This is definitely true.
So many good CBs carry on playing well into their 30s and can remain a vital part of a title winning team and squad even at 35+ as long as they’re able to take care of their body.
You really don’t see much of that with strikers to the same sense, especially not in the premier league.
Yeah I look at the likes of Chiellini and Barzagli in recent years and they certainly hit their peaks in their early 30s. Barzagli in particular became 10x the defender he was in his youth when he started to use his brain a lot more rather than just the fact he was quick and big.
Yeah those are two good examples.
This topic has actually made me think a bit. The Serie A has had strikers like Di Natalie, Quagliarella, Toni, Del Piero etc. who were literally banging goals well into their 30s.
Who is the last premier league striker to get 20-30 goals at say 31+?
I can’t think of any but I’m probably not thinking hard enough.
Vardy be capable and he’s 33 now
Vardy will probably get that many this season at 33.
Wanker.
Di Natale and Quagliarela are consistent examples but guys like Toni are weird examples in the sense that he actually had this random end of career resurgence after like 5 underwhelming years and Del Piero was a 10 goal a season guy by the tail end of his career.
In the PL you’ve got Vardy now, Aguero at 31.
Shearer was still a 20+ goal a season guy at 33/34 and if Rooney took better care of himself he probably would have had a few 20+ seasons as well.
Sheringham had some good goalscoring seasons in his mid 30s and Ian Wright was 33/34 when he slapped 20+ in Wenger’s first season.
Jermain Defoe had some good goalscoring seasons for Sunderland at around 33ish too.
There’s actually been quite a few players 32+ who’ve managed 15/20+ goal seasons in England too and we’ll see it more as time goes on too.
Fuck me Vardy is 33?!? For some reason I thought he was 29 shit the bed.
Yeah him and Aguero are excellent examples, fair enough.
Wright, Sheringham, Shearer etc. are all good examples but they played decades ago. I wonder if they could have scored the same number of goals at their age in today’s league and tempo.
Wright and Shearer were superb strikers so I have no doubt in my mind that they’d have been a success even right now in their early 30s.
The PL has always been notoriously fast paced and if anything it’s actually becoming a far more tactical league in the mould of its European counterparts so if anything I think they’d probably have slightly extended careers with the quality of their movement and finishing coupled with advances in science, training and nutrition.
Even in the new advanced pressing styles we see a la Klopp and Pep?
I’m not sure there’s much difference in quality between peak Shearer and Aguero so I’d absolutely expect Shearer to still be deadly in his early 30s.
Wrights quality of movement was every bit as good as almost top strikers in Europe.
Pressing isn’t a new concept anyway. Footballers are certainly more athletic now but I wouldn’t say the game has advanced so much that guys like Shearer and Wright would suddenly become obsolete.
If you took a 32 year old Shearer and Wright and fed them the same stuff and put them on the same plans and training regimes as today’s guys they’d be every bit as fit as any player.
Yeah fair enough, those are pretty compelling arguments. I think you’re probably right.
Save this shit for the family planning conversations, we’re back on the topic of football. Call him a know it all cunt and move on.
Thank God, finally we are back to some footballing conversation and not gigolo pageant discussion on this thread 
Hearing he did well over the weekend.
Not sure if his chapter at Arsenal is finished but having his market value rise would be great nevertheless.
Zlatan…Ahum
Looks like he had a good match.
Looks like he found his level.
The German second division? Jesus fuck, didn’t realise we had him loaned out to a level worse than the Championship
Been killing it on loan apparently.
See this is much better management of youth, hopefully we can get a decent fee for him even if we don’t keep him on.