Better than 85-87

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The only player in his position who it cannot be debated has ever in the history of Everton had anyone better than him is Neville Southall.

Easily the best goalkeeper in our history.

Even Alan Ball you could say has had peers, like Ross Barkley and Steven Pienaar
WHAT ,I loved Stevie P more than anyone but he was not as good as Bally and Barkley has no brain so he is not even worth considering .Bally was a match winner and there have not been so many that can pick the game and the team up and win it .
 
I was a big tricky trev fan but the only player I think to come close to pushing to disrupt the places of the title winning sides is kanchelskis. Not because Trevor was the weakest of the XI but because Kanchelsis is probably the only truly top class player we’ve had since .

A different kind of player to Steven in a similar way to the way the game has evolved as he was really a ‘wide striker ‘ rather than a winger. I’m not saying I’d drop that winger for the Ukrainian but it’s the one position where I feel it’d probably be a genuine debate .

Like most of my generation Understandably players from The title winning sides just have a place in my heart unlike any from the years that that followed .
 
Well those two things make better players, but putting that aside I'd challenge you to watch a 1987 Everton game and the watch a 2019 Manchester City game. It's a different universe skill wise.
Stylistically different can't compare them. Pitch conditions and the pass-back rule meant defensive setups where different it was easier to create space with wing play and long balls. Put Man city on a muddy pitch with the pass back rule they would struggle. The good players have always being good it just depends on the situations presented to them. Watch the 1970's brazil WC team or some footage of the holy trinity they would easily stand up to modern sides technique wise.
 

Baines was/is better than Van den Hauwe by a mile...no a million miles. Cahill was better than Heath. Tricky Trev however was more effective than Arteta. It is about blend though. Pienaar

Van den Hauwe was not as good as John Bailey, never mind Baines. He was as lucky as a Neville at Man U to be in that team. Cahill was better than Heath, nobody could displace Tricky Trev though and we have never found another Peter Reid. But it is about blend. Pienaar was not a Sheedy but Baines/Pienaar against Van den Hauwe/Sheedy is a tough one. Would go with Van den Hauwe/Sheedy because out of all four Sheedy was the matchwinner.
Can't agree with bailey better than mad pat. Bailey was the luckiest guy alive to a) play for Everton and b) play at that time. Van den hauwe was a league above. Baines wasn't as good a defender, but offensively he was better for me and perfect to overlap sheedy, who wasn't the most energetic
 
The only player in his position who it cannot be debated has ever in the history of Everton had anyone better than him is Neville Southall.

Easily the best goalkeeper in our history.

Even Alan Ball you could say has had peers, like Ross Barkley and Steven Pienaar

It was going so well with the first two lines heading towards a “like” then boom - line three - so in the end I just laughed and moved on!
 
You can pick any game you want. The amount of space, the amount of touches attackers can take, the intensity. It all doesn't stand up to what the average PL game produces now.

I don't want to come off like I'm completely bashing the old days, but I just hate that people act like the game hasn't progressed over 30+ years.

It's a different sport but the same argument:
I will pick forest v the R /s in the European cup two legs , watch it and tell me about intensity , Forest didn't give them an inch, and Liverpool had some of there legendary players the pitch.
its a different game , but it doesn't make the modern players automatically better than those in the passed.
Do you think the current Everton team would live with the eighties version ?
They would be outplayed fairly easily, Sharp and Gray v Mina and Holgate?
The midfield would be a walk in the park for the old lot,
in defence they had rats who was rapid, physio pat, who despite the hardman tag was a good player, fast good in the air and could tackle like nothing we have had for years.
a classy England international at fullback also as fast as anything we currently have and topped of by Mountfield who going up for corners with some of the others would not be a pretty sight for the likes of Pickford with Gray bearing down on him, and co who can't defend at the best of times.
DLC and Richo might cause them trouble but dont think they would see enough of the ball to do much really
to simplify it Pickford is currently rated one of the best in the pre m , England 's number one are you honestly saying despite all the advantage of training ect he is better than Southall.
its a different game certainly not better.
I actually think modern keepers are not at a decent level compared most era's i have watched football.
Everton last time they won the league played something like 26 over the season including some players a lot would struggle to recall , but they had something about them you couldn't teach a will to win , play as a unit, adapt to change and you can't teach or train that even with modern methods, I wish we could.
 

Weird that there are some people on here who don't think Alan Ball was as good as Pienaar and Barkley. There's an argument that he was better than both!
 
...the mid-80s side is still a blueprint for organisation, blend, ability and attitude. We’ve had plenty of very good players since, but their inclusion in that side wouldn’t necessarily have enhanced it.

The pace and athleticism in the back four, 3 players with Rolls Royce engines in Stevens, Ratcliffe and van den Hauwe, ahead of an almost unbeatable keeper. A central midfield partnership who played as a pair and hunted in a pack. Two wide midfielders who created and scored a bundle. An outstanding CF who was a foil for the whole team and in partnership with a teammate was feared by defenders across Europe.

Can’t see the likes of Lukaku and Baines getting into that side. Perhaps Gueye and Cahill wouldn’t have disrupted it too much.
only player i can think of that might of fitted in well was an early Rooney as he had the work ethic and skill to combine with the rest.
Rom and a few others talked about were good players but would they fit into the team to make it better, Gary lineker for example great player , possibly the best goal scorer, latch being the only other one, i have seen in a blue shirt but he disrupted the team pattern.
 
The only player in his position who it cannot be debated has ever in the history of Everton had anyone better than him is Neville Southall.

Easily the best goalkeeper in our history.

Even Alan Ball you could say has had peers, like Ross Barkley and Steven Pienaar :red:

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha *paues for breath* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
 
I agree it is very hard to do, but that is because the teams of today are vastly superior to the teams of the 80s and those teams superior to the teams of the 30s.

I know it is hard to admit, everyone suffers from the "back in my day" nostalgia, but the game has improved significantly. The top players today would be strolling around without being touched for 90 minutes. You can't kick them out of the game if you can't ever get close enough to touch them.

This happens a lot with the NBA too. "These guys couldn't handle the physicality of the 90s!!" It isn't true at all but it is hard to say the skill level hasn't improved so that's what is left.

I agree with you Its very hard to compare one periods teams or players to another because the game changes over time, so there are so many variables to consider. But I think if you bare that in mind it is still possible to answer the question.

So to answer the question properly its perhaps better to imagine if you took a player from today and put him in the squad at the time, with the diet and training available. If you took *some* of the players from todays squad and put them in the league in 1985 they would struggle. Others would do ok. I'm pretty sure Baines would still stand out as a great player - although perhaps wouldn't provide the same balance down the left and side with Sheedy that Pat Van Den Hauwe did.

Similarly If you took someone like Adrian Heath and gave him todays training he would wipe the floor with alot of the players in the current squad. His touch, technique and movement off the ball were fantastic, and he managed to do it on heavy muddy pitches, whilst getting kicked, using a football that was much heavier than the ones we have today. His attitude was also fantastic, he would never give up the cause. The same goes for Trevor Steven. Despite the football back then not being the fancy glamourous stuff we have now, you can still clearly see the ability there when you watch the games.
 

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