Serie A’s quite clearly far weaker, though. I’d say Madrid and Barca’s goal tallies are massively down to Messi and Ronaldo. Since Ronaldo left Madrid are scoring fewer goals than they usually did in the 90’s and 00’s. It will vary from league to league as well.

Even though I do agree it’s probably easier to score nowadays, I don’t think that should detract from what Suarez has achieved. It’s not just his goal scoring either, he’s often one of the top assisters in football - I believe he’s in the top ten assisters in La Liga history. I think this should put him firmly in the argument as the best striker in the last 30 years. Not just in La Liga, but anywhere.

Even tho Ronaldo was physically clearly done for a good while his goal scoring rate never really dropped too badly bar his last season at Madrid. Gave me such joy as a kid watching him, my absolute hero. Had a goldfish named after him Him, Shearer and Ketsbaia strangely.

romario was an amazing player

one of the best box players i've ever seen

seems to be some doubt about how good he was ?

Does there? I was just suggesting that one good season in Spain isn’t enough to put you in the conversation for best striker to play in La Liga. Even if it was an amazing season.

liked the girls and the party life too much

cant say i blame him

Typical Brazilian.

It was almost unfair bringing Greenwood, Rashford and Bruno on. The difference was instant.

Poor game though overall but it was to be expected given the set up and who was playing.

I know it was a heavily changed side but I still get really frustrated at watching a United team full of slow players who want to come inside flanked by full-backs who can't/won't attack.

The most frustrating thing for me is our movement. Even when we’ve got all our best players on it’s still not that good.

I don't think our movement and positioning will improve a great deal more under the current coaching set up.

Getting better players in will paper over these cracks to some extent, the same as it will when it comes to our build up but I don't see those things ever improving to a good enough level for us to challenge Liverpool or City, not while Klopp and Pep are still at those clubs.

No doubt. I think it’s an experience and intelligence thing with some of them, though. Particular our front three. Lingard, for example, has a really good understanding of space and how to move off the ball. He’s just poor with it. Our front three haven’t developed that understanding. Coaching will obviously help, but some players just don’t develop to the highest standard. It’s a very underrated trait. I miss Hernandez.

I think our front three could be devastating given the right coaching set up.

I quite like Lingard. I know it’s a bit of a jokey thing but think he’d do well if he does go spurs.

comment by peks - 1974 (U6618)
posted 1 hour, 30 minutes ago
romario was an amazing player

one of the best box players i've ever seen

seems to be some doubt about how good he was ?


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No real doubt but maybe just ignorance. Feel like you know these players were good but without seeing them live it’s always hard to judge.

Yeah so do I. They’ve been devastating at times even under Ole. But I think movement is a flaw in their game as we are right now. Particularly Martial, though he’s actually improved there this season.

I seriously doubt Spurs would sign Lingard. I think he’d be better off at somewhere like Everton. Though I’m not sure it we’d want to sell to a team we’ll be competing with.

No I don't think Spurs are in for Lingard either. Maybe Bielsa could find some use for him although hopefully he's really pushing for Leeds to sign Dan James.

Odegaard positive for the plague

Bielsa loves a challenge.

comment by it'sonlyagame - ¡Ese Cadi, oé! (U6426)
posted 12 hours, 55 minutes ago
I don’t really have the time to look it up, but I’d wager that if you took the top 5 scorers from the top leagues in each season and looked at their average tallies, you’d find that they’ve been higher over the past decade than at any other point since the 1970s.

Focussing on Spain, if you took the big 2’s goals per season by decade, you’d find a similar trend.

Would anyone here think Higuaín or Immobile would have broken all time Serie A records at the time Batistuta or del Piero were topping the scoring charts there? I certainly don’t.
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As Daz said, it was more a point about the conditioning and not the volume of goals - which is something I never used as justification for why he may be the best. While I think it is easier to score now it’s also tough to evaluate when Ronaldo/Messi have broken history to an extent we will probably never see again in our lifetimes. It you look at the goals scores by the best strikers around the later 80s early 90s in La Liga they aren’t far off Suarez level of numbers in terms of goals scored

Looking into it all a bit further this quite interestingly summarises goal per games throughout la Liga history

https://www.worldfootball.net/stats/esp-primera-division/1/

Also for PL (looking like the one league where scoring goals has actually gotten harder in recent years)
https://www.worldfootball.net/stats/eng-premier-league/1/

This Suarez affair is amazing. Apparently he cheated on his Italian language test.

That requires skills tbf

Or a bent Rube lawyer.

comment by Edinspur (U1109)
posted 1 day, 4 hours ago
Looking into it all a bit further this quite interestingly summarises goal per games throughout la Liga history

https://www.worldfootball.net/stats/esp-primera-division/1/

Also for PL (looking like the one league where scoring goals has actually gotten harder in recent years)
https://www.worldfootball.net/stats/eng-premier-league/1/

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I specifically referred to how the playing field has become far more tilted and to the average no. of goals scored by the big 2. Even though both Madrid and Barcelona scored loads in certain seasons, they were rarely both doing it at the same time and those seasons were generally outliers as opposed to the consistency with which they have both hit them for most of this decade. The points tallies also show how imbalanced the league has been this decade. It’s not like this really needed pointing out.

Yes, Ronaldo and Messi have distorted the numbers, but they’ve also contributed to making it that much easier for their fellow forwards to score and rack up assists.

I certainly think Suárez should be in the conversation. I don’t think it’s that straightforward as looking at their goal stats on a 1-for-1 basis. As for assists, I’m not even sure if they have been reliably compiled for seasons when they weren’t systematically recorded.

Not sure about La Liga, but I’m pretty sure the statisticians have gone back and re-recorded the assists stats in the prem.

The Messi/Ronaldo thing is interesting. Not all the players they’ve played with have excelled with them being the main focus of the attack - particularly Messi, a lot of attackers have struggled to have the same impact they’ve had elsewhere as everything goes through him.

I think Suarez and Benzema have done really well in adapting themselves to work around them for so long.

TRS, I think this may rival the Quaresma announcement video.

https://twitter.com/ESPNUK/status/1309121611619012612?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet