Wenger and PEDs in football.

If you had of drugged Titus Bramble up to the eyeballs and make him run around like a Duracell bunny, would he have turned into Maldini?

If you do the same to a middle of the road Cyclist, can he win the biggest events in Cycling, namely the Tour De France?

Yes.

You are probably correct, and the Spanish football domination era of 08-12 in particular including Barca and the national team is very suspicious, but it's much less prevalent than other endurance based events such as long distance running, Swimming and Cycling.

That is why it receives much less attention.

It receives much less attention because there is little or no testing and FIFA don't want to know about it. I'd say there's a lot of it going on in football

If you take a young talent, and systematically drug him, you'll create a world beater. *cough* Lionel Messi

Messi was given growth hormones treatment, but no drug can give someone God given talent like that.

Drugs never give you talent. Anyone who uses the talent/skill excuse really doesn't know what they are talking about. All the top players already have the talent. We are not talking about a Sunday league player becoming a CL winner. The drugs make you run harder for longer and recover more quickly (including from injuries), esp at the business end of a gruelling season where fatigue kicks in. We are talking about making a big difference between players/teams that have very little between them otherwise, and that's what makes all the difference.

In endurance sports like cycling you can turn a mediocre rider into a winner but in sports like tennis and football it's about making an already top player/team go that extra bit futher and be fresher than his clean opponent

What is noticeable about most sports these days is that the athletes are able to stay at the top level well into their thirties. Look at the likes of Federer who was past his best for 5 years and now playing like he's 25 again. If that's down to diet and 'new training techniques' then why was he a relative weakling for 5 years and then came back from a 6 month injury absence with no warm up tournament to win his first slam in 5 years and been almost unstoppable since?

Valverde in cycling, 38 now and still winning. Ronaldo 33 and still breaking records at the very top as a striker. Look at the size of Rugby players nowadays, even at schoolboy level. Recovery especially is supposed to be a lot harder when you get older.

In tennis you have these 'NextGen' players who are in their mid twenties and still haven't reached the top because the likes of Fed and Nadal are still at it well into their thirties with no signs of waning and able to match 20-25 year olds for speed and strength. Tennis has always been a young man's game until recently. 25 is supposed to be peak age.

If there's money to be made, the top guys will dope. There's never been as much money in sport and football is where the biggest rewards are. As Del Moral said to a cyclist on Lance Armstrong's team while injecting him with EPO: 'you guys take nothing compared to footballers'.

Some good posts there lurka, agree with most of them. Don’t know if you read the post that Pandorica posted on the United thread in the last few days (re Sky and certain managers in the Premier League)

I'm not Federer's biggest fan by any stretch of the imagination, but to be fair to him, he is virtually a part time player these days who manages his body much more carefully than any other player, this has included skipping the clay court season for the past 3 seasons now, clay being the toughest surface to your body, more so than hard court or grass.

The last two slams he won he didn't play a single top 5 player, the edge he had over Nadal in Australia 2017 was he had rested his body for 6 months and then played 3 Hopman cup matches prior.

He also skipped the Asian swing last year bar Shanghai, this year he'll probably do the same thing.

Lastly a big part of his recent resurgence is that Novak's form/motivation fell off a cliff after winning the French Open in 2016, and World Number 1 Murray being out virtually for a year with injuries and shingles. Before Novak's decline, he'd won 5 of the previous 6 Aussie opens and had beaten Federer in two straight Wimbledon finals.

I'm not sure with him it's a drug issue, his game is built around quick fire tennis, short points, with the aim of finishing rallies as soon as he can.

Djkovic himself however, and Nadal, are much more questionable, Novak 'gluten free' 2011 onwards, whereas before hand, he was retiring left, right and centre.

Has anyone ever seen federer sweat? Ok hardly call the police hes a drugger but just saying

Fair point lurka but in those 6 months he worked on his back hand

People who think that Barca team were doping don't understand football. They must think Man City are doping too? They are playing the same way with just lesser players.

All those tennis players were dodgy..i see the top 4 which were so dominant a couple of years ago have all dropped down the rankings dramatically, must have been spooked by Sharapova.

There is drugs in football OC but Barca are a terrible example when it was obvious the niche style of player were the reason why they were so great.

Nothing to do with Sharapova whatsoever, Nadal and Federer are currently #1 and #2
Murray had hip surgery and before that, shingles, Djokovic was never the same after French Open 16, some 8 months before Doperpova case came to light, Nadal won 2 slams last year, made another final, Federer won 3 in the last 15 months.

I once saw the odious Merson at a sportsmanship dinner.
He claimed AW had him injecting some green stuff the day before the game.
He never asked any questions.  Nor did the others.