The standard of comparison can’t be one of the top 3 strikers of the century :P

Ya no shit, hes a legend.

Hes got everything to be a PL legend-

1. He broke the scoring record and set a new one, albeit the life of that being a few years - that answers the question of setting benchmarks
2. Hes a PL winner, and multiple times been on teams with 95+ points - that answers the question of legacy to the fans
3. Hes scored more than 20+ goals 4 times in PL and twice 19 goals, while oncourse for another 20 goal season this time as well. Talk about consistency- i think only Henry, Shearer, Kane has these kinda numbers
4. Hes had tremendous success against UTD,Everton,Chelsea and City - the rivals, big teams Liverpool was competing with.

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Ya safe to say hes a PL legend and future HOF.

Not really- i mean for sure EPL is a level above Bundesliga- but you aren’t considering everything here.

Kane went from playing a hybrid 9/10 role at Spurs (Let that sink in) to a proper 9 at fucking Bayern Munch. If he went to Leverkusen and did the same numbers or better his spurs numbers - it made more sense to compare.

Lewadowski went from Bayern and joined a Barca in transition - after his peak (the most important part). Hes not getting the service hes used to and Barca don’t play to feed a number 9 his chances, which is why Suarez thrived there- you need to be more well-rounded. Hes doing just fine- but hes lot a bit of his clinical finish killer instinct with age, injury and post WC fatigue.

I mean I am all for experimentation - but can’t we get another name than “Sin-Bin” - sounds soo… dirty ifykwim.

1. Less attacking football
2. Lot of leading scorers were overtaken recently - Muller, Pele, etc
3. More qualifiers etc due to more teams playing WC/Euro/Copa etc

You guys beat them in the final of Copa America in Maracana to end the trophy drought of 18 years. What would he call that then , lol :P

I don;t think messi had any of his GOAT level 10/10 games in 2022 WC but barring the match against Saudi he gave a solid 8-9 in every single game. The best of the 3 being the last 3 matches against Dutch, Croatians and the French.

Athleticism-improved
Tactical awareness-improved

Individual skill - gone down.

Reason: Managers are scrutinised more than ever where the Roman Abrahimovich or Real Madrid model of firing managers are followed by even mid-level clubs. This leads to managers having to take conservative approach of avoiding a loss first than going for the win-meaning more players are discouraged from being individualistic and getting in line with the team tactics, hence lesser exciting players and lesser skilled players. Essentially the effect of corporate profit and too much statistical analysis. The same thing happens in the NBA with everyone being a 3-point merchant because that is the best thing to do to get points but brings the excitement down.

Nothing like that per say, i think this happens to players across leagues and what matters is PR. I might get downvoted for this but Griezmann for last 1.5 seasons is as good as any player in EPL but he was 21st in BallonDor.

Owen - got lucky imo.
Henry - robbed
Lampard/Gerrarad - unlucky to be in same year as Ronaldinho
Ronaldo - deserved winner
Torres - slightly lucky, on pure merit he wasn’t the 3rd best player in the world maybe top 5 though
Suarez - he had the bad PR- like racisty guy who bites people and also didn’t play UCL. Keep in mind despite being arguably the best player in the world in 2016 he couldn’t crack top 3 ballondor even with Barca backing- so its more to do with player than the league
Messi 2018- he was 5th lol, no way.
Salah- deservedly top 3, he was never at any point the best player in the world barring few gamedays
VVD - it was the tightest ballondor imo - only lost it cos of the out of the world messi season and even then it was so tight
Haaland - same again, coinciding with something extra ordinary always creates that situation. Keep in mind Dinho lead Barca to a League and UCL double after 12 years and lost the Balondor to Cannavao in 2006

I think there has been 3 players who were the absolute best in the world in ability backed by stats at any point in time in last 23 years in EPL - Henry, Ronaldo, Suarez. EPL is more of a collection of amazing players spread across doing well in teams than the absolute best players in the world in 1-2 teams.

If you take top 10-20 players in history, I can only recall Charlton, George Best, Ronaldo who played in EPL and 2 of them played like 50 years ago. If you expand that to top 50 you will probably have like another 5-10 players as well. So that tells you so far, the absolute best players in the world don’t necessarily play in EPL - but this can change going forward considering the shift in economics imo.

Nothing like that per say, i think this happens to players across leagues and what matters is PR. I might get downvoted for this but Griezmann for last 1.5 seasons is as good as any player in EPL but he was 21st in BallonDor.

Owen - got lucky imo.
Henry - robbed
Lampard/Gerrarad - unlucky to be in same year as Ronaldinho
Ronaldo - deserved winner
Torres - slightly lucky, on pure merit he wasn’t the 3rd best player in the world maybe top 5 though
Suarez - he had the bad PR- like racisty guy who bites people and also didn’t play UCL. Keep in mind despite being arguably the best player in the world in 2016 he couldn’t crack top 3 ballondor even with Barca backing- so its more to do with player than the league
Messi 2018- he was 5th lol, no way.
Salah- deservedly top 3, he was never at any point the best player in the world barring few gamedays
VVD - it was the tightest ballondor imo - only lost it cos of the out of the world messi season and even then it was so tight
Haaland - same again, coinciding with something extra ordinary always creates that situation. Keep in mind Dinho lead Barca to a League and UCL double after 12 years and lost the Balondor to Cannavao in 2006

I think there has been 3 players who were the absolute best in the world in ability backed by stats at any point in time in last 23 years in EPL - Henry, Ronaldo, Suarez. EPL is more of a collection of amazing players spread across doing well in teams than the absolute best players in the world in 1-2 teams.

If you take top 10-20 players in history, I can only recall Charlton, George Best, Ronaldo who played in EPL and 2 of them played like 50 years ago. If you expand that to top 50 you will probably have like another 5-10 players as well. So that tells you so far, the absolute best players in the world don’t necessarily play in EPL - but this can change going forward considering the shift in economics imo.

Yes, but to reduce David Villa to that is an insult considering he scored the second most goals in a decade between 2000-2010 in La liga while actively playing few years into the decade and playing for Zaragoza and Valencia. He was only behind Eto by 14 goals despite playing 3 seasons lesser. He also won trophies with teams outside Barca and Madrid including multiple copa del rey and a league with Athletico where he literally scored the league winner in Camp Nou. I can say with utmost certainity hes a better goal scorer and striker than Klose and Muller who both have only about 60% of career goals as Villa despite playing in superior teams.

Germans won’t win - Yes they were more ruthless but Spain was lot more dominating in controlling things. That Spain team wasn’t just the midfield -Puyol, Pique and Ramos were no slouch and David Villa is a better striker than any Germany had. Not to mention the Spain bench was much better - they had fabregas, silva, mata, torres, pedro, cazrola lol

Suarez 2013-2014. I am not even going back by stats here- i think there was a genuine quality difference between him and the rest of the players - although not widely accepted at that time due to him being in Liverpool and his onfield antics , it was pretty clear that not only was Suarez worldclass, but he was also arguably a top 3 player in the world between 2013-2017. The rest of the Liverpool squad was either rookies, old veterans or bang average player compared to him.

I don’t think Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar, Bale, Iniesta etc where in a situation where they were essentially a 90+ player and the rest of the team had no one above 83-84.

KDB gives great throughballs - elite I would say. But it wasn’t his only weapon though, he could cross and whip it in better than most as well

Ozil,Fabregas and Messi were god level at through passes, Messi had this advantage that due to his dribbling - he could create a through ball opportunity that doesn’t exist by simply dribbling the 2 players in front of him and then through pass to the player running behind - like his through pass for David Villa in the famous 5-0. Only messi can do that cos the other mids won’t necessarily get past the first two players to begin with.

The best deep lying player amongst the Kroos, Pirlo, Scholes, Seedorfs - was Xavi - cos Barca played a lot by keeping the ball on the ground , he had the ability to slice through defensive lines more than anyone-the best behind messi imo and purely in throughballs-at the very top.