The unpopular football opinion thread

[TheBrownBottle]

17 minutes ago, ilikenewcastle said:

Just been reading some of the stuff about Given posted earlier this year and blimey it's way off. Twice got in the PFA team of the year (with suspect defences in front of him) and certainly saved us several points a season.

 

Rice is class, but the fees that get mentioned are absurd.

Rice is a good water carrier, but he’s not top rank.  Fees quotes are absurd.

 

Given had far too many flaws to be a genuinely first-rate keeper, but at his best peak was always one of the five or six best keepers in the PL.  His distribution, command of his area and claiming of crosses were all sub-par. 

[Guest]

5 substitutes. Pisses all over VAR as being the worst thing to happen to football in the last 5 or so years.

[bowlingcrofty]

1 hour ago, Optimistic Nut said:

5 substitutes. Pisses all over VAR as being the worst thing to happen to football in the last 5 or so years.

Almost certainly the end of an outfield player ending up in nets 

[Ben]

Ffs I'm no fan of Liverpool but this tram is stinking 

[The Butcher]

They must've had a better RB than Trent. 

[Tsunami]

Clemence

 

Neal

Hanson

VVD

Kennedy A

 

Gerrard 
Souness

Kennedy R

 

Dalglish

Rush

Barnes

 

Would absolutely destroy that team, can’t believe I can’t get Keegan, McDermott, Beardsley and a host of others in, I’m not old enough to remember Hunt/ Callaghan/ Stubbins et al but my team would take some beating. Could switch in Terry Mac for Ray Kennedy but feels better balanced.

 

The hard choices mention in the other post aren’t hard at all and are all wrong.

 

[Hanshithispantz]

The front 3 would be Salah, Suarez & Mane like, howay man.

 

Edit: Barnes for Mane mayebe, but Salah and Suarez are/were absurd.

 

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Hanshithispantz

[Tsunami]

I’d take Dalglish and Rush every time, absolutely unstoppable as a pair. Keegan was England Capt, European Footballer of the Year, Liverpool’s best player, a hero to me and I still can’t break that partnership up.

 

Makes Salah and Suarez look like show ponies imo. Great players and absolute nails.

[Hanshithispantz]

I mean it's all hypothetical like due to the improvements in fitness and tactics, didn't realise Rush had broke the 30 goal mark twice though!

 

[Tsunami]

Watch some videos of Rush and Dalglish together, Salah and Suarez could be very selfish. Rush and Dalglish were absolutely in tune. I get the fitness angle but these boys were getting kicked to shit every week. Luckily for Liverpool referees let Souness/ Case/ McMahon kick more shit out of the oppo. When we played them in KK’s FA Cup return Hanson/ Gillespie or Lawrenson (can’t remember who played) kicked us all over the park.

[Hanshithispantz]

Aye, the fitness/tactics thing goes 2 ways to tbf, it's a shame there's no real way we can understand how players would fair in a different generation.

 

The rolling around in the modern game is tactical though, I think Dalglish would be doing the same thing today, as hard as it probably is to imagine 

 

 

 

 

[Guest HTT II]

I think any decent footballer from any era would still be decent today and maybe even better, I find in modern football tactics alone can actually stifle decent footballers, where as they may help less talented players. Rafa with us being a case in example how tactically average players performed better due to his tactics. 

[Guest HTT II]

If you watch old footage of LFC from the 70s and 80s, some of their football was out of this world and they had some team, and consistently. Barnes, Rush and Dalglish had it all and then you could argue about Beardsley, Aldridge, Toshack and or Keegan in an all-time LFC side. Salah, Mane and Suarez are a sexy front 3 mind, absolutely devastating in every way on and off the ball.

 

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by HTT II

[Hanshithispantz]

Things are better down to an academy level though so across the board the standard of players will be much higher today.

 

I mean the Championship today is probably a better standard of football than Div 1 in the 70s.

 

I agree you would still have to imagine that the cream of the crop from any generation would be great at any point in time though. Maths init. 

[Guest HTT II]

9 minutes ago, Hanshithispantz said:

Things are better down to an academy level though so across the board the standard of players will be much higher today.

 

I mean the Championship today is probably a better standard of football than Div 1 in the 70s.

 

I agree you would still have to imagine that the cream of the crop from any generation would be great at any point in time though. Maths init. 

Gazza, Waddle and Beardsley are all on record saying they would never have made it in a modern day academy, although you’d imagine an academy today would help them with any issues in terms of nutrition, fitness and wanting to be mere street footballers.

[Guest HTT II]

It’s hard to gauge because Maradona, would he have had his flair knocked out of him tactically today? Rooney in the 80s would have been up there with Maradona, and as great as he was, Fergie and the modern game kind of knocked his natural flair and street footballer temperament out of him. But would he have been as successful had that not happened? There is a saying cream always rises to the top, I’ll stick with that when it comes to top footballers of any era. They and clubs would find a way.

[LV]

1 hour ago, Hanshithispantz said:

The front 3 would be Salah, Suarez & Mane like, howay man.

 

Edit: Barnes for Mane mayebe, but Salah and Suarez are/were absurd.

 

 

 

Not a chance they get in over Rush and Dalglish 

[Guest HTT II]

Rush as a CF basically was the first striker to press like many do/have to do today in the modern game and Dalglish could play anywhere on the park he was that good. Barnes could play either flank, through the centre or in central midfield. 

[Guest HTT II]

He flopped in Italy Rush because the game was much slower and there was no need for the press back then, and he was limited technically deeper.

[JonBez comesock]

Fack Liverpool 

[The Prophet]

NUFC fans overrate Dan Burn.

[Tsunami]

Some clips of Ray Kennedy, a bit of a forgotten Rolls Royce player. That lad Keegan looks a bit useful as well. Liverpool have been spoilt over the years.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ray+kennedy&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=inv&sxsrf=ALiCzsbLUJ-lI5Bc4dPn5NMovMaMazY19Q:1655022641424&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicp4zlv6f4AhWON8AKHTLmAGYQ_AUoA3oECAIQAw&biw=390&bih=664&dpr=3#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:e58886a7,vid:h01pInKbsKU,st:0

[Ghandis Flip-Flop]

I think people forget how good Toshack and Hughes were together too tbh. But that’s recency bias for you

[Kid Icarus]

3 hours ago, Tsunami said:

Clemence

 

Neal

Hanson

VVD

Kennedy A

 

Gerrard 
Souness

Kennedy R

 

Dalglish

Rush

Barnes

 

Would absolutely destroy that team, can’t believe I can’t get Keegan, McDermott, Beardsley and a host of others in, I’m not old enough to remember Hunt/ Callaghan/ Stubbins et al but my team would take some beating. Could switch in Terry Mac for Ray Kennedy but feels better balanced.

 

The hard choices mention in the other post aren’t hard at all and are all wrong.

 

 

 

This is Carragher's for what it's worth. 

 

Clemence

 

Alexander-Arnold

Hansen

Van Dijk

Nichol

 

Salah

Souness

Gerrard

Barnes

 

Rush

Dalglish

[ponsaelius]

Watching football footage from the 70s and 80s is a bit of a joke tbh. The standard is so poor by modern standards. If you're doing a combined team over decades it's very difficult because a modern PL team would obliterate a side from that era.

 

You basically have to judge players entirely on the era they played in - and presume they'd have been better with modern training, fitness, tactics and rule changes.

 

However there is also the fact that football is far more global now, and that you're competing with a much bigger pool of players - the best of which are funneled into Europe and England.