Brand new modern fitba 2018-19 thread!! SEE YOU!!

It absolutely is and I'm not saying it's good, but I am saying its real. Steve Bruce would be playing for wolves or bournemouth today, legit

 

UEFA Euro 1996 knockout stage - Wikipedia

England team in 1996. Eleven players at these clubs:

Arsenal
Aston Villa
Forest
Spurs
Liverpool
Rangers
Inter Milan

Man Utd won the league that year and NUFC were second. None of their English players made that starting eleven (Ferdinand, Lee, Beardsley, Cole, Neville, Beckham, Scholes, Pallister, Bruce...). LFC were third, and had one starter (Macmanaman), but no Fowler, Redknapp or Collymore

Far more competition, far less player concentration.

MTF

 

Lol, we'll agree to disagree on that one.

MTF

 

Agree

 

There were 13 foreign (as in not from U.K. or Ireland) players in the Premier League in 1992

This year? 295

 

There's just not a logical argument that the standard of play was better when the league was overwhelmingly English/Welsh/Scottish/Irish

 

The experience of the common fan may have been better, more intimate and tangible, the participants more passionate about their shirt but the only way you could argue that the standard of play was superior would be if those countries were bossing international football... they weren't ... Brazil was, France was, Italy was, etc

 

Ah hear Ye, SEEdog Hooever - and Ye might already Ken this - back in '92 Irish, Welsh and Scottish players were classed as foreigners in whit wiz the 1st Division/ Premier League and wid coount taewards the max quota o' three foreign nationals on a team. A small ootrage as true blue Scoats love Her Majesty more than life itself. THREEDOM!

 

There was a period in the mid 1990's where teams like Wolves and Watford would have beaten United or Blackburn.

Feebles is right, it is indeed cyclical.

I think United won the league one year with UNDER 70 points.

 

I get that

in this instance though, the 13 means foreigners beyond that distinction (in other words, Irish/Scottish/Welsh are counted with the Englishmen)

The 295 does NOT include Irish/Scottish/Welsh

 

Agreed, then in 2007 Micah Richards became the youngest defender/full back in English history and turned out to be utter pish.

I never did understand how Fowler didn't break into the England set up......I don't think he cared TBH.

Steve Bull...........another guy who was a good footballer but barely got an England cap and would have been prolific today despite being "Championship" back in the day.

 

Steve Bruce and.....van dijk? Kompany? Come on, he's nowhere near that level, you'd never win a premiership title playing Bruce, pallister in 2019. Mid table would be a great season

 

You'd have to give Bruce the benefit of the same upbringing and medical advances that those guys had.

He wouldn't be drinking and eating pish for one.

 

Neither are modern English footballers, though

 

Even leaving all that aside and judging them relative to their own era - despite the advantage of being man Utd captain Bruce still didn't get a single cap, you couldn't win a league with a guy like that now, the talent is too concentrated, too widely scouted. The champs will have the best defender from Holland, Belgium, Germany in there and Bruce will be at huddersfield

 

Put together a 1995 team using world class players of the day that works as a close match to the class of today's Liverpool (so the 1995 equivalents of Salah, Mane, Firmino, Milner, the whole gang) ... that team has a real chance at 38-0 against the 1995 premier league

 

These are super teams now

 

It's tough to call for me, Liverpool and City are ridiculous teams right now, put them in '95 and I'd expect either to canter to the title. Put this Spurs team in there and I'd still expect them to find a way to fuck it up.

 

I'm talking relative to era... so in my hypothetical Liverpool have whatever was Salah level in 1995, Mane level in 1995... not the actual current Salah or Mane etc so the developments nutritionally, tactically etc don't factor in

If it was the actual head-to-head? LOL, not even a contest... They'd score 150 goals minimum

 

It's like the opposite of boxing

 

The Liverpool team from 1987 would stand in with the "Super Teams". I am sure of it.

Same as the Milan team from 1990.

 

The Milan team of that era was a super team though ... a core of players from a major football power (at least in those days) with a group of elite foreign mercenaries

Serie A was king because it had loads of foreigners compared to other leagues and because Italy were aces at football anyway

 

It was also Pre Premier League, which means Pre English Money.

The Premier League can be broken down into stages anyways

1. 1993-1999

2. 1999-Chelsea

3. Chelsea- City.

 

My view isn't nostalgic either... the great NHL teams of my youth when hockey was vastly more fun to watch are shit compared to now... certain players would still be tops (99 and 66, especially) but more than half the players in the league in 1990 wouldn't have been in the league if the Soviet Union didn't exist at the time

 

Shitty*

 

Realistically, Les Ferdinand level players nowadays play for Hearts or Kilmarnock

 

That's always the way, half of the best players in the "Negro Leagues" and half the best players in the "Major League" disappeared in 1949, or their stats altered considerably once the best got exposed to the best, only the very best remained.

It's an inevitability of the broadening of any market that the influx of talent will be exposed to an extent and the extant-talent likewise.

It wasnt as pronounced in England because the initial influx of foreign talent was staggered.......it was older guys at the end of their contracts, or a few punts, but not the outright harvesting that exists today. In 1994/1995 you had Klinsmann or Hagi for every Bergkamp.

 

Yup