Consistency in Football is history

f_to_z

Full Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2013
Messages
297
This has been a thought in my head for a while now and just wanted to share and hear your opinion about it. Although United has been inconsistent recently this trend of inconsistency is happening to most players around the world. To make it even more specific lets just talk about players in the top teams in Europe. In recent years I see many players not being able to stay consistent in performances the whole season. Players that are not even injured or unfit just seem to have a good day then bad day and the cycle keeps going. Its like very random without a particular trend. A player would start the season great, then suddenly starts playing bad football. These are player that are playing in top teams in top leagues. I am sure each of the big teams has at-least 3-5 players with inconsistent performances. I am not sure if it is players are more sensitive and moody or maybe mentally weak and very fragile and always in doubt. Did the type of football change and now it purely depend on the tactical factors? Or is it the managers now a days always changing tactics and player positions? I dont want to start mentioning names since I know I will miss a lot and I am just talking in general terms.

If I compare this trend to football 15 years ago I can see a big difference in player consistency. A good player back then would play good most of the season. You would expect a certain standard from him and he will deliver week-in week-out most of the season. Of course its natural to have poor days but very rare I woulds say.
 

Jim Beam

Gets aroused by men in low socks
Joined
Feb 10, 2017
Messages
13,013
Location
All over the place
Many top players not named Messi or Ronaldo have problems with inconsistency, now and 15 years ago. So, personally, don't see much change.

Think the thread should be in football forum, btw
 

The holy trinity 68

The disparager
Joined
Apr 10, 2016
Messages
5,791
Location
Manchester
No footballer ever has a good game every single game though. Consistent players off the top of my head would be Messi, Ronaldo, Kane, De Gea, Modric, Ramos, Marcelo, Iniesta, Buffon, David Silva, Salah this season, Pirlo until retirement. Probably a fair few more.
 

Web of Bissaka

Full Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2017
Messages
8,553
Location
Losing to Comeback Winning!
Players have different rate of consistency, have always been like that before 15 years ago and now.

The top consistent players tend to perform consistently 8 or 9 times out of 10. They will still have bad games.
Irwin is ridiculously consistent, but does have bad game/move one in a very long while.
De Gea is also consistent, but more on to 7 times out of 10. He does make mistakes.​

---

Likely it's due to less tv/media coverage in the past and pundits like hawks highlighting every single mistakes players made nowadays and rambles all sort of criticisms on them, thus the impression "players are more consistent before".
 

el3mel

Full Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2016
Messages
43,735
Location
Egypt
This is so untrue. What's your definition of consistency ? To score or assist in every game ? It's not. It's about having a certain high level of performance that the player rarely drops under it, a player that his performance rarely falls below 7/10 every game and thus has several games in the run that were worth 8 or 9 but surely not all of them. All top class players are like that and the on who aren't, aren't top class.

You can have one or 2 inconsistent players in your main lineup, it's fine as long as the rest of the team is consistent enough to carry the team on. Our problem is mostly of our team is inconsistent, not just one or 2 players. Most of our players can look great in game and immediately terrible in the next one. The only players we have that always perform week in week out are De Gea and Smalling and to lesser extent Lukaku.

As long as this problem is present we will never mount a serious title challenge, as the league is about consistency in performance and getting results above every thing.