Yes I agree that older posters do have a better insight because they can compare players with more knowledge and authority having seen all these players playing regularly at the time. But at the same time people naturally tend to lean towards their favourites from their era (their childhood, or youth) and perhaps don’t take into account the relative standards of other teams in the division and other players compared to those standards at other times.
I think my point was that given some people have seen all of these players it gives them a better chance of deciding based on what they saw. If they choose to select a player because he was their favourite when they were a kid, then the same method will be applied by someone who only saw a few of those players play. Hence the need to read all of the write-ups and take them on face value.
Fowler was my hero, but I appreciate that the standard of defending in the Premier League is higher today than it was in the mid-1990s and that has to be taken into account. There is a reason forwards seldom top 30 league goals now, however in the mid-90s when teams were far less organised before the influx of world class coaches and defenders were still sought for their physicality first and foremost Robbie and Shearer hit 30 goals in consecutive seasons.
I would say that with players of the quality of Shearer and Fowler, you had goalscorers who would always be the best. If they were around now and didn’t score 30 or 40 a season, then they would still have more than anyone else.
Look at Liddell, he scored goals for fun in 5 different positions in a shit Liverpool team. I would imagine if he were playing today he’d be right up there.
Likewise did Emlyn face attackers of the quality of Henry, Torres, Ronaldo – truly world class strikers – in England in the 1970s? When we dominated the league in the 1980s was it as tough as it is now?
I read all the write-ups but what strikes me about Hughes for example (and why I mentioned nostalgia and why I think it might be clouding some people’s opinions) is that this is the CB category and a lot of the memories seem to be based on his time as a midfielder, the goals he scored, his energy and work rate and all round game. But was he a better pure defender than Sami? Did he read the game as well, was he as clean a tackler (Sami was rarely booked) and was he as commanding in the air? I’m not so sure.
Don’t forget that Emlyn played in Europe every season against some world class players and was never left wanting. He was also Liverpool’s most capped England player at one time, so I’ve no doubt he would have been found out as he played as a Centre back, a full back and in midfield for England.
If comparing one player with another is how people are going to do it, then so be it. However a case could be made for many different partnerships. If you are talking about simply out and out defenders, then was Hansen as commanding in the air as Yeats. Or was Thompson as physical as Hyypia. You could go on and on.
The point is seeing them all is surely a positive aid to selection rather than a negative one, providing it’s based on what you are looking for from the player and not just looking through rose tinted glasses. That can be done by anyone as you have said.
So it doesn’t matter if they started watching in the 60s or the 90s.
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