No Van Dijk, no Fabinho, no Thiago, no Henderson, no Firmino
Ok not a full B team but that’s still first choice and best cenreback, first choice misfiled three with key holding mid, first choice central striker all out.
The spine of the team. Now we all know the impact losing the spine of the team has had on us. Most premier league sides missing their spine would suffer.
Liverpool went away to a top 6 team, went a goal down and still just utterly motored them, and were still pushing for the winner even with ten men.
When will people start to twig on that these sort of things we’ve seen over the last few seasons aren’t normal in top level sport.
Teams fitness levels should be pretty similar. There should be minuscule fitness advantages in games. Game should be decided on moments of quality with the better teams winning more games over the course of a season but not even game every time and especially not if they’re missing that quality through injury or loss of form.
What we’ve seen from City and Liverpool recently, smothering some of the best teams in the prem even away from home, scoring last minute winners every game, winning runs of over 10 games multiple times, beating very good teams without their best players, playing in Europe then playing a few days later and with the same players decimating another premier league team away from home. Going away to top European teams and smashing them 4 or 5 routinely. Winning leagues without even needing a central striker, 5th choice centrebacks pocketing top opposition strikers after previously looking like a pub player.
These things aren’t normal. Every record under the sun is falling to these two. When I look at their squads I don’t even see generational talents like you could argue Barca Bayern or Madrid have had.
Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Alves, fair enough, just world class players in any era all together at once.
Ronaldo, Modric, Ramos, Kroos, all brilliant in other teams as well and under several other managers and internationally
Neuer Lahm Schweinsteiger Muller, they all won a World Cup as well as everything with Bayern
Salah Mane Van Dijk Robertson Fabinho Wijnaldum and Firmino were all bang average before they joined Liverpool, some of them were already in their mid 20s. Coutinho and Wijnaldum have been bang average since they left as well.
De Bruyne is a worldie, fair enough, but to be completely honest I’d never even really heard of Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Ferran Torres, Dias, Zinchenko before they moved to City. Fair enough if this was Kompany Toure Silva and Aguero setting these records I could maybe buy it a bit more but are these City players really so good that they are up there at the level of those Barca Bayern and Madrid teams? (Who by the way didn’t win as regularly as City and Liverpool have been)
Really ask yourself if you think this is just down to good management, and if so why hasn’t any previous manager in football history been able to recreate this? I mean Ferguson was a genius, had better players than these two, and a less competitive league at times and still couldn’t achieve this sort of dominance, even with his very best teams which player for players are light years above these two sides.
On pure stats these two teams are going to go down as two of the greatest teams in the history of football, and no one thinks it’s odd that they’ve both arrived at exactly the same time, both had a massive dip in form after the same duration of improved form, and both show no signs of slowing down or letting up, just relentless relentless winning. Another season most probably of a plus 90 points score. Remember when this was almost impossible, only achieved by the very best premier league teams? Now it’s getting done most seasons.
People must see this is wrong.
