Bale

I laughed at the list, not Giggs in particular

Explain to me why you think Coutinho is better than Falque?

Why would you laugh at a list of players most of who you have not seen?

Are you re tarded?

Iago Falque > Coutinho

You haven't seen Falque play so you can't have an opinion on this statement

I don't have an opinion on that. Again not sure what your point is. You do write some utter bollox.

At least we can all agree that a prime Bale > Prime Giggs

You clearly do have an opinion on it tho. Which is my point. You can judge a player without watching them. I've never seen the reserve keeper at Caen play but I know that Lloris is better

I'd doubt it yes but no I genuinely don't have an opinion. Certainly not one that I would air to an information super highway because I'm not an arrogant little chump.

Prime Bale > Prime Giggs yes but I'd put prime Gazza above both if it's based on the level they reached but that doesn't seem right. Giggs may not make top ten either really.

comment by Analog (U17200)
posted 11 hours, 16 minutes ago
You clearly do have an opinion on it tho. Which is my point. You can judge a player without watching them. I've never seen the reserve keeper at Caen play but I know that Lloris is better
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This is an odd point you're arguing now, because nobody's actually suggested Iago Falqué might be better. Regardless of that though, let me ask you this: whose opinion would you consider better informed when it came to drawing comparisons between the two, a football scout who's watched both players dozens of times, or that of a Liverpool fan who's only ever watched Coutinho during his time at the club?

I ask, because what you seem to be implying is that your opinion on players you've never watched is every bit as valid as that of people who've been watching football for 30 or 40 years and have actually witnessed much of the careers of the players in question.

You've reached a series of theoretical conclusions that you think validate your opinions to the point that they are as well-informed as those of people with far more direct knowledge.

The reality is that they don't, and they're not.

Bale should've joined United.
Would have had a much better career and a damn good replacement for Giggs

As an aside, your reasoning for concluding that a particular footballer today is better than others from yesteryear is full of erroneous assumptions, and is therefore flawed. For example:

1. "What you're forgetting is that all the leagues only had domestic players."

This is wrong. The majority were domestic, more than now, that is true. All the big leagues, as well as UEFA, did allow a number of overseas players, however. In addition, different countries offered different clubs opportunities to bend or circumvent the rules.

2. Your synonymous use of "British" and "domestic" game is also wrong, and completely ignores both the existence of a domestic game in the other home nations and the English game's predation thereof.


3. "[...] the fairest comparison we can make is their respective efforts in European games"

- Wrong. Based on? It seems to you to be the fairest comparison, but you are missing the single-most basic of comparison, which is the actual experience of watching them framed in the respective realities of their times.

4. "In that case, it's hard to argue against Bale being top 10"

Again, how? Even if European performances were the only basis, you would still be drawing this conclusion based on your (presumably) extensive knowledge of Bale's European performances against your relatively non-existent knowledge of literally hundreds of British footballers' performances in Europe, and the respective platforms on which each individual player has been able to showcase his talent.


5. "a lot of older fans will always side with the players they grew up watching"

Not only speculative, but also heavily skewed and one-eyed. You make this claim seemingly without the presence of mind to recognise that you yourself could very well be guilty of doing exactly the same in advocating the player(s) you might have a greater attachment to because you have grown/are growing up watching them. Moreover, you are doing so without the aforementioned crucial element of direct experience for comparison.

Who would logic dictate to be reaching the more biased conclusion in this case?

6. Last but not least, your conclusion also seems to lean on the notion that the average footballer in the PL today being better than the average player 30 or 40 years ago directly means that best, second, third and fourth best, etc., are all better than their equivalents in those days.

That's a completely erroneous conclusion to draw. It's like saying that because the Canary Islands have many more hours of sunshine than England, then every single day must also be sunnier, when that obviously isn't and cannot be the case. It's just another clearly flawed assumption.


Your conclusions might not appear to you to be that far off when looked at in isolation, but when you add them all together the margin of error for your conclusions is absolutely huge.