It’s not healthy the amount of disdain I have for the man 😂.

There were less international games back then. In addition to this, the qualifying was more streamlined.

For example, qualification in Europe for the 1974 World Cup was made up of 9 groups - 5 groups of 4 and 4 groups of 3. Some teams only played 4 qualification games, the most anybody played was 6 games. In COMNEBOL, it was a similar format, now they play 17 games.

If you now add in more friendlies, nations league games etc and increased amount of teams for continental tournaments like the Euros. They’re playing way more games now, and more games against minnows in qualifying.

For example, of Cristiano Ronaldo’s 128 international goals (an incredible record btw). 11 of them have been against Luxembourg, 7 against Lithuania, 6 against Andorra, 5 against Armenia, 4 against Estonia and the Faroe Islands etc.

I absolutely do mind personally. Teams will always have levels of dominance, you can go back over history to see that. However, with English football now, there seems to be a completely closed shop, only amplified by FFP. The game is a money game now and unfortunately other sides cannot catch up to the contenders without spending big, which comes with big risks.

Mark Noble. Looked like a little school prefect prick with his high shorts and his hair flapping in the wind. Little grass. Zero logic behind it but I’ve long prayed on the man’s downfall.

I do think international goals hold less weight these days, due to the amount of games played. Especially European nations playing the likes of San Marino, Luxembourg, Andorra etc more often.

In person: Either Segundo Castillo for Everton v Standard Liege. Shite player, unreal strike. Or Jermaine Beckford v Chelsea, best shit goal of all time

I mean not bang average overall but bang average as a prem player it’s got to be Erik Edman for Spurs v Liverpool.

I swear I remember Makakula starting up front against us at Goodison one year. A PES 6 hero 😂.

James Rodriguez and I genuinely don’t think it’s close.

1. 2022
2. 2002
3. 2018
4. 2006
5. 2014
6. 2010

IMO

They have Eriksen, Mount and Bruno Fernandes. Griezmann is better than all of them but it would be a nonsensical transfer.

In terms of at their prime it’s Yaya Toure IMO. Unstoppable when he moved further forward.

If you’re going off longevity, I’m an Everton fan but Gerrard was the most rounded of him, Scholes and Lampard. Vieira was exceptional too.

Thomas Repka. Think he set a record for bookings in a season and got sent off 20 times over his career.

The first thing I would do is actually scrap FFP. It creates an uneven playing field by design.

I would definitely introduce a wage cap to some extent. I’d like to think it would prevent players leaving “smaller” clubs to join smaller clubs to sit on the bench (Kalvin Philips for example). Say if there was a particular wage cap but you were allowed 2 players over the cap.