02 Mar 2026 18:20:33
Imagine these players in a proper 5 aside, 10 pitches stuck together, crap weather, getting slammed into the wooden surrounds and getting on with it! The likes of Cunha probably get airlifted if they played in one!
02 Mar 2026 21:14:02
These guys are machines. I think you may find that, whilst running circles around everyone, they would give back as much as they get.
02 Mar 2026 23:37:38
The game would improve immeasurably if officials stopped pandering to every complaint and punished simulation.
Imagine 22 athletes in peak fitness, competing physically and staying on their feet because they know going to ground would disadvantage their team.
The fluidity of the match and the competitiveness would be off the charts, but instead we have a game broken up by divers, time-wasters and a desperation to get a dead ball scenario.
03 Mar 2026 09:31:18
Sadly, I don't see a way back. You'd need to train a generation of referees that football is still a contact sport, a generation of footballers not to fall down and play for fouls, and a generation of fans who accept that things would be worse to watch while we wrestled through football getting to grips with the changes.
The best change they could make at the moment would be clearly defined rules that were not open to interpretation, and a squad of trained referees who can implement these rules consistently.
That would end the set piece blocking nonsense, reduce VAR breaks and ref-mobbing, and hopefully impact on things like diving, play-acting and invisible card-waving.
Unfortunately, players are pampered and somewhat detached from reality now, so they'll forever be a bit pathetic when it comes to contact during a game.
03 Mar 2026 10:13:42
I play Sunday league at a relatively good standard. I even played a handful of Step 6 games in the Spartan South League. However, I remember a couple of years ago in a cup my Sunday side got drawn against a team who won the top Sunday division in our local area (which was 1 or 2 leagues above us) every single season. I played against them and 10 of their 11 players were only as good as I am, and a few were probably actually slightly worse than I am. However, they had one geezer in the midfield who was just ridiculous, and was clearly just there to play with his mates. I'd look over my shoulder to check where he was, look back at the ball for 2 or 3 seconds, and then when I checked my shoulder again he was 30 yards away. I played 90 minutes against him in the midfield, and I didn't even get the chance to try and tackle him once. I think the closest I got to him was about 3 yards in open play. If I pressed him, the ball was gone with a first touch pass and I was taken out of the game.
If I stood off him, he'd sweep a 70 yard diagonal pass out to the far side of the pitch, and I was taken out of the game. It felt like when a Year 11 would join in with the Year 7s. He was the sole reason why his team won the top league every single season; he was that good.
After the game, I found out he plays Step 3 football. That's still 3 promotions below pro-football (League 2), by the way. There are levels to this sport. I can tell you for a fact that even the worst Premier League footballer you can think of would absolutely dominate you and your mates down your local cage. You wouldn't get within 5 yards of Cunha even if the pitch was a 30 by 30 yard box. If you did get near him, he'd be quicker and stronger than you anyway. If you and your mates were good enough to compete with a Prem footballer and slam them into the cage wall, you wouldn't even be playing 5 a side.
03 Mar 2026 10:56:40
I wonder if that kind of difference of levels is there with managers as well. So many armchair fans these days think they'd be World Cup winning coaches if they decided to put the 10pk of lager down and get up off their backside.
03 Mar 2026 11:19:10
Florian Musiala, I think that's a totally different argument entirely, though. It's a very easy thing to do to point out issues and offer solutions with the freedom of knowing you won't actually have to do it. Implementing those solutions and making them work practically is what is hard. Most fans don't claim they'd do a better job of managing a Premier League team, because they know they couldn't, but that doesn't mean they can't see blatant problems and call them out. The same applies to the players. We can watch a player and see their flaws or identify mistakes they made, but that doesn't mean we could actually do better.
For example, I can watch someone like Federico Chiesa and say with confidence that he is not good enough to start for Liverpool on a regular basis, and I can dissect his performances too.
But if you put me on the same pitch as him, he'd absolutely demolish me. When the fans criticise Arne Slot, they're not saying they can compete with him in his field or that they could do better, they're merely highlighting the blatant errors and giving a more than fair opinion that another professional manager/head coach could do better.
My manager is not and never has been an engineer, but they know what is expected of an engineer and can therefore criticise me if my work is not up to standard.
03 Mar 2026 12:05:59
All sport is like that. I also love cycling, and with the invention of power meters, you can actually compare how fit people are. For context, I am a decent standard club-level cyclist, fitter than your average mamil, but not race fit. Bradley Wiggins' 1-hour power during his 1-hour world record success was equivalent to what I can sustain for about 2-3 minutes.
A TDF racer was nearly 20 minutes quicker than me up an 11km mountain pass. I was minutes faster than my group, and the average person on the street couldn't ride it without stopping for a rest or even complete it. There really are levels in sport, and those at the highest levels of their sport are in another world to us mere mortals.
03 Mar 2026 12:47:20
No, it's actually the same argument, MK. Like you said to the OP, the levels these guys work at are mostly beyond our comprehension of the game. Players and managers. Slot and the other 19 Premier League managers see the game on a totally different level to all of us on here.
To say it's different between the two because it suits you to say so is ridiculous.
03 Mar 2026 13:24:15
Florian Musiala, you are deluded then mate. Sorry but that is absolute tosh. Being qualified to discuss and debate is not the same as being qualified to do. Have you ever heard of auditors? An auditors literal job to be able to understand and critique a process, even if they personally have no practical experience in what they're assessing.
You also might as well request this site be shut down if you think nobody outside of elite football is qualified to discuss it.
03 Mar 2026 14:52:20
"When the fans criticise Arne Slot, they're not saying they can compete with him in his field or that they could do better, they're merely highlighting the blatant errors and giving a more than fair opinion that another professional manager/head coach could do better."
Florian, I propose you read this again, because it demolishes your whole argument.
If you think this take is ridiculous, then maybe you should look in the mirror.
03 Mar 2026 15:02:02
You're just objectively wrong here, Florian Musiala. I can walk past a wall and see if the job was done well by the bricklayer or not. That doesn't mean I think I can do a better job than the bricky, it just means I can see the difference between good and bad work. You're conflating being able to assess the quality of someone's work with being able to match their quality of work. The OP suggested that Prem footballers would struggle in a local 5 a side cage, thus suggesting that, under certain circumstances, your average Joe could compete in a game of football with a Premier League player.
That is not even close to being the same as criticising a manager's tactics or giving an opinion on what you think should be done differently. For example, I can quite clearly see that our players are not as fit as they were in previous seasons when we've been successful. That is not the same as me claiming they'd be fitter if I was the head coach at Liverpool. I would not say that, because I don't believe it for one second. I don't know the first thing about elite level sports science and conditioning, but I can see when our players are not as fit as the opposition.
03 Mar 2026 15:57:28
We'll agree to disagree, MK. Maybe you just go through life pointing out bricklayers' and craftsmen's dodgy work, and that's fine. I doubt the same workers are in the top 1% in their profession. They are the absolute elite of their profession on a worldwide stage. Otherwise, you would look pretty damn stupid telling them how to lay a brick.