Today's standard

[Toffeeforme]

My brother went the game today. Hes home from Oz and been there years. After the game he remarked how poor the players are now. It got me really thinking that the game is at its poorest ive ever seen in 50 years. Playing on bowling greens and still cant make a simple pass or dribble or even stay on their feet. Players like Ndaiye used to be everywhere.

 

[BullensRoad]

My brother went the game today. Hes home from Oz and been there years. After the game he remarked how poor the players are now. It got me really thinking that the game is at its poorest ive ever seen in 50 years. Playing on bowling greens and still cant make a simple pass or dribble or even stay on their feet. Players like Ndaiye used to be everywhere.

Your brother sounds like a fire breather mate. Rein him in.

 

[hallamblue]

The pitch was bobbly today which didn't help but we are a poor team and their passing in the first half was atrocious, they kept giving us the ball under little or no pressure.

 

[Marcus Kendall]

My brother went the game today. Hes home from Oz and been there years. After the game he remarked how poor the players are now. It got me really thinking that the game is at its poorest ive ever seen in 50 years. Playing on bowling greens and still cant make a simple pass or dribble or even stay on their feet. Players like Ndaiye used to be everywhere.

I said something similar earlier, I think of all the great ballers in the 80s 90s and 00s and when I see today's players I struggle to see anyone even close to those levels. Despite the pause Salah gets for instance he's really just a poor man's Messi. Mbappe us roughly Thierry Henry level and he's seen as the world's best. As for defenders I don't see any who are remotely in Baresi and Maldinis league

 

[ste d' indica]

My brother went the game today. Hes home from Oz and been there years. After the game he remarked how poor the players are now. It got me really thinking that the game is at its poorest ive ever seen in 50 years. Playing on bowling greens and still cant make a simple pass or dribble or even stay on their feet. Players like Ndaiye used to be everywhere.

I suggest you make him watch a couple of games of The Big Match and have another run at this.

 

[MACCA75]

My brother went the game today. Hes home from Oz and been there years. After the game he remarked how poor the players are now. It got me really thinking that the game is at its poorest ive ever seen in 50 years. Playing on bowling greens and still cant make a simple pass or dribble or even stay on their feet. Players like Ndaiye used to be everywhere.

That’s nonsense tbh, the players are way more technical now than years ago. It’s far less physical which may be to its detriment, but the Prem has the most technically gifted players in the world, which it certainly didn’t 50 years ago.

 

[hallamblue]

Quicker game these days which leaves little room for skill.

 

[Dymak]

I was expecting a story in a newspaper.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

The pitch was bobbly today which didn't help but we are a poor team and their passing in the first half was atrocious, they kept giving us the ball under little or no pressure.

We didn’t play outstanding football in the first half or anything, we were just very aggressive and fighting for everything against one of the worst United teams I’ve seen in a while. Can’t believe the went for that De Ligt over Branthwaite.
Wasnt a showcase for great technical football.

 

[Eggs]

….i’m a big believer in ‘street football’ truly engineered the quality of yesteryear. It’s not rocket science, if we weren’t in school we were playing footy. We honed our skillset with a ball stuck to our feet for 10 hours a day. We loved it, we became talented.

Taking control of a football on uneven streets or ‘ollers’, endless completion against your mates. Nowadays, it’s Academy football for the few a couple of nights per week, TV and computer games the rest of the time. Clubs take youngsters and make it feel like they’re doing parents a favour when they should be treating it as a privilege.

The quality is not as good from the top of the game to the bottom. The reasons are obvious.

 

[Benno]

….i’m a big believer in ‘street football’ truly engineered the quality of yesteryear. It’s not rocket science, if we weren’t in school we were playing footy. We honed our skillset with a ball stuck to our feet for 10 hours a day. We loved it, we became talented.

Taking control of a football on uneven streets or ‘ollers’, endless completion against your mates. Nowadays, it’s Academy football for the few a couple of nights per week, TV and computer games the rest of the time. Clubs take youngsters and make it feel like they’re doing parents a favour when they should be treating it as a privilege.

The quality is not as good from the top of the game to the bottom. The reasons are obvious.

Agreed Eggs and at academies they get maybe a hundred touches where you get 2000 in 30 minutes with a ball up against the wall. I remember Peter Beardsley’s saying it was one and a half miles to the field so he’d hit the ball against th eeall all the way there and the target was that the ball couldnt leave the pavement.

 

[matty1878]

The pitch was bobbly today which didn't help but we are a poor team and their passing in the first half was atrocious, they kept giving us the ball under little or no pressure.

the pitch bobbly are you klopp?

 

[hallamblue]

the pitch bobbly are you klopp?

Hardly, I have all my own teeth!

 

[Drico]

….i’m a big believer in ‘street football’ truly engineered the quality of yesteryear. It’s not rocket science, if we weren’t in school we were playing footy. We honed our skillset with a ball stuck to our feet for 10 hours a day. We loved it, we became talented.

Taking control of a football on uneven streets or ‘ollers’, endless completion against your mates. Nowadays, it’s Academy football for the few a couple of nights per week, TV and computer games the rest of the time. Clubs take youngsters and make it feel like they’re doing parents a favour when they should be treating it as a privilege.

The quality is not as good from the top of the game to the bottom. The reasons are obvious.

This entire discussion reminds me of a legendary debate on Irish TV back in the 90s.

"What makes a great player, Eamon?"

"Poverty and dictatorships, Bill."

 

[Eggs]

Agreed Eggs and at academies they get maybe a hundred touches where you get 2000 in 30 minutes with a ball up against the wall. I remember Peter Beardsley’s saying it was one and a half miles to the field so he’d hit the ball against th eeall all the way there and the target was that the ball couldnt leave the pavement.

….when I signed for the RS, they couldn’t speak to me for a full season because I played for Liverpool Schoolboys, that’s where the ladder of power was in the 70s. Representative school boy football was sacrasant.

My word, how the power has shifted to the clubs. Their interest is in themselves, they ditch 99% and then fans complain when a promising youngster chooses to move for the monies.