It is becoming hard to like players

[Andycoleno9]

Lukaku situation made me thinking and I realised that it is very hard to have respect or to like players these days. Not to mention becoming fanboy or something like that.

When i was younger my feelings towards players were much better. Not just ours, i liked many players who played for other clubs because you could see that they play football because they love to do that and you didn't have many (if any) prima donnas around. It is hard to explain but i had a feeling that players had respect towards club and fans. Today i don't have any love for them (including our players too). Today i see in them just either pure mercenaries or ungrateful pricks.

Did they (players) really changed or is it just that i became old grumpy git?

 

[JuriM]

Players are humans and there a lot humans to like and cherish and there is also a lot to hate and despise. Nothing has changed, just it's a lot more in public eye now with everything coming to limelight in matter of seconds.

 

[Stobzilla]

"Things were better when I was younger" Part: 8,593,271

 

[::sonny::]

I don’t like any player

The last one I liked Cantona, Keane

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Swap “players” for “people” in the OP and you’ve basically summed up middle age. You might as well embrace it. I can barely tolerate my oldest friends these days, never mind strangers.

 

[Red_toad]

Lukaku situation made me thinking and I realised that it is very hard to have respect or to like players these days. Not to mention becoming fanboy or something like that.

When i was younger my feelings towards players were much better. Not just ours, i liked many players who played for other clubs because you could see that they play football because they love to do that and you didn't have many (if any) prima donnas around. It is hard to explain but i had a feeling that players had respect towards club and fans. Today i don't have any love for them (including our players too). Today i see in them just either pure mercenaries or ungrateful pricks.

Did they (players) really changed or is it just that i became old grumpy git?

I can understand that players from previous generations were far more relatable to. The wealth the current players have certainly has removed them from society somewhat, a lot of them live in an unsustainable bubble.

 

[roonster09]

You liked players before (maybe) as there was limited coverage, football, rare interviews and that's it. Now they are covered a lot, in shit loads of interviews, social media and what not.

 

[dinostar77]

Swap “players” for “people” in the OP and you’ve basically summed up middle age. You might as well embrace it. I can barely tolerate my oldest friends these days, never mind strangers.

This is so true.

 

[Globule]

Players haven't changed, society has. Social media makes us more aware of their flaws and more progressive attitudes makes us less tolerant of them.

Imagine how George Best would be viewed if he was a current player. And his flaws were mostly self destructive. Think of all the massively bigoted players that would have been idolised by fans previously.

I'd agree it's harder to like players, but the reason isn't because players have become more unlikeable.

 

[MartinRed]

Because nowadays players are spoiled whining brats to say as soft as I can.Not mentally masculine enough.If not at all.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Players are humans and there a lot humans to like and cherish and there is also a lot to hate and despise. Nothing has changed, just it's a lot more in public eye now with everything coming to limelight in matter of seconds.

Spot on. Was just about to post very similar.

Those in the public eye just get exaggerated adulation and / or exaggerated criticism for it because it's more high profile, but it's the same human strengths and failings that are being reported as exists at all levels of society. People just hear about it more, and react to it stronger, when it's a high profile personality / company.

 

[duffer]

I used to like players a lot more back in the early 90s, when you had almost no idea who they were.

The only personal information you knew was from a "Shoot" magazine a list of their favourite things.

They all liked Only Fools and Horses, their mums sunday roast, lager and The Godfather.

Give the players of the past the same spotlight and attention as nowadays and there would be just as many annoying morons. People haven't got worse, we just know about it now.

 

[horsechoker]

Game is going soft, soon you'll be booked for making players cry and they'll have to postpone games because Neymar Jr Jr has a photoshoot with Gucci.

 

[goptun]

You liked players before (maybe) as there was limited coverage, football, rare interviews and that's it. Now they are covered a lot, in shit loads of interviews, social media and what not.

This.

Also, football is the most popular sport in a hyper globalised world. Having 50m+ followers on social media will undoubtedly give people an inflated sense of importance. Being a figure on social media means something to lots of young people, it's an achievement in and of itself. Maybe to lots of footballers nowadays they've made it by purely by being a big name online.

 

[The Firestarter]

Likes can't be buy.

 

[IhabX7]

It’s mostly about access and abundance od information. Something we rarely had until the rise of the current state internet.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Players haven't changed, society has. Social media makes us more aware of their flaws and more progressive attitudes makes us less tolerant of them.

Imagine how George Best would be viewed if he was a current player. And his flaws were mostly self destructive. Think of all the massively bigoted players that would have been idolised by fans previously.

I'd agree it's harder to like players, but the reason isn't because players have become more unlikeable.

Yep. Completely agree.

There's some very good points being made here imo.

 

[Tarrou]

Lukaku is a massive knob though, they aren't all that bad

 

[Deery]

I think player power has a lot to do with it, players nowadays are basically a brand in themselves and have a lot of power within clubs or at least think they do, which leads to inflated egos and we see that on and off the pitch from time to time which can come across badly.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Swap “players” for “people” in the OP and you’ve basically summed up middle age. You might as well embrace it. I can barely tolerate my oldest friends these days, never mind strangers.

Ha ha ha, you are right about that.

 

[VinzentFTW]

The social media narcissistic generation. Cant stand most of them, as its all about themself these days.

 

[harms]

When i was younger my feelings towards players were much better. Not just ours, i liked many players who played for other clubs because you could see that they play football because they love to do that and you didn't have many (if any) prima donnas around. It is hard to explain but i had a feeling that players had respect towards club and fans. Today i don't have any love for them (including our players too). Today i see in them just either pure mercenaries or ungrateful pricks.

Did they (players) really changed or is it just that i became old grumpy git?

• You’ve got older = if not smarter than simply more experienced and less likely to get enamored by something
• Players are getting way more exposure due to them being ever-present in social media
• Most likely you don’t fully correlate with this generation’s values.

But the first two are the most important. There were many weird, cartoonish and whiney characters in previous generations but never before they had such a platform to showcase those qualities. And generally footballers aren’t the most intelligent, decent and likeable bunch of people but when we don’t know much about them we tend to extrapolate their on-the-field persona on their overall image. But it doesn’t work that way — take Giggs for example…

 

[90 + 5min]

Lukaku situation made me thinking and I realised that it is very hard to have respect or to like players these days. Not to mention becoming fanboy or something like that.

When i was younger my feelings towards players were much better. Not just ours, i liked many players who played for other clubs because you could see that they play football because they love to do that and you didn't have many (if any) prima donnas around. It is hard to explain but i had a feeling that players had respect towards club and fans. Today i don't have any love for them (including our players too). Today i see in them just either pure mercenaries or ungrateful pricks.

Did they (players) really changed or is it just that i became old grumpy git?

Football have changed. Players have changed. There are still some good ones left but I’ve got the feeling that lot of them think to high of themself. That is what money and being fameous do.

 

[Gehrman]

I think it's social media that does it. It gives every player a platform off the pitch. Before then the coverage was really quite limited. And then there's scandals of course. I grew up with Giggs as my footie idol, I thought what a gentleman. Now I think he's sociopath really. I think another thing is on Redcafe and similar sites we spend so much time discussing and analysing things whereas before, we'd just watch the game with some mates and then get on with it. Now we can bicker all day every day about footballers.

 

[Ish]

Swap “players” for “people” in the OP and you’ve basically summed up middle age. You might as well embrace it. I can barely tolerate my oldest friends these days, never mind strangers.

Spot on

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

Well the players we used to like like Cantona was pretty shitty at times. Keane was no saint. Giggs did awful things as well outside football.
Beckham had huge focus outside football although mostly after leaving United. Rooney was not someone to love apart from football.
Ruud was a bit of an asshole as well.
You just liked them cause we won and they played well.

Not sure they are any worse right now. Like Mctominay is pretty likeable. Fred nothing wrong with him. Greenwood maybe a bit stupid.
Rashford yeah his head has gone, but still a pretty nice guy. Shaw and Lindelöf are pretty nice. Mata is a nice guy, but yeah never plays so do not count now.

Bruno and Ronaldo could be an issue with bigger egos, but not sure they are worst than the past. It is just SAF could deal with big stars unlike our recent managers.

So basically the reason you dislike our current player is just cause we are playing badly and you liked the old ones cause we won the league titles most years.

I feel I have no dislike for anyone in the current squad on a personal level. I think Ronaldo could be an issue with his huge ego now when things are going badly.

 

[Vidyoyo]

I'm inclined to say it's media generally, including both social and tv broadcasting. It's like everyone's playing a PR game and not able to fully represent themselves.

 

[TwoSheds]

The social media narcissistic generation. Cant stand most of them, as its all about themself these days.

And yet in ye olden days how many footballers did stuff as amazing as what Rashford does away from football? How many Prem captains were so quick to round up a bunch of money for workers in the NHS as we saw at the beginning of the pandemic? I actually think a lot of the modern footballers are much more worthy people than their older counterparts, but perhaps they're not as fun.

We probably miss the brashness of previous generations where they were these superhumans on the pitch playing out these heroic stories every week, and the "real" side of them was generally kept much more low key instead of us knowing precisely what they've had for breakfast every morning. If Oasis were coming up now they'd probably just be written off as annoying pisshead twats rather than bad boy rock n roll stars. It's just how it is now I think.

 

[Pronewbie]

Players are humans and there a lot humans to like and cherish and there is also a lot to hate and despise. Nothing has changed, just it's a lot more in public eye now with everything coming to limelight in matter of seconds.

Yep.

 

[TwoSheds]

Well the players we used to like like Cantona was pretty shitty at times. Keane was no saint. Giggs did awful things as well outside football.
Beckham had huge focus outside football although mostly after leaving United. Rooney was not someone to love apart from football.
Ruud was a bit of an asshole as well.
You just liked them cause we won and they played well.

Not sure they are any worse right now. Like Mctominay is pretty likeable. Fred nothing wrong with him. Greenwood maybe a bit stupid.
Rashford yeah his head has gone, but still a pretty nice guy. Shaw and Lindelöf are pretty nice. Mata is a nice guy, but yeah never plays so do not count now.

Bruno and Ronaldo could be an issue with bigger egos, but not sure they are worst than the past. It is just SAF could deal with big stars unlike our recent managers.

So basically the reason you dislike our current player is just cause we are playing badly and you liked the old ones cause we won the league titles most years.

I feel I have no dislike for anyone in the current squad on a personal level. I think Ronaldo could be an issue with his huge ego now when things are going badly.

Giggs perhaps did some awful things but my mate's dad was a consultant on a children's ward and couldn't speak highly enough of him in the 90s. Always visiting and bringing gifts for the kids. I think footballers have always been in turns flawed and amazing, we're just much more aware of people's flaws now than we were.

 

[KingCavani]

I think this is a particularly dislikeable group of United players which probably skews opinion on the whole. There’s very few players I actually like.

 

[Bennie Blanco]

Get kicked out of the game? Let's have a good ol' cry.

Hanging up your boots? Let's have a good ol' cry.

Getting booed by your own fans? Let's have a good ol' cry.

Diving, crying, wearing gloves in the winter (that's for southerners), stupid haircuts, terrible fashion sense, etc.

Not just footballers, it's an entire generation. Ashamed to say that I'm part of the weakest generation to have ever walked this planet.

 

[norm87cro]

Social media definetly has an influence to how we view footballers (or anybody in the public eye for that matter) today. That being said I find a very few of them likeable or relaitable for that matter. But then again they are pro footballers and we are the fans with common jobs (most of us).

 

[Wonder Pigeon]

Fans tend to find their players a lot more "likeable" when they're winning. There are definitely threads on here about how many of the same players being vilified now were such a likeable bunch which just so happened to coincide with them being in better form.

 

[Schmiznurf]

It's all about ego, these players have entourages and hangers-on, and it inflates their sense of importance. They get everything handed to them on silver platters once they're professionals and they think that everything else in life should be easy, so they no longer want to put the work on or make an effort, and they soon realise that that's not happening so they become whiny little pissants who act like they're so hard up and having things go against them. It's annoying, genuinely dislike football for what it's become.

 

[moses]

Swap “players” for “people” in the OP and you’ve basically summed up middle age. You might as well embrace it. I can barely tolerate my oldest friends these days, never mind strangers.

That's very true on my part, but as well as that, you don't think the scale of the game in attention and media terms and the level of money has had an effect?

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

I think this is a particularly dislikeable group of United players which probably skews opinion on the whole. There’s very few players I actually like.

They are dislikeable because we are playing badly?. People did not call Rashford and Bruno dislikeable when we played well. Maguire gets hated on for playing badly and no other reason.

I feel the only one I dislike is Varane from his France and Real days and possibly the current Ronaldo. Although with Ronaldo it is more guessing and annoyed he is not as good as I hoped for.
Always had mixed feelings with Ronaldo since his ego is both something to admire and hate.

 

[Yagami]

The main thing for me is the play acting. Not even the dives themselves but the acting like they're in serious pain, and a few seconds later they're fine. On top of that, they act disgusted when someone else dives despite doing it themself!

 

[Siezard]

Well,

You have Luke Shaw coming back from a horrific leg injury and playing so well and helping the team so much.

You have Bruno who essentially lifted the squad from top 6 to top 4 since he arrived by scoring the most goals and assists ever for a midfielder in a single calender year.

You have Rashford who not only scored goals but also fight to provide foods for the poor and needy ones.

You have Greenwood who rose up from the Academy and became a frequent starter.

You have Ronaldo who came back to the club at age 36 and still scored 14 goals in just 20 games.

 

[Manncunian]

Are people seriously trying to dismiss the correlation between young players of 18/19yo now getting £50k plus a week in a lot of cases, and their worsening attitudes?

It’s not simply about more exposure via social media etc, they are in totally different situations to players of even only 15-20 years ago. They’re far more entitled for obvious reasons. It’s not healthy being awarded with such significant remuneration as a teenager.

It’s always going to become more about money and less about football. It’ll keep going that way as long as wages keep going up. And it is this rapacity that makes them so unlikeable these days.