It’s most certainly mainly about money. You only have to point to this seasons final PL placings to see how difficult it is for promoted Championship teams to just hang on and I for one would not want to bet against the same being true for 2025/26. And where would at least three of the top for this season been without the ability to spend significant sums in recent years. Even our club during Fergies reign could outbid almost any team with the exception of Real and Barca for the quality players. Sadly we were also a team of substantial wealth but spent it foolishly.
How has this athletic divide opened up with the PL vs rest of Europe?
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PL wants high intensity, fast paced matches, the Refs are given order to encourage this, fans want this, so clubs also want this. So they target players with great physical qualities, and have the money to take the best. And since teams play fast, high intensity football, they need to train at high intensity as well. And once again they the money to hire the best managers for it
Or maybe the money is to pay for the best doping doctors around, idk
This is actually interesting, and it does say something, but a number sprints per game would be even better
Agreed. EPL teams can afford to buy from the top athletic shelf, others cannot. For me, it's not about sports science or preparation, as you're not going to turn a centre-half who has average genetic abilities into one that can sprint 35km/h and has a 80cm vertical jump. But it's about clubs' resources to pluck the most athletic players from the market.
Nothing is ever good enough for you people.
Yanks do stats better than us lot so here's an article comparing the MLS to Europe's top five leagues. It gives two metrics for this season up to March 11th only(so a bit incomplete): high-speed run count and sprint count. The former is when players run between 20-25km, the latter everything above. Ordered by sprints with the high-speed run count in brackets and used as tie-breaker, then taking the America out of it all:
PL 191 (664)
LL 183 (651)
SA 178 (655)
BL 175 (723)
L1 175 (675)
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English teams train and look for athletes instead of footballers.
Money in the PL dictates that results are more important than fun. A better athlete will more often than not win out over something that lasts a minimum of 90 minutes.
That's really all their is to it. Same reason every team in the pl is so tactically rigid and devoid of flair, because unless you have better players than everyone else (which only 1 team can have), discipline will more often than not beat individuality.
Money in the PL dictates that results are more important than fun. A better athlete will more often than not win out over something that lasts a minimum of 90 minutes.
That's really all their is to it. Same reason every team in the pl is so tactically rigid and devoid of flair, because unless you have better players than everyone else (which only 1 team can have), discipline will more often than not beat individuality.
Cheers. Usually you have to be skeptical when hot take threads are created after a one off blowout.
Echo most people’s thoughts. It’s very very clear that the PL’s increased focus on athleticism gives them the edge over La Liga sides in Europe at the moment.
La Liga is a far more technical league at the minute and a lot of the teams want to play in the same way. The football is generally far better.
Generally though, they’re poor defensively, not athletic enough and not strong enough physically compared to Prem sides.
The lack of focus on athleticism has seen the same story in a number of European games this season where the Spanish team will generally play better football and outplay the English side in the first half. And then in the second half the English side will just run through them with pure strength and physicality. Even a side like United who in the prem are one of the weaker sides physically.
If you ever needed proof, look at us in the second half of the home matches against Bilbao, Sociedad. Look at the second half of Chelsea Betis last night. Arsenals second half against Real Madrid. Iirc Reals win over city is the only La Liga/Prem tie that ended in a La Liga victory. And Man City were losing to every Tom dick and Harry during that time.
Players like Antony and Isco look amazing in La Liga but they’d be trash in the Pl. Antony was trash in the PL.
La Liga will cotton onto it soon enough though and make those changes once they see the change in European results.
Basically, if you want to see good technical football with flair, skill, individuality and passing La Liga is for you. If you want lots of running, direct play, set pieces and rigidness the prem is for you.
La Liga is a far more technical league at the minute and a lot of the teams want to play in the same way. The football is generally far better.
Generally though, they’re poor defensively, not athletic enough and not strong enough physically compared to Prem sides.
The lack of focus on athleticism has seen the same story in a number of European games this season where the Spanish team will generally play better football and outplay the English side in the first half. And then in the second half the English side will just run through them with pure strength and physicality. Even a side like United who in the prem are one of the weaker sides physically.
If you ever needed proof, look at us in the second half of the home matches against Bilbao, Sociedad. Look at the second half of Chelsea Betis last night. Arsenals second half against Real Madrid. Iirc Reals win over city is the only La Liga/Prem tie that ended in a La Liga victory. And Man City were losing to every Tom dick and Harry during that time.
Players like Antony and Isco look amazing in La Liga but they’d be trash in the Pl. Antony was trash in the PL.
La Liga will cotton onto it soon enough though and make those changes once they see the change in European results.
Basically, if you want to see good technical football with flair, skill, individuality and passing La Liga is for you. If you want lots of running, direct play, set pieces and rigidness the prem is for you.
PL = Cyborg Wars.
No? They got utterly dominated on all fronts for 3/4 of the tie and only got back into contention when PSG stopped caring after reaching a 5 - 1 aggregate score. Even then, they didn't manage to get to a draw on aggregate before FT, so "almost defeated" is a really big reach.
Style of play has something to do with it. Real Madrid squad for example has a bunch of players with good athletic abilities. But the team just doesn't play a high-intensity pressing game. It will be interesting to see if this changes with Xabi Alonso in charge.
in 2006. maybe.
unless you're, of course, talking about Barca and Madrid only.
the way the rest of the skint clubs ouside the usual big two play is anything but flair and skill. if anything, it's closer to Atl. Madrid in most cases.
This.
The PL is richer, the money more evenly shared (this is what screws La Liga) and the play style is more focused on athleticism/pressing.
Not from what I’ve seen. Granted I haven’t seen much of the bottom clubs but I’ve seen Betis, Bilbao and Villarreal a fair few times this season and they’re all easy on the eye.
Villarreal in particular have been a good watch. Coaches like Marcelino, Pellegrini and Valverde have always had teams who’ve generally played good attacking football.
That, but it's about what the league requires, and how they train. As @Iker Quesadillas pointed out Madrid have a bunch of physical freaks yet play at a significantly slower pace and with less intensity than Arsenal
Well if I wanted to check it for myself I would have, instead of telling you to do it
Ty, and yeah, PL is indeed the most physical league of all
Well no. They used to maybe, but nowadays the money means they can target the best players, who happens to have exceptional physical traits
Yeah except it isn't. The technical level across the PL is higher than La Liga's
No? Before yesterday's final, Girona's first 30 minutes against Liverpool might be the closest we've come to this effect, and it was 30 minutes and it was Girona. And the reason they were better for those 30 minutes was their intensity in fact, they were playing too fast for Liverpool to keep up
United played 4 matches against Spanish sides, one was a cagey affair in which if anything Real Sociedad got more dominant in the second half when chasing the match, the other Real got an early penalty than were massacred the rest of the match, Bilbao was over in the first half, and the second leg was a dead rubber with them fielding a bunch of backups
as opposed to the first half, in which they also dominated?
Isco spent an hour taking the piss out of Chelsea and the only reason it didn't last longer was that his teammates didn't
Spanish clubs don't have the money for this
Complete bs. Watch Osasuna, Rayo or Mallorca and you won't be seeing this high level of flair skill and passing. What you will see, is a bunch of madmen running around like crazed wolverines
That just doesn't make sense as an explanation though does it?
The PL has been able to financially target the best players for decades now.
What has happened is that PL teams now view the best players as those with the best physical traits and tactical discipline, because those two traits go hand in hand and have trumped everything else.
For a majority of PL teams it's much more effective to build a tactically disciplined team of strong physical athletes with some average footballers in it, than it is to build a technically good team with some average athletes/discipline. There's too much money at steak to take risks trying to be entertaining or unique.
Hence why we don't get players like Jay Jay Okocha rocking up at places like Bolton anymore...and why PSG have been able to wipe every English team out of Europe by playing far better football than all of them and surviving the spells where they get bullied.
He goes by the name of -- Erik Ten Hag.
Not really. Before the last ~10 years english sides didn't have a notable financial advantage over their spanish/italian/german counterparts. So only the big sides could actually compete for those guys
Now, Wolves can compete for players with Inter and Milan and blow Betis or Lazio or Villarreal out of the water
Okocha was an entertainer, but I'm not sure he's a good example to use here....
The first time I noticed this was actually with Cristiano Ronaldo. The guy had so much technical ability, doing step over after step over, making absolute fools of defenders, crossing and shooting well at the age of 20-21.
However, all of a sudden he turned in to this very physical player. Absolute strength in both the body and the foot and in the air. He had a strong mental ability aswell as a great engine.
I didn't see why he changed his player style turning almost less aesthetically/technically pleasing to strong but then I realised that he didn't change because he necessarily wanted to, but he had to adapt to the league he was playing in to meet its requirements. He then turned in to a player that could play in any league because he had the physicality & mental ability to do so. Zlatan Ibrahimovic was someone I regarded as similar but a level below Ronaldo who through his phsyical ability had the capacity to play in any league in the world. They actually had a very similar physique too.
IMO the PL took over the Serie A in 2006 where arguably it was AC Milan's last great side and the end of Serie A. Before that the PL was a two horse race of United vs Arsenal much like Real Madrid vs Barcelona. The inequality of the league could easily be seen.
Abrahmovic bought Chelsea and made them join as PL title contenders, Tottenham felt like a team always competing for the top 4 and Liverpool were a sleeping giant still able to get top players from their history alone. The PL grew, slowly improved its players, viewers and finances helped the rest of the league out. The best PL season for me is arguably regarded as its worst by many where Leicester City won the PL in 2016. This proved that smaller clubs could grow, attract quality players and managers and still compete for the top spots of football. More than the quality of the top teams, it's the quality of teams like Bournemouth, Brighton & the improvement of Nottingham Forest, Newcastle & Aston Villa thats really eye catching. The quality of these teams means that players have to really adapt to meet a very high standard playing through 365 days - sometimes this can be very taxing on the players especially when it comes to playing teams that have a slightly "easier ride" in their league" as seen by PL teams performances in the CL.
However, all of a sudden he turned in to this very physical player. Absolute strength in both the body and the foot and in the air. He had a strong mental ability aswell as a great engine.
I didn't see why he changed his player style turning almost less aesthetically/technically pleasing to strong but then I realised that he didn't change because he necessarily wanted to, but he had to adapt to the league he was playing in to meet its requirements. He then turned in to a player that could play in any league because he had the physicality & mental ability to do so. Zlatan Ibrahimovic was someone I regarded as similar but a level below Ronaldo who through his phsyical ability had the capacity to play in any league in the world. They actually had a very similar physique too.
IMO the PL took over the Serie A in 2006 where arguably it was AC Milan's last great side and the end of Serie A. Before that the PL was a two horse race of United vs Arsenal much like Real Madrid vs Barcelona. The inequality of the league could easily be seen.
Abrahmovic bought Chelsea and made them join as PL title contenders, Tottenham felt like a team always competing for the top 4 and Liverpool were a sleeping giant still able to get top players from their history alone. The PL grew, slowly improved its players, viewers and finances helped the rest of the league out. The best PL season for me is arguably regarded as its worst by many where Leicester City won the PL in 2016. This proved that smaller clubs could grow, attract quality players and managers and still compete for the top spots of football. More than the quality of the top teams, it's the quality of teams like Bournemouth, Brighton & the improvement of Nottingham Forest, Newcastle & Aston Villa thats really eye catching. The quality of these teams means that players have to really adapt to meet a very high standard playing through 365 days - sometimes this can be very taxing on the players especially when it comes to playing teams that have a slightly "easier ride" in their league" as seen by PL teams performances in the CL.
- Except it is. Amongst the top clubs anyway. Newcastle, Villa, Liverpool and Forest finished in the top 7 and are more about physicality, directness, powerful runners, pace etc. Bilbao, Betis, Villarreal are very different and play a lot more technical, in short spaces, more skillful players etc.
- So you're basically agreeing with me, that Girona ran out of gas after 30 mins and therefore couldnt keep up the physical levels. Note, I am not saying Spanish sides have no athleticism or physicality, they're just behind Prem teams.
- United were poor in Sociedad and ran out of steam having just played 120 mins of an FA Cup tie a few days earlier. In the second leg Socieded started well but were blown away in the second half. 1-1 HT, 3-1 Second half.
Against Bilbao, regardless of their second string, they massively outplayed and outpassed United in the first half and took the lead. Second half United scored 3 unanswered because as per the La liga side couldnt keep up the physicality.
- 0-0 Half time, 3-0 second half, fact.
- Again you're just emphasising my point that Liga teams cant last the distance with Prem sides. Isco non existent last half hour.
- You don't need hundreds of millions to try and target more physical players.
- As per my previous post, I stated I dont watch bottom half teams in Spain. The clubs I'm referring to are the ones in Europe (I.e the better ones from both leagues). We're talking about european match ups between the two leagues. The lesser prem teams certainly do not have high levels of physicality and in Southampton, Leicester, and West Ham, you've got a bunch of teams dicking about with the ball in their own half for most of the game. They're not really part of the conversation the same way Mallorca etc arent.
Interesting. Shows that top-level football is relatively homogoneus today and the relatively small variations above in intense-running volume are likely to be about the prevailing tactical trends in different countries.
Key point. The physical profile required to do a high volume of repeated sprints and/or cover 11-13km is much different from the power attributes needed for other roles.
I'm guessing that you didn't watch either of the Arsenal / Madrid legs then? Arsenal physically dominated both legs with complete ease. Madrid were not used to having no time on the ball, Arsenal suffocated them. It pains me to say it, but even in the leg at the Bernebeu, they made it feel like they were the home side. Pure physical and athletic dominance from Arsenal.
Villa did the same to PSG, Pool, not so much, that's for sure.
United, even though we are quite comfortably the least physically imposing side in the PL, still had more athleticism than our opponents, in all of our ties excluding the final -- Spurs.
Spurs were heavy handed in all of their legs too, again not just beating them on the score sheet, but physically too.
Chelsea did the exact same thing last night, and low and behold, Mr Superstar Antony didn't get a sniff, whereas Sancho, the perennial lazy cnut, did. As he was against no other than -- A non PL side.
If you're going post on a forum with a view that is so far removed from the truth, at least understand that there are others out there that study the game more than many, like myself.
Newcastle, Villa and Liverpool's players blow Betis, Villarreal and Bilbao out of the water technically. They play with more pace and power because they *have* it
I'm not disagreeing with the point about PL sides having superior physicality. I'm disagreeing that spanish teams are more technical. They're not
As for Girona, it's a small team playing Liverpool. Going a million miles per hour and hope to surprise them and get a goal or two to defend the rest of the way was their only shot of getting a result. It's what pretty much every smaller club does at home in Europe against a giant. nobody can sustain that pace of play for longer
They were already getting blown away in the first half. You just didn't score more. Being very generous, they outplayed you for all of 10 minutes
Dead rubber dude. United had a 3 goals lead. Bilbao barely threatened in the first half, the goal was a worldie. They actually started to look more threatening in the second half, when they started to believe a bit again. And it wasn't physicality that did them in, it was you having better players. The goal came after a stretch of play with both teams going at each other and a bunch of transition opportunities for both. After Mount's goal they gave up
one game, at the end of the season, doesn't prove anything, but yeah. I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the fact that spanish teams have been able to compete at all
You do if you want to sign elite players with elite physicality. Below that, is where you find the guys who have either one or the other, but not both
They finished 8th, 9th and 10th and have been competing for EL/ECL spot all season before Celta's second half surge. And all 3 are massively dependant on home field advantage
Villarreal and Betis would swap players with Aston Villa and Newcastle in a heartbeat, if they could
There's absolutely no doubting that last point for me, even if it's often said tongue in cheek!
I'd say blundered is a bit harsh. "Battering ram'd" maybe? It's okay to play the game on physical terms if you can do it and if everything was about finesse it'd get dull fast, which I think we've seen before.
More stats posted above on the sprints per 90 along with the sprinting distance suggests the Premier League isn't just good at playing with intensity - it's an actual statistical outlier. The average sprints per 90 over the top five leagues was 180 up to March, with a standard deviation around 5.5. The PL is just under twice that distance from the mean, which suggests that if anybody is saying that they really even need these stats at all to be persuaded of what they're eyes are telling them, they're probably just being difficult for the sake of it.
That's right; I'm saying that all the stats I've posted can be used as evidence that we don't actually need any of stats I've posted.
The pattern of yesterday's game is one we see quite often - continental side tries to match the intensity of the English team, looks fantastic for 30 minutes to maybe an hour, then gets picked apart afterwards. It isn't just exclusive to English sides versus continental sides either - this is a pattern we see within leagues when smaller sides go hard early and run around like madmen, only to tire as the game goes on. Or, of course, when new players come into the league. I remember Felipe Anderson saying he couldn't play past 70 minutes in England upon his return to Italy, and he was being quite generous with himself there. Jadon Sancho apparently said something similar shortly after joining us. These guys can play, but they can't play at that speed for that length of time, so something has to give.
For that reason I'm largely of a mind with @giorno - the intensity tends to be where the money is either abundant, smartly spent, or both. It's just that we typically don't pay too much attention to the scrappier sides in Spain or Italy because they aren't quite sexy enough for box office broadcasting.
Remember, top-level football is the low-scoring sport where the extra 1% means absolutely everything. If PL sides can muster a whole 5% more sprints per 90 than their peers abroad, that's five times absolutely everything. I can't even begin to imagine what two absolutely everythings looks like!
Madrid got dominated physically by a lot of teams in La Liga as well. They were well below the average level of their own league in this regard all year.
No they didn't. They (heavily, to be fair) dominated 30 mins amongst 180+ in the tie, whilst being played out of the park on all fronts for most of the rest.
Are you suggesting that the only reason Arsenal dominated them so heavily, is because they've been below average in their own domestic league? Whichever way you want to spin it, they were completely dominated from start to finish in both ties. Yes, Rice scored two world class free kicks that on another night wouldn't have happened, but their overall performance was so incredibly lacklustre, it was quite embarrassing. They were played off the park, and none of the players could wrap their heads around the oppressive physical presence that Arsenal imposed.
This wasn't some one off game for Arsenal either, this is how they, and many other teams in the PL play. The link to the ESPN article that was posted in here earlier proves that.
Yeah, my comment is probably a bit too heavy handed with this one, but as you've agreed, for a portion of the game (I can't remember if it was the 1st or 2nd leg), Villa were physically oppressive, to levels that teams outside of the PL are not used to.
The reason Arsenal dominated Real Madrid is because Real Madrid do not play a strong physical game. They have been pressed off the pitch by many PL teams in the past, for many years now.
The reason why the domination resulted in a big 5-1 scoreline instead of Real Madrid going through regardless is because they've been below average in their own domestic league.
- Bit of a Disingenuous argument, you're picking and choosing clubs. I could do the same and state , Real , Barca, Atletico players blow Forest, Villa and Newcastle out the window technically. Across the board, I think it can be argued that the top clubs from la liga are more technically proficient than the prem. I mean its not a wild thing to say. In general in the development of Spanish players for years and years there has been a greater emphasis on the technical side of the game.
- Again I'm choosing to also disagree. Based on the football I have watched this season. Even if there's an argument to be made that individually the Prem teams do still have a greater pool of players technically. The style of play being chosen is opposite of that. Arsenal are a perfect example of a team who have plenty of quality technically but have chosen to go down the route of a more physically reliant style of play. Arsenal have been a garbage watch this season for the most part. Even their own fans have acknowledged this and there's literally an on running joke about them being Stoke.
I watched all the El Classicos, Madrid derby matches this season and they were all miles ahead of what has been produced in some of the big Prem clashes this year which have been largely forgettable. I remember the Liverpool/ Chelsea game at Anfield in particular which was complete dross but for some reason Jamie Carragher spent the whole post match analysis pretending it was a great game.
- Not sure what your wider point is here. I know Liverpool are bigger than Girona and how small clubs try and beat bigger clubs.
- Never said Sociedad outplayed us at but our second half was much better, the red did help but you only have to look back at the match thread to see people were delighted with second half performance and not so much with the first.
- Irrelevant if it was a dead rubber. Bilbao came with a second string and yet still dominated the first half. Again if you look back at the match thread you will see how angry people were with the first half. They ran out of steam in the second half, lost half a yard and couldnt cope with the openness of the game. You can't purely put that down to us having better players. If it worked like that United wouldnt have finished 15th in the Premier League and been beaten numerous times by clubs such as Brighton, Bournemouth and Wolves.
- What
- I'd have to say this is another disingenuous argument. The top 7 teams in the Prem arent full of players with elite physicality AND elite technical ability. But they've found the balance better. Where were Betis' runners last night? where were there physically imposing players? You can get a better balance without having to spend shit loads. Players with high physical attributes are also easier to find than players with high technical attributes.
- So not bottom half teams ( I was incorrect) but still not teams who were playing in Europe which was the second part.... that you left out....
- Not the argument here. Obviously Newcastle and Villa on the whole have better all round players than Villarreal and Betis. But the latter have been better to watch IMO. I prefer Villarreals counter style to that of Newcastle and Villa where the ball spends less time in the air and less time being booted into channels. I also have found Betis' intricate play in around the penalty box easier on the eye than Barnes and Murphy at Newcastle going for constant foot races down the wing. But each to their own of course. You have to also realise a lot of it is down to coaching, and again I go back to Arsenal. Very gifted technically all round but when you're being coached and tactically trained to focus more on the physical side of the game, your technical qualities will get overshadowed.
And us
Most likely. I remember Ferguson saying it was unbelievable how Liverpool players could run and run game after game. Now every team is like that.
those were the clubs *you* mentioned
No, it can't. It really really can't. Premier League teams across the board are technically better. Only Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico are at a very high technical level. Watch Barcelona matches in the league to see how badly spanish teams cope with their physicality
Betis and Villarreal and Athletic(and Celta tbf) are the ones with enough of both to not just get wiped off the pitch
Yes, that is true. And then the best technicians out of Spain(the ones that don't get scooped up by the big 2/atleti) go to play in the PL
That's to do with how they chose to play. And it's in part motivated by the environment - the type of "technical" style you claim the spanish teams play is much, much more difficult to do in fast paced matches, and generally requires you to either have a *massive* technical advantage supported by great physicality, or absolutely off the charts physicality
Barcelona have been an incredible watch. And they're one of the most extreme, intense and physical teams on earth. That's where their strenght came from
as for the Madrid derbies...really? I watched all 4 and can barely remember what happened. Every single one of them was a low quality, entirely forgettable affair
Agree the PL was boring too though
point is even in the first half, they weren't really competitive
they dominated a half of football while losing 3-0 and managed all of ONE shot from inside the box
Dominated
All teams run out of steam in the second halves of games, that's what naturally happens. What happened next, is United had 5 subs and brought on 5 good players on fresh legs. Bilbao had no good players to come off the bench
The PL is a league, entirely different pressure, entirely different focus from the teams, the atmosphere is different, etc.
elimination games are harder and will usually bring out the best(or worst) in teams in ways league matches just don't.
Spanish teams, for the most part, can't compete with english ones anymore, outside the very best. that's because the best players and coaches out of Spain that don't end up at the big spanish clubs, end up in the PL
Of course not. But they have more of those than anyone else outside of 5-6 clubs
they have ONE. He scored and was one of the two best players on the pitch until he got hurt and had to be subbed out
because Betis don't have the money to sign an Elanga, and the "runner" they can sign is a much much worse player than Antony
Compared to say, Bournemouth, they need more scouting, but do less because that kind of scouting costs money they don't have
on the bench, on account of being worse players than the ones that started
Maybe true, but high physical attributes don't automatically make good players
Rayo will play the conference next year, as a result of finishing 8th
Therapeutic use exemptions? Most of the league are asthmatic now ?
There is probably something in this. Ruben said the toughest physical test we faced in the Europa League came from Lyon and said the French league was more physical. Also PSG beat Liverpool and Arsenal but had to work really hard for it
I was surprised by how much fitter we were than Sociedad and Bilbao lost a lot of fight in the second half of both games.sounds as if Betis ran out of steam in the second half yesterday.
I was surprised by how much fitter we were than Sociedad and Bilbao lost a lot of fight in the second half of both games.sounds as if Betis ran out of steam in the second half yesterday.
Yea I don't think the gap between the PL and Ligue 1 is all that athletically.
PL plays has at a higher pace but the average player isn't necessarily stronger or faster.
I do remember Messi commenting on how Ligue 1 was way more athletic than La Liga after he moved to PSG however.
the main problem is that the british have been carrying the rest of the eu for decades and as such we are a lot fitter and stronger at the same time the likes of spain and italy just sit about in the sun drinking wine and so cant put a shift in
I doubt there is a team that wouldn't have to work hard to beat either of them, never mind both.
PSG ran Liverpool off the park in Paris and held a very noticeable edge in terms of individual pace across players which is what won them the second leg
Real Sociedad have been a mediocre side all season long. Bilbao lost their fight because of the score
Betis did get ground down however
That is where the gap comes from
They do not value athleticism like we do, so we buy them, promote them etc far more than them