Best player before Morphy

Who was the best player before Morphy?

ruy lopez maybe?

Ur.....Ruy Lopez was a chess writer 

Karl Adolf Anderssen

He was DURING Morphy's time

Staunton?

Or Phillidor

La Bourdonnais and Deschappeles definitely. Before them, probably Petrov and Phillidor.

The question was who was considered the best player before Morphy. Before Morphy went to Europe and beat everybody, Andersen was considered the best chess player in the world. (Although Howard Staunton would dispute that because he considered himself number one) The question was not "who was the best chess player, ever, for hundreds of years before Morphy". 

In his book on the 1851 tournament, Staunton included a contribution from someone who argued that (despite Anderssen's 1851 victory) Staunton still deserved to be considered the best. Nevertheless, AFTER that book, I am not aware of anything that could be construed as a Staunton argument that he was still number one. As time went by, he was perhaps increasingly aware of the scarcity of post-1846 Staunton successes.

Da Cowphy