When comparing past eras of football to today, Everton manager Sean Dyche says there haven’t been “radical shifts” on the pitch, that it “doesn’t change as much as you think.” He said, “Football develops usually in the ways of the minutia and the detail.”

When asked, “How do you think that era is different to what we see now?”:

I think football develops usually in the ways of the minutia and the detail. The sport science, the prep, the game prep, the organization, the tactical side of things. It just keeps edging forward. It’s not radical shifts all the time. It just shifts slightly.

Stats slightly change. Distance covered doesn’t change as much as people think, but high intensity changes, and high speed running changes, and skin folds of players, the way they look, the way they take care of themselves.

Off the pitch has obviously radically changed, certainly from 2001 with social media and what they have to deal with. The stresses, the strains, the anxieties that come with all of that, so that’s changed off the pitch.

On the pitch, it doesn’t change as much as you think. It’s not radical shifts; it’s usually details and technical details, tactical details. That kind of thing and the physicality just change and shift slightly.

I think the level of the quality of the players is so much higher now than it once was because of the gradual changes in the details that Sean Dyche mentioned. The floor has risen.

It feels like there is less separating the top players on the highest of wages from the middle tier. That may be why we feel like there are fewer stars. The quality of the middle-table teams is higher. It is way harder to differentiate yourself because everything is optimized and the game is played at a higher intensity.

It has become more of a battle to see who is the most athletic and clinical player that can execute actions.