Baines
80s and 00-10s are chalk and cheese
if you took most of the great 80s players and put them in the prem now they would be bewildered and blowing after 20 minutes
If you gave the great players of the 80s the advantages current players take for granted vis-a-vis their time, then I think you'd find the 80s players were every bit as good. And I'm not even talking about fitness, recovery, and nutrition.
Great players are great players in any era.
If Maradona, Platini, Zico, Rummenigge, and van Basten played in an era where they were not subjected to weekly assassination attempts by the likes of the Butcher of Bilbao, Antonio Camacho, and Claudio Gentile, they'd have had an absolute field day in the era of Messi and Ronaldo.
Put Messi and Ronaldo back with those three lads, and see how many seasons they spent on the treatment table...
Oh, and that's before we get to the changes in the offside and backpass rule which, even more than the outlawing of the tackle from behind, opened the field up and made the man-marker virtually redundant.
A totally different game now. But the greats were the greats for a reason. And this is why I have never seen better than Maradona - because, unlike the magnificent Messi, I saw him do it even when the violent thugs kicked him from pillar to post with impunity.
