Claudio Ranieri was first manager I remember who really started rotating players in the Premiership. The British press nicknamed him the tinkerman because of it
ewankenobi
joined 11 months ago
Big leagues increasing squad size will make the smaller leagues a lot shitter :(
Everton most improved, Liverpool best attack, Arsenal best defence, Man City prob best overall, Man Utd biggest decline, Sheffield United worst team in league & interestingly for all the Spurs hype their defence has declined by a similar amount that theor attack has improved by & they look like they should be midtable
I remember Sheffield Wednesday reaching both cup finals when I was younger, though they lost them both to Arsenal. At the time I associated their success with Chris Waddle and their relegation with him getting older. He was a brilliant player, but looking back they had a few internationals in that side:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_FA_Cup_final
Don't remember Newcastle winning anything either though they had a fantastically entertaining team that lead the league for ages under Keegan (the "I'd love it if we beat them" season)
Liverpool were amazing in the 80s & ahead then, dominating domestically & in Europe with lots of Scottish players (Hansen, Souness, Nicol, Dalglish). Then Fergie arrived at Man Utd & they overtook Liverpool. But since Liverpool signed Andy Robertson they've regained the lead. Now Scott McTominay has found his goal scoring boots maybe the pendulum will swing back?
They got rid of international friendlies in Europe and replaced them with the Nations League so there is definitely more competitive football for international players.
Also they increased the number of teams that qualify for international tournaments so that's more players playing more games. And in South America they seem to be having international tournaments more regularly than they used to.