flibbertyjibber
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You get the feeling they need to win about 10 home games to stop up. Away from home they just seem to give up.
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*Official* English Football Season 2014-15
- Thread starter GIMH
- Start date
sledger
Spanish_Vicente
Yeah, Rob Green is no good. Never has been, but has always been overrated because he's English and plays for teams with crap defences who allow a lot of shots. The fact that he's been relegated several times and concedes loads of goals, plenty of which are his fault, always seems to go unnoticed.
Anyway, Arsenal got out of jail a bit there. Giroud is a ****ing idiot. And the reffing in that game was terrible. The QPR pen that Martin Atkinson gave was a shocker, and the way he missed Gibbs taking out Zamora right in front of goal a few moments later was equally bad.
It's becoming trite to say how good Sanchez workrate is, but it really is so so good. Love him.
Anyway, Arsenal got out of jail a bit there. Giroud is a ****ing idiot. And the reffing in that game was terrible. The QPR pen that Martin Atkinson gave was a shocker, and the way he missed Gibbs taking out Zamora right in front of goal a few moments later was equally bad.
It's becoming trite to say how good Sanchez workrate is, but it really is so so good. Love him.
cpr
International Coach
Hmmmmm. Quite frankly no. If we're talking about inverted wingers, Giggs was doing that before the Premier League began. We'd rotate Sharpe, Giggs and Kanchelskis on the wings, and Giggs played from the right as much as the left in those days. You watch his early goals for Utd, and half of them you'll see Giggs cutting across the defence from the right and leaving them for dust before slotting it past the keeper - he was playing as the furthest forward from the right. If we played all 3 of them he'd end up being the central one. That 92/93 team was built around that tactic of speed and comfort on the ball - when we managed to land Cantona it was the icing on the cake, as he provided the launchpad for those attacks. You watch that first goal against Norwich that year, when we broke from Schmeichel to score in about 10 seconds and you'll see that in action. When you remember that we spend 91/92 honing that style of play finishing 2nd in the league (without Cantona of course), and Giggs was only 18 when that season ended, it shows what sheer raw talent he was. To say as a winger his tactical importance compared to a winger today is dimished is quite frankly blind. As much as a Utd fan raves about Cantona, in that whole system we played Giggs was absolutely vital. It just wouldn't have been effective without him.
I didn't say Giggs was better than Bale, I said he was the prototype. The way he'd attack defences by running at/through them was something else. Off the top of my head I can't think of anyone who could do it nearly as well until Ronaldo arrived (and stopped dancing like a **** every time he got the ball). Mind you I dare say McManaman wasn't exactly awful at doing it himself.
The problem with Giggs is that by 95 his hamstring injuries were starting to come on, and it took a lot of wind out of his sails. The Giggs in his 20s, whilst still a fantastic footballer, was a slight disappointment compared to what we'd seen in the 1st two years (and the season before) of the Premier League. However I stand by my point that he'd have got into any of the top teams of the time - I daresay he'd have been ideal for Cruyffs Barcelona team, Imagine him as part of an attacking line with Romario and Stoichkov.... Likewise Milan with their more standard use of wingers would've loved him, especially after Lentini's accident.
On Neville. He wasn't a stand out player, nor was he a technical wizz like the rest of his group (though defensively he was more than a match for any right back), however his biggest strength was being one of the best readers of the game I've seen. His work with Beckham down are right is criminally underrated. Their understanding was almost telepathic, and it allowed Beckham the freedom to be the player he was. He could terrorise a defence from deep with the threat his laser accurate balls knowing that Neville will bomb past any moment and provide the more traditional winger cross from nearer the corner flag (and he had a pretty damn good cross). Beckham got digs for being a winger who never took on a man, he didn't need to with Neville at his side. Yet despite that he rarely got caught out at the back in his heyday. One of the reasons why both he and Carragher have really become great pundits is they shared the ability to just natually understand everything that was going on on the pitch.
Ikki
Hall of Fame Member
You make it sound as if Giggs was Robben. Giggs wasn't really an inverted winger - getting the ball, starting, from the right and cutting in. He would start wide and make runs in behind the defence onto/towards his left. This isn't really what Bale does. I just don't think they compare on the whole. Bar the intermittent season he wasn't very prolific. He doesn't have 3 consecutive seasons of even hitting double digits - Bale is currently on his 5th and counting. I just think you and many others look at his career with extremely thick rose-tinted glasses. During his career he was never in the same sentence as some of the players you're talking about. To have been in an attacking line with Romario and Stoichkov he'd have had to replaced Laudrup...and that's not happening in any universe. And this is the Barca team that Milan thumped 4-0 in the European cup final. English football back then was in the dark ages.
I'm sure being Welsh Bale idolised him and wanted to be very much like him but there's no real uniqueness to Giggs that made him so different to talk about him as a prototype. He was a fairly conventional modern winger, especially for a 4-4-2. Honestly, bar his incredible longevity; Giggs wasn't the standout generational talent some people believe him to be. Again, probably never even the best player in his own team.
As for Neville; I agree he's got great game intelligence but he's basically a rich man's Steve Finnan for me. Consistent, hardly made a mistake defensively and with a great cross. Contrast him with Cole who I think was the best LB in the world for his generation, or at least one of the best. I couldn't ever say that about Neville.
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Anyway, funny vine on Mignolet...the goat.
https://vine.co/v/OHwvtVtr6W6
I'm sure being Welsh Bale idolised him and wanted to be very much like him but there's no real uniqueness to Giggs that made him so different to talk about him as a prototype. He was a fairly conventional modern winger, especially for a 4-4-2. Honestly, bar his incredible longevity; Giggs wasn't the standout generational talent some people believe him to be. Again, probably never even the best player in his own team.
As for Neville; I agree he's got great game intelligence but he's basically a rich man's Steve Finnan for me. Consistent, hardly made a mistake defensively and with a great cross. Contrast him with Cole who I think was the best LB in the world for his generation, or at least one of the best. I couldn't ever say that about Neville.
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Anyway, funny vine on Mignolet...the goat.
https://vine.co/v/OHwvtVtr6W6
grecian
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yeah, I must admit him being a ****ing Taff and playing for United all his career does make me view him with a bias.....
grecian
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Vi ra yes, not sure about the others really, as much as Ikki makes you want to despise Gerrard he's hideously under-rated on this website.
sledger
Spanish_Vicente
Gilberto.
cpr
International Coach
I agree Giggs didn't run at defences as much on the right as on the left, he was more of a shadow striker, keeping the defence on their toes, breaking off the last man. However he would do it if it required, and the defence knew there was little answer when he did.
You talk about long term proficiency like its the only benchmark. I'm clear I'm talking about Giggs in a specific timeframe , namely those first 2 Premiership seasons (when he was getting double figures). Alas at the age of 21 he struggled with niggling injuries which hugely affected his A) game time and B) playing style. Added to that the emergence of Scholes and Beckham saw Fergie rethink the 91-95 style that had a Cantona/Giggs pivot to accomodate the basically free talent he'd just got. Giggs became a more predominantly left winger - though you watch his goals and you'll see still many come from Giggs still being the furthest man forward being fed by Cantona/Sherringham from deep, or Cole drifting wide, or even making a run/one-two to slice open a defence.... The rest coming from being the man in the box on the end of a Beckham cross (in a way we've failed to replicate that since Giggs stopped being a winger, and with Rooney wanting to play deep there is regularly a dearth of Utd players in the box)
Funnily enough I referred to the Romario/Stoichkov/Giggs attacking line to avoid Laudrup. Romarios first season at Barca was Laudrups less effectual last - he wasnt in the 94 final team (admittedly the 3 foreigner rule would've been an issue for Giggs in that team, in europe still). The pre-Romario team would be more difficult to fit Giggs into because of Laudrup (and the fact the width came from the backs rather than up top). As for the dark ages, I do remember Cruyffs European Cup winning team lost a final in Rotterdam the year before..........
True Utd did have Cantona who is idolised, quite rightly, though we only saw a Cantona at his utter peak before he retired - with Giggs we've had the whole wave of his career. In a way a bit of the Cantona-God level is rose tinted. We had to survive a lot without him too (not just the 9 months, but the regular 3/4/5 match bans he picked up). However Cantona's time at utd, being in his career peak (26-31), ran alongside Giggs' basically youth (18-25), which as I said earlier, hit a sort of wall at 21 with injuries that changed his game, so in a way its unfair to expect Giggs to outshine Cantona. However what Giggs was was the most outstanding naturally talented player to be emerging at that time, certainly in the UK, and in Europe too. In the 4 years before the likes of Beckham and Fowler became first team regulars (bearing in mind Giggs is only a year older then them), he was no comparison within the English game.
GIMH
Norwood's on Fire
****s me when Grecian is right.
If Gerrard had gone to Chelsea in 04 or 05 like he was close to doing both years the Lampard thing wouldn't even be considered, and he'd have likely left Chelsea while Gerrard won a medal or three.
I mean Keane and Scholes there are cases for even if I don't agree but to rank Lampard above Gerrard is laughable, there isn't a top manager in the game over their careers who would have picked Lampard over Gerrard.
Anyway. Whites were **** today and thanks to good old English snow it took me four hours to drive the 100 miles home.