Don Revies Leeds V Current Man City

in your opinion….did you ever see that Leeds side?
In the 70’s players could perform with heavier balls on pitches todays ‘superstars’ couldn’t envisage. Todays pitch conditions would have been a breeze for them, Grealish isn’t a patch on Eddie Gray and Clarke would certainly have been a match for anything Haaland can do.
They wouldn’t have been chasing shadows either because there is no way City would be allowed to play like teams let them now.
Same with George Grahams Arsenal side , the City of today just wouldn’t have been allowed to boss the game.
It’s all academic anyway the only way you could tell for sure is if we had a Time Machine and each side could play each other ‘home and away’ in each other times.

 

Played on a 1970s pitch with a 1970s ref Leeds would win, played on a 2020 pitch with a 2020 ref City would win.

Horses for courses etc.

 

A modern team couldn't cope with smoking most of a pack of Woodbines or Players Navy Cut at half time.

 

Hey as much as I like Clarkie, the Burnsley version though, not the Leeds version lol. I know a lot of Leeds fans and they have said some interesting things about when he managed them, in the early 80s.

 

Yeah that's what I'm saying.

I lived through football in the 70s 80s and although I love the nostalgia for the time, the quality of football is often cringeworthy. That's not to knock teams of that period. To make the comparison; I don't believe teams of the 1930s could have lived with those of the 1980s - at any level. As I said, today is a different game.

 

They would if they used the footballs and boots from the 1930s!

 

Depends what rules they are playing? Todays rules City win all day, better fitness, half of Leeds team would get sent off.

 

Look at the distance covered by players in the 70s and the intensity/frequency of sprints compared to now. You may as well argue that a 1970s sprinter would beat Usain Bolt.

It wouldn't even be a contest, they'd get completely embarrassed. This season's Barnsley team would very likely beat them.

If you took the 70s players in their teens and gave them modern coaching, diets and fitness training then they'd obviously be competitive in the modern game, but as they were in the 70s they'd be miles off it.

 

Can’t be compared because football today is a non contact sport

 

I think his general point stands - football WAS better to watch in many ways then the drilled scientific spectacle we see today. The old Liverpool side of the late 70s/80s under Paisley, for example, the game just looked better to watch then today, the Brazil team of the 70s, pure artistry. Those kind of ways of playing have been drilled out of teams, individuals like Foden are absolutely brilliant and amazing to watch granted, but they are shackled to a strict system, the overall esthetic of the games are not the same. That's not to say some things are not better of course, players probably needed more protection from the more thuggish ways of your old school stoppers, but maybe its gone too far the other way now as well.
Still I'm sure the well drilled and super elite athletes of todays footballers would smash the old teams - closing down, high press, low block, blah, blah, blah, doesn't mean its better to watch though.

 

like I said it’s all academic, far too many variables, you point out intensity, and sprints, but could City cope with the pitches and physical contact of the 70’s ? The thought that our team this year is just barmy, that Leeds team would have torn us to bits!
What I do know for sure is that I preferred the football of the 70’s and that without two members of that Leeds side we wouldn’t be the club we are today.

 

Different era now, more fitter, sports scientists, dietician, top physios, analysists, back in that day wasn't it a smoke at half time and a gallon in the club after, they'd get battered imo

 

I think it would probably be a draw. After all, most of that Leeds team are now either dead or in their 80's...

 

Agreed, and that’s something that’s affected us too.