I’ll just use this quickly as an excuse to post this…
Goddamn what a freak goal. Literally the ONLY time I remember seeing him taking a shot - with his foot - and what a fucking rocket came out…
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This shit just makes me sad now lol
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If you was to do a top 10 or 20 defenders of the premier league era, how many would come from those that started out in the last decade? 
Just out of interest since the art of defending isn’t the same as it once was. On the flip side, do we also look back at players with rose tinted glasses? Would reputations not be the same in this age of social media 
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It was definitely easier defending in the days when you could go in late, or slide through or tackle from behind
The high line is also the hardest system to defend in
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Much more too it than that though. Proper physical contact sport. Rules have killed most of it now but you see far worse goals conceded. Ball watching players who can’t read or anticipate the game at all now.
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Players with game intelligence are now more useful than pure physicality. Positioning. Anticipation. Vision. Ball retention.
Only area where height and muscle might still have the advantage is aerial control.
But then again I see Ajax’s Tagliafico (1.72m) win and score header goals against tall defenders. 🤷🏻
Maybe partly but in turn the game is played at a higher pace and players cover much more ground.
This is why Baresi would still be the best today. I watched him in Steve Harper’s testimonial in Newcastle, got to meet a few of the players, that’s a story for another time though. He was 53 and intercepted everything. I think they barely had a shot on target because he and Maldini didn’t let anything in behind.
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Only getting worse.
Typified by Bayern who are the best team in the world but can exhibit some awful defending at times
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Yeah seen at Liverpool and City too. Throw in Real Madrid even on the recent CL wins.
Resurrecting this, just seen this clown on Reddit trying to put Ramos alongside Baresi…
I’m an old man and getting irate reading this nonsense. He puts ramos above nesta, above peak canna, and tries to make out baresi isn’t as incredible as he was.
He’s more impressed that ramos scored so many goals, not accepting that the job of a defender is to stop everything, although Baresi was incredible at launching counter attacks. A bit like you saw Adams do several times, but even better.
Reddit is full of fucking idiots, this prat never even saw Baresi play and decides to just assume he was hacking people at knee height. Why even let such an ill informed fool bother you haha
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Too much free time with my car in the garage my man 
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You know what I find funny - it’s this weird idea that ball playing CBs didn’t exist before Pep arrived and popularised them.
Guys like Baresi and Maldini were elegant ball players but football was different at the time and there wasn’t such an emphasis on building from the back.
Nesta is one of the most comfortable defenders I’ve ever seen on the ball but people act like these guys wouldn’t be able to play in certain modern systems it’s actually concerning how ill educated people are.
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If the best defender is seen as having success, leadership qualities, ability, bravery, as well as being a great captain and defender, I can’t think of many better than Adams.
Having seen him from an eighteen year old in his first few seasons at Highbury to lifting the league title in three different decades, I can say I don’t remember any CB much better than him
He would do anything to stop the opposition scoring and would put his head in where most players wouldn’t put their boots.
You could tell he was coached by Graham because he was disciplined, well organised and had controlled aggression and awareness of everything going on around him.
But, most importantly, he was a winner at all costs and because of that, he had the respect of every player around him.
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Yeah, I’m obviously “biased” with preferring 3 Italians to Adams, but outside of them he is an absolute legend. Would’ve loved to have seen him play alongside baresi and Maldini, you could’ve probably just had 7 attackers then no problem, they were all so good.
@SRCJJ yeah nesta and baresi were great at bringing the ball forward, especially Nesta, but you can see so many videos of baresi launching counter attacks after an interception then dribbling past several men, and nesta’s long balls were a thing of beauty. Him alongside stam who was also a great player with his feet was a wonderful combination.
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Yeah but if you tell people this today mate they’ll tell you he couldn’t hack it in the modern game lol.
It’s just such a ridiculous thing to say. If Adam’s played now he’d simply adapt his game a bit more to suit how teams line up now.
But make no mistake about it there isn’t a defender in the world today who I’d consider a better pure defender than some of the top guys in the 90s.
Games changing and it’s not even me being “sentimental” or romanticising the past - the games just lost its artistry, personality and character.
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That’s what the dumb cunt said - maybe you have nostalgia hype?
Like, the fact baresi is in every single conversation ever for best defender ever doesn’t give you some clue? And the fact many are quick to shit on Ramos and question him doesn’t give you more clues?
More often than not it are those nerds/analytics guys who think these are all new things. But when you actually love the game and study the history of it, they would have known of Beckebauer or Koeman and so on.
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One of my biggest disappointments now is the football keepers as we lose those class guys from the past playing out from the back.
The grace that players like Beckenbauer, Krol, Passerella, Scirea showed all gone now sadly.
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