at world football now. It's going through a transitional period. You can't tell me there's as much attacking talent for example as there was in 2009. List the top 5 best strikers in the world right now. You'll struggle.
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Because wide forwards are basically strikers now. Salah for instance scores at a better rate than almost any no 9 in 2009
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Like we said football has changed. But the quality of players have gone down. As a result players like Salah (as good as he is) look better than he really is.
You can't tell me he's anywhere near in quality to the likes of Torres, Henry, Cristiano (in the Prem), etc, yet he's scoring more than them. Hint is all there.
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Salah is a phenomenal talent.
Just because you struggle to accept that, means litteraly nothing.
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Is Salah on par with those guys. It's even debatable whether he's even the best player at his club.
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Even if that were true, that still wouldn't matter when you have 3 of the world's top 10 players in your team.
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I presume that's Salah, Mane and Van Dijk? I'll give you that. Fair enough.

If it's the season I'm thinking of then the Chelsea team is the only that could rival the invincibles. Both this Pool side and the City 17-19 sides lose to both of those teams. Both due to having more outstanding individual talent but moreso due to the way the game has changed. The era of the invincibles saw teams with too much defensive strength in MF. And too much ball running ability. Teams today seemed stumped soon as a player actually runs with the ball (WBs aside).

I think that was a golden age of footy though, since those earlier teams, I believe would beat both teams today AND great teams from before them. The pinnacle performance coming mid-late football revolution/redefining, gave those teams the edge that is/was a.k.a "The best of both worlds" strength and grit of yesteryear, nicely finished off with the skill and finesse which has become standard today.

Not sure about football as a whole but the PL golden era in playing terms was roughly it's first ten years. Same for most of the leagues. All the top teams had that two-era span going on. Think about it Bayern, Barca, Real, it was utterly ridiculous just how good everyone was. As a result, much monies were made and those teams created (or I should say cash boosted) the academies/system we have causing the problem today. Though in fairness to them, it's not their fault if countries like ours decimated their youth sporting services/facilities and events. It was UK government whom tore up the playing fields to build private housing estates. Though I suppose we did put houses on Highbury so Arsenal gotta put our hands up there

comment by WB2 (Emery'll Get Me Killed) (U8276)
posted 6 hours, 16 minutes ago
If it's the season I'm thinking of then the Chelsea team is the only that could rival the invincibles. Both this Pool side and the City 17-19 sides lose to both of those teams. Both due to having more outstanding individual talent but moreso due to the way the game has changed. The era of the invincibles saw teams with too much defensive strength in MF. And too much ball running ability. Teams today seemed stumped soon as a player actually runs with the ball (WBs aside).

I think that was a golden age of footy though, since those earlier teams, I believe would beat both teams today AND great teams from before them. The pinnacle performance coming mid-late football revolution/redefining, gave those teams the edge that is/was a.k.a "The best of both worlds" strength and grit of yesteryear, nicely finished off with the skill and finesse which has become standard today.

Not sure about football as a whole but the PL golden era in playing terms was roughly it's first ten years. Same for most of the leagues. All the top teams had that two-era span going on. Think about it Bayern, Barca, Real, it was utterly ridiculous just how good everyone was. As a result, much monies were made and those teams created (or I should say cash boosted) the academies/system we have causing the problem today. Though in fairness to them, it's not their fault if countries like ours decimated their youth sporting services/facilities and events. It was UK government whom tore up the playing fields to build private housing estates. Though I suppose we did put houses on Highbury so Arsenal gotta put our hands up there
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The golden era. Oh Lordy...