Liverpool FC Forum

by **115-1073096938** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:23 pm

Sorry but disagree and no amount of made up stats will convince me.

I hate this the game is so much faster cos it might be but its the same going down the divisions as well so there is no real time change in that situation.

If Carragher went to the 2nd division he might not necesasarily stand out especially in the centre back position due to the players he will be playing with. To say that premiership players will stand out is incorrect Im afraid its the reverse as in the lower league players will stand out if they moved up and thats the risk in buying them as will they learn to hold their own.

Exceptional players will always be exceptional players but the majority are in their respective leagues cos thats what they are used to to say JC would stand out is naive Stu to be honest he is a good defender but he would not make an attacker/midfielder in a division below and that is a ludicrous comment but he would be excellent defender

Taff, i've never had a run in with you before or even a disagreement to my knowledge. But you are well off the mark here.

I play sunday league regularly, i have 6 goals this season and 7 assists and play on the right side of midfield or down the left, i don't take penalties or free kicks or corners. I am quick and easily one of the most skillfull players in our league HOWEVER... when i trained with Wrexham and played for stockport against Uniteds old Youth team which contained Webber at the time it made me realise how good these players actually are.

Like i said, imagine the best player at a sunday league club, most skillfull and quickest player there, well thats me

however when i went to train with Wrexham, i was NOWHERE near the skill level of some of there players. They were ALL as quick if not quicker than me and pyshically they were miles ahead of me in terms of fitness agility and stamina. I have got a very good touch compared to all sunday league players, probably one of the best in the league but compared to these lads i was verry average at best. I certainly couldn't go dribbling past the full backs and centre halfs like i did in sunday league. The game was also played at ALOT faster pace and at times it was a struggle to keep up.

You are a typical example of someone who doesn't realise how good these players are. As big mick says, you put Hyypia against a sunday league defence and it would be like giving away a penalty. Chances are 9 out of 10 times it would end up in the back of the net and he'd connect with the ball every time if the ball was half decent.

by **bigmick** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:37 pm

It just IS the case lads. I hate this 'cos I'm sounding like Stu's sidekick but he is definately right. We used to have a kid called Darren Wood, went to our school. Captained England schoolboys, on the telly and everything. Very impressive. Anyways, you see this kid playing school and representative football and I kid you not, he looks like Pele. He was and is by a country mile the best young player (I'm talking under-16) I have ever seen. In the local leagues, he used to play centre-half for one of the best sides in division one when he was 13. The team he played for won the title and went and played in the Northern Counties League (don't hoot with derision, they get paid to play. It's a good standard and a hard school believe me). He can't play though, signed affiliated schoolboy forms with Middlesboro'. Makes his debut at 17 marking of all people, Kevin Keegan. Ends up getting transfered to Chelsea where he played a couple of years as a hard-working ball-winning midfielder before injury curtailed his career. The number of Chelsea fans I heard at the time say he was garbage was unbelievable. 'Useless northern monkey' etc etc ( they always were a discerning bunch of punters that shower). Thing was, they were right. the absolute limit of his capabilities at that level was to run around a lot and kick people. The standard in the upper echelons of professional football is staggeringly good. Even dicks like Diouf are unbelievably talented players.

by **jim_morrison_supported_liverpool** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:52 pm

i dont think its quite that much though mick, and stu.
that story about that kid you know sounds convincing but thats not the case for all of these type of players.

i was in the same teams as franny jeffers in Liverpool Schoolboys and in the younger ones, Kevin Nolan and played for the same Sunday team as Tony Hibbert. the teams i played there was a fir few that have made it, Kev mcleod at QPR aswell. Yes they were good players, and people knew they had a good chance of making it, which they did, but there were players in the teams along with these lads that, although may not have been better, could keep up with them and were at the same general level.

bearing in mind i played with the above mentioned players, knowing that they made it to where they are, i dont believe you have to be as fantastic as you're making out. the only thig that progresses as you get older is the fitness side of things. if you play for a club when you're young and saty with them, your fitness comes on in leaps and bounds, and all the players that dont make the grade all go off and play sunday league. Stu you may be a good player in your sunday league team, but the level of fitness compared to even lower league teams is a joke. Sunday Football is a doddle and even my mates who were in and out the school team take the p*ss in it. me personally, i started losing interest in playin the game as soon as i picked up a guitar and a joint. when i'd try and play again, i'd realise the reason i couldnt compete was that my fitness wouldnt allow it.

professionals train every day (nearly from what? 14/15 upwards)

thats the difference.

by **115-1073096938** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:33 pm

Jim, get a 6 a side team and me an my mates will play you.

I'll introduce them to you, (two of them played for Altringham RESERVES, NOT FIRST TEAM a few times) and you'll see how good these lads are. Infact i wouldn't even need to point them out to you, they'd just stand out on there own. They are both far better than me.

Infact i'd bet you anything you'll be amazed how they aren't profesionals. If your experiences are genuine.

by **jim_morrison_supported_liverpool** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:54 pm

i'm not bullshitting if thats what you think.

i actually agree that the gulf in class is there, but i think its only down to fitness. your mates are probably exceptional i dont disbelieve you, ther eason why they'd struggle at the higher levels is that they havent received the same level of coaching and fitness work.

all those lads i mentioned were not that much better than the rest of us at the time, but "the rest of us" if we were to play against them now would probably get trounced and be pulling up after 10 minutes with calf and thigh strains or be gasping for air.

thats also why i wont take up your offer. i've probably just finished my 500th pouch of tobacco since i started smoking, and i doubt that will aid me in a game of football. the last time i ran was about 6 months ago, and that was for the bus!!! i nearly bloody fainted.

by **115-1073096938** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:39 pm

Fitness for one of them is NOT an issue. He's a marathon runner quicker than me on the 100 and i can do it in about 12 seconds he also has better balence and is more agile than me and is far better at stretching.

Technically he also wipes the floor with me.

by **115-1073096938** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:41 pm

Fitness is probably where the smallest gap lies.

This is another reason i question your experience as this is something you'd understand.

The biggest gap is composure in ALL situations.

by **115-1073096938** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:46 pm

One thing people dont understand is Technique and first touch.

My ball control in killing a ball thats thrown to me is as good as any professional.

But its where you position the ball, how u position urself when its controlled, weather your ready for the next movement once its controlled.

by **JBG** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:56 pm

Its a couple of years since I last played pub football and I played in a team that struggled near the bottom of a bottom division in a reasonably competive league.

I had middling first touch (as good as any of my team mates but that wasn't saying much!) and reckoned that I could tackle properly and had a reasonable reading of the game (most pub players play like they're brainless IMO) but I was short on pace and was fairly unfit (fags and beer!).

A few times in cup matches we came up against far better sides. A couple of the opposition players had been on the books of professional clubs when they were teenagers, and even though those guys were often 10 or even 15 years older than us at the time (it was 4 or 5 years back) they could absolutely skin us with their power and strength, let alone their touch, heading ability and anticipation. We had one guy on our team who was extremely fit (he was at once stage a very promising colleges athlete who did the 110m hurdles) and while he was an exceptionally fit player and had a lot of power when sprinting, he always lost out to guys who could just read the game better and anticipate things before they happened.

by **115-1073096938** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 9:21 pm

If you put Carragher in the lower leagues he'd be the same as Gerrard is now in the premiership. Even Carragher in the first division. He'd ****** it in central midfield.

He might get the odd player that would give him a game.

by **jim_morrison_supported_liverpool** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 9:22 pm

stu_the_red wrote:Fitness is probably where the smallest gap lies.

This is another reason i question your experience as this is something you'd understand.

The biggest gap is composure in ALL situations.

this is annoying me now. i have no reason to bulls*it. its the most pathetic thing in my opinion to tell lies about YOURSELF when arguing on the internet.

Tony Hibbert, Kevin Mcleod, Kevin Nolan and Franny Jeffers (who are just a few) arent world beaters but they have made the grade. Most players int the Liverool boys side and the other teams i mentioned probably could have got to at least conference level, if the desire, aptitude and fitness level had increased as they got older.first touch is ver important i agree but you see some complete wasters in lower leagues. if your mates are as good as you say they are they'd probably make some sort of grade. you based your whole argument on the fact that YOU are a good player and YOU looked out of place training with professionals, then you say your 2 mates are miles better than you. so just becoz YOU didnt make the grade it doesnt prove your point it might just mean that YOU arent good enough, or as good as you say you are.

by **115-1073096938** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 9:32 pm

Layton McGivern

This lad played for the Grammar in my league against us last season. Different class to EVERYTHING that was on the pitch. Touch, technique, work rate, passing, awareness, skill, composure, finishing... the Grammar won 4-2 and he scored 2 and set the other 2 up. He was on the pitch for half an hour towards the end.

by **bigmick** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:52 pm

Anyways, its not a competition to see who's played in the best standard. FWIW I think Jim probably shades it fron Stu but I might be wrong. A million years ago I'da given 'em both a run for their money. The important thing, and the thrust of the thread as its developed, is can you improve a player from a lesser standard sufficiently to make him a Liverpool player? My hunch is that you can. fashion applies not just to food and trainers, it applies in sport aswell. All you need is for one player to come out of the second division and make it with a big club and before you know it, these boards will be full of 'why don't we sign that centre-half from Brentford' threads. Also, in goalscoring, which after all is once again the crux of the original question, I think most would accept that a large part of it is natural untaught ability. An instinct, a knack. The variable is, would the better defending that a player would undoubtedly encounter be enough to stem the flow of goals? Balance this against the better service a player would recieve in a better side. take away the number you first thought of and divide by three and you end up with a decimal fraction. If that nunber is greater than the sum of... blah blah blah. You either fancy a player or you don't. I think Earnshaw will score goals for whoever he plays for. Not fantastic, spectacular goals, just goals and lots of em. Some people don't agree. Fair enough, he's off the mark now so lets see who's right. Can we set the benchmark at say 10 Premiership goals this season for WBA? Not including penalties? Tell you what, just for you we'll not count the two he got the other day. Lets ave it!

by **115-1073096938** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 12:00 am

He'd get 15 goals maybe more for us.

He's a better goalscorer than Baros imo, not a better player. We need someone as good as Owen though. Otherwise we'll never have a true replacement.

by **bigmick** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 12:09 am

Jeez Stu we've been arguing (nicely I admit) about this for two days and now you say you think he'd get maybe more than 15 goals for us. If you think that, you should be on my side surely? As for getting someone as good as Owen in the goalscoring dept, that aint gonna be easy let me tell you. Earnshaw certainly aint no Owen I'll grant you that all day long. That said, not many are.
I would venture that if anyone you get in as a goalscorer gets more than 15 Premiership goals from open play in his first season then I would view him a success. If he gets more than 20 then I'll give him the keys to the pub.

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