Virgil van Dijk

[Doc_Piptorious]

Good shout on Paul McGrath.

Ask an ex-colleague who the best player they played with, and a lot of them will say him. He was amazing. Imagine what he'd have been like if he wasnt ******ed most of the time.

I attended the first tour of lfcs axa stadium and they had john Aldridge there as a guest speaker. He was asked who was the best player he'd played with was and he rattled off a load of amazing names...... Barnes, Rush, Beardsley, Brady, Hansen..........and then said Paul McGrath was hands down the best teammate or opponent he'd faced.

I always assumed it was just taken for granted that McGrath had been a world class CB.

[Charly]

Apparently he never trained in his later years due to his dodgy knees. Shows you how unfit they must have been in comparison to today that he could get away with that, while being on the lash. I think any team from the 70s and 80s would get smashed by the pace today. I still remember the resistance to Wenger and Houllier when they eanted players to stop drink and eat nutriciously.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Apparently he never trained in his later years due to his dodgy knees. Shows you how unfit they must have been in comparison to today that he could get away with that, while being on the lash. I think any team from the 70s and 80s would get smashed by the pace today. I still remember the resistance to Wenger and Houllier when they eanted players to stop drink and eat nutriciously.

He was unable to do any training aside from basic keeping fit stuff.

So not think it shows how unfit players were then more how good he was that he was only doing basic training but still schooling guys that were at 100%


McGrath was also outstanding for Aston Villa in the Premier league in the early to mid 1990s so was regularly going up against attackers who now are being called some of the best to have played in the Premier league.

[Corndog]

There’s no doubt they weren’t as quick or fit as todays professionals.

Just watching the games of the 70s and 80s and you can see how much slower the game is.

[red g]

Which is why its always a bit of an unfair comparison,. The players now have every luxury and help professionally they could ever need.

Could the likes of VVD and other modern day footballers still look good smoking 20 a day with 10 pints of lager and a whisky chaser before the game?

[Doc_Piptorious]

There’s no doubt they weren’t as quick or fit as todays professionals.

Just watching the games of the 70s and 80s and you can see how much slower the game is.

McGrath did not play in the 1970s at all.

He played in the 1980s and right up to the end of the 1990s. His peak years in terms of performances and number of games played (as in seasons where he started most games and was a pillar of his team) were in the 1990s

[Charly]

Which is why its always a bit of an unfair comparison,. The players now have every luxury and help professionally they could ever need.

Could the likes of VVD and other modern day footballers still look good smoking 20 a day with 10 pints of lager and a whisky chaser before the game?

Absolutely not. But then does that mean VVD could be the best defender ever?

Makes you wonder if you dropped Haaland into the 80s what he would do to those teams.

Or the 90s and sharing a pitch with Dowie.

[Charly]

McGrath did not play in the 1970s at all.

He played in the 1980s and right up to the end of the 1990s. His peak years in terms of performances and number of games played (as in seasons where he started most games and was a pillar of his team) were in the 1990s

He's a bum [emoji16]

[Doc_Piptorious]

He's a bum [emoji16]

Well he was no Nat Phillips, that's for sure.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Absolutely not. But then does that mean VVD could be the best defender ever?

Makes you wonder if you dropped Haaland into the 80s what he would do to those teams.

Or the 90s and sharing a pitch with Dowie.

Souness would have levelled within 10 minutes into his first game against us and then stamped on him whilst he was on the ground.

[red g]

Yeh i can't think of many modern day footballers who would like to go back to football in the seventiues!!

Conversely I am sure many of those 70s/80s greats could have been amazing in the modern game, Imagine Souness pumped full of PED's, He would be great for the 5 minutes he stayed on the pitch.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Yeh i can't think of many modern day footballers who would like to go back to football in the seventiues!!

Conversely I am sure many of those 70s/80s greats could have been amazing in the modern game, Imagine Souness pumped full of PED's, He would be great for the 5 minutes he stayed on the pitch.

Imagine Souness with modern training, modern tactics and his skill range. He would have been a great in any era.

[Kenneth]

no doubt in my mind

[kev776]

Modern day footballers don't even get dirty boots when it rains, the old pitches would slow them down considerably. Imagine Haaland staring at a ****ty 6 yard area wondering what the **** the brown wet stuff was.

[Fan65]

I remember being impressed by Spurs CB Ledley King, superb player but couldn’t train in the week towards the end of his career.