Premier League / First Division ratings

Discussion in 'Players & Legends' started by PuckVanHeel, Dec 16, 2016.

  1. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Yes they will publish all 50 on their website eventually...



    (not saying it is the definitive word, but a non-English perspective and view on their game might be interesting/informative - use google translate)
     
  2. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    BBC has now a 'best overseas Premier League player' thing

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47474106

    I actually find it a terrible selection.

    Typical snubbing and double handicap of Dutch players (and Hazard) too, while they actually have, behind the French, the most player of the year winners. And that with Gullit in the panel. As typical as Peru FC his complete whitewashing of the 2000s (but oh well #3 in Elo and having a starter in almost every CL final "does not indicate quality").

    But that's a product of the modern fanbases and media I suppose, with clubs as the kingmakers that aptly chose which demographics and markets they want to cover. And it will not get better because Holland it has always been hard to compete with the Spains of this world that just trot out 200 million for a training centre.

    Sergio 'Kunt' Aguero with his criminal upbringing, who struggles to score 20 open play goals in a season for a supercharged team, is now seen as a rival for Thierry Henry. Absurd in my book, but not surprising. He should first collect some 'goals of the month', then there is a case.
     
  3. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I would agree with you in the sense that Bergkamp not being there is an absolute shocker in my opinion! I try probably to be reserved in my comments, but I'd have a strong opinion about that one - it does seem a bit of an outrage. I would say "when Aguero and Drogba are there" or things like that but it's not even necessary - he should be there for absolute definite according to me anyway and I could hardly believe he wasn't to be honest. Whether focused more on peak, or more on longevity I just don't see how he'd not be listed as a candidate - it kind of invalidates the whole process to me - I do feel that strongly about it - ok, we can all feel sometimes candidates we want to vote for are not in some poll but when so many people (I assume - and even looking at just the most recent comments it's clear it's been a point of contention) want to vote for someone and he's not there it seems a bit farcical. I couldn't imagine Rivera (ok, more of a midfielder and playing his whole career in his home country) not being available for selection in a 1960's Serie A stars vote - this feels akin to that to me. He's more worthy of consideration than Cristiano Ronaldo for me, and I know that will get disagreement. But yeah, as you can gather I don't agree with or understand his omission lol!

    I think I was so surprised by that that I haven't looked so closely at other things although I think I'd certainly have expected Hazard (just as much as Aguero certainly at the least) to be a candidate now too.

    Some things like Hyypia and Carvalho only being honourable mentions when I might consider them more are more expected/understandable - and fair comments are added by the pundits who mention them I'd say.
     
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  4. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I see now "a shortlist was provided to the panel based on players who had made it into the PFA Team of the Year" so the panel weren't allowed to pick anyone else. The ones who made the shortlist made the slip-up then (and maybe it's flawed to even provide one for things like this).

    EDIT - Bergkamp certainly made it into the PFA Team of the Year, so could have been a candidate just to clarify, in case anyone is confused. The people making the shortlist obviously used their own judgement about which of them to nominate for consideration.
     
  5. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    I can understand the usual narrative for Drogba (big game player, won them the CL etc).

    He is one nine overseas players with more than 100 goals (RvN and DB10 are close to that barrier)


    Graph at 4:22

    At his best he scored 28 non penalty goals for a relatively defensive team (under Ancelotti). That is good and can compare well to the best of other strikers.
     
  6. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    No, sorry, I think I am wrong here - it'll teach me for reading things too quick before replying! The way I read it now is that the panel did choose the players that would be available for the public to select. Maybe even every player who got into a PFA Team of the Year was automatically up for discussion and it was the panel who narrowed the list down? Puck, you might have confirmation of that (I know I'm the English one who is reading the article in his first language though lol, but if you studied it in detail already I guess you can confirm).

    Sorry about that! Still less of a mistake than omitting Bergkamp for me. And it's a bit surprising indeed if Hazard wasn't even discussed (or at least wasn't given a positive comment about being a good candidate) yeah. Same for Zola I'd say (more than with Bergkamp I guess there's an argument that his peak form as well as overall span of time in the league was more limited; I'd also rate Bergkamp higher at peak but it'd be a relatively marginal call I guess given how good Zola was upon arrival in England as I've stated previously and remember clearly).
     
  7. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I guess so, but not if it means omitting Bergkamp in my opinion. It's maybe not quite Inzaghi over Baggio, but feels a bit similar to that kind of call.
     
  8. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    I think it does not help Zola, Cantona or Bergkamp are nowadays thought of a forward who didn't score that much (for modern standards). The way and if they made their teams better is of secondary importance. Also the vast number of pre-assists are naturally forgotten.

    But it is a horrendously bad shortlist. For many countries they pick the wrong player.
     
  9. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I think you are right. A lot of fans don't forget their qualities though, judging by the comments being entered. Of course Sutton and Shearer were both strikers, so maybe they have a natural inclination to recognise the goalscorers, and it is a unique kind of shortlist that only offers 12 candidates and only 4 of them can be forwards. If it's to narrow down the candidates for actual best ever foreign player in the era (not discounting that defenders can be candidates) I kind of understand the method, but still in my mind Bergkamp is a prime candidate and doing it this way we don't get to see how many votes he'd get.

    He'd be on my shortlist of 12 (if done this way or another) but I think it also shows that more choices should have been offered (if done with a panel they could have been given double the slots; a little more biased towards the attackers since then several defenders would be nominees anyway).
     
    PuckVanHeel repped this.
  10. Tropeiro

    Tropeiro Member+

    Jun 1, 2018
  11. Tropeiro

    Tropeiro Member+

    Jun 1, 2018
  12. msioux75

    msioux75 Member+

    Jan 8, 2006
    Lima, Peru
    @PDG1978 , "The People" newspaper is now called "The Sunday People"?
    I think, in 1961 make that change bought for a new group.
     
  13. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    No, I think the Sunday People is just literally the version of 'The People' newspaper that gets sold on Sundays msioux.

    There is the Sunday Times too for example.
     
  14. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Oh, I should have checked first lol, because maybe you are correct I realise now!

    I don't think I ever knew that 'The People' was a Sunday-only newspaper. I had heard of the title from when I was a kid I had thought, but strangely there apparently wasn't a 'People' newspaper but only a Sunday People by that point. Maybe some people still referred to it as The People. I never read a copy of it I don't think anyway.

    So sorry for my false ideas/memories, you are probably right I think now!
     
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  15. msioux75

    msioux75 Member+

    Jan 8, 2006
    Lima, Peru
    So, maybe in 1961, The People stop doing those rankings.
    Or, maybe was his first and only ranking
     
  16. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    It's possible, but I would think it might only be a name change, with content remaining similar (maybe I should have read more again before assuming this though, I don't know).

    If it was based on average ratings, as it seems (Titanlux confirmed it I think) then it could continue surely, but in later years for some reason it didn't seem that newspapers tallied up the ratings to get averages (either running averages or even a final average for each player) in England as opposed to for example Italy, so it's interesting that The People does seem to have been doing it at that time. I suppose it makes sense that The People would show ratings for Saturday games.

    Maybe Titanlux will find something else, but Marca perhaps weren't keeping a regular check on the ratings of The People but just reported something at that moment near the end of that season. I don't know. It was good that details about English league ratings and awards were appearing in Spanish newspapers anyway.
     
  17. Titanlux

    Titanlux Member+

    Barcelona
    Spain
    Nov 27, 2017
    This is a more complete review of the same news from the monthly Football Magazine (August 1961).
    mejores britanicos football magazine agosto.jpg
     
  18. Pavlin Arnaudov

    Juventus
    Bulgaria
    Oct 21, 2017
    Great!
    And can you post the ratings of all the players from these matches?
    Nice day!
     
  19. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I didn't throw away the magazine (I don't think anyway!), since I made the post, so I'll let you know if and when I can find it again (probably not today, as I'm not really sure where it is right now), and then yeah I could post the ratings of all players in those games for you.

    Unfortunately I don't have any end of season summaries with average ratings for particular seasons (I don't think they provided those), and I don't think I still have enough copies for any particular season to be able to work out ratings game by game myself. Perhaps Shoot magazine did keep track of ratings themselves though, as they provided some Arsenal ones as I showed in this post, which maybe you already saw too:
    But yeah, I don't recall any end of season summaries with the top rated players of the league I don't think. Match magazine might have in some seasons listed the top rated players club by club I think though for example, like I refer to at the start of the post you quoted (I didn't find the Premier League ones for that season after I made my post though either).

    EDIT - Nice day to you too!
     
  20. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I found this edition again already (if I find the 90/91 one from May, or others, I can come back and post again sometime, and maybe even scan some pages in instead of typing things out, but I'll not promise anything right now in case I did even get rid of some copies including the 90/91 one which I can't be 100% sure about).

    Tottenham vs Man Utd
    Shoot Match Rating: 3 stars
    Tottenham: Walker 7, Edinburgh 7, Carr 7, Vega 6, Campbell 9, Nielsen 7, Howells 7, Clemence 7 (Sinton 6), Ginola 8, Ferdinand 6, Iversen 6
    Man Utd: Schmeichel 7, Irwin 7, P.Neville 7, Johnsen 7, Pallister 7, Keane 7, Scholes 7 (Beckham 7), Giggs 9, Cruyff 6, Butt 7, Sheringham 6

    Arsenal vs Coventry
    Shoot Match Rating: 4 stars
    Arsenal: Seaman 7, Winterburn 7, Garde 7, Marshall 7, Grimandi 7, Vieira 6, Overmars 7 (Hughes 6), Parlour 6, Petit 6 (Platt 6), Bergkamp 9, Wright 7
    Coventry: Ogrizovic 6, Shaw 6, Burrows 6, Williams 6, Breen 6, Huckerby 5 (Lightbourne 6), Dublin 6, McAllister 7, Salako 7, Telfer 6, Soltvedt 6 (Boland 6)

    Aston Villa vs Blackburn
    Shoot Match Rating: 4 stars
    Aston Villa: Oakes 5, Nelson 6, Ehiogu 5 (Taylor 6), Southgate 4, Grayson 5, Wright 5, Draper 5, Townsend 5, Milosevic 4 (Joachim 7), Yorke 4, Collymore 5
    Blackburn: Filan 6, Valery 6, Hendry 7, Henchoz 6 (Pearce 5), Kenna 6, Ripley 7 (Bohinen 6), McKinlay 7, Flitcroft 6, Wilcox 7, Gallacher 7 (Dahlin 6), Sutton 9

    Liverpool vs Leicester
    Shoot Match Rating: 2 stars
    Liverpool: James 6, Jones 6, Wright 5, Babb 6 (Matteo 6), McManaman 6, Harkness 7, Riedle 5, Thomas 5 (Carragher 6), Ince 7, Owen 6, Byornebye 5 (Murphy 6)
    Liecester: Keller 6, Walsh 8, Izzet 6 (Savage 7), Lennon 7, Heskey 8, Kaamark 8, Campbell 7, Guppy 7, Prior 8, Elliott 9, Marshall 7 (Fenton 7)

    Man Utd vs Southampton
    Shoot Match Rating: 3 stars
    Man Utd: Schmeichel 6, Irwin 6, Johnsen 7 (Berg 7), Pallister 6, P.Neville 6, Scholes 6 (Beckham 7), Keane 6, Butt 5, Giggs 7, Cruyff 8, Sheringham 6
    Southampton: Jones 6, Van Gobbel 7 (Robinson 6), Monkou 6, Benali 6, Todd 7, Oakley 6, Magilton 8, Maddison 7, Slater 6 (Williams 6), Johansen 5 (Evans 6), Ostenstad 5

    Sheffield Wednesday vs Leeds
    Shoot Match Rating: 3
    Sheff Wed: Pressman 7, Atherton 6, Nolan 5, Walker 5, Carbone 8 (Donaldson 6), Booth 6, Di Canio 7, Blondeau 7, Humpreys 6 (Oakes 6), Stefanovic 5, Collins 6 (Hyde 7)
    Leeds: Martyn 7, Kelly 7, Robertson 7, Wetherall 6, Wallace 8, Hasselbaink 9 (Lilley 6), Ribeiro 7, Bowyer 6 (Haaland 6), Hopkin 7, Halle 6, Molenaar 6

    West Ham vs Tottenham
    Shoot Match Rating: 4 stars
    West Ham: Milklosko 8, Breacker 7, Potts 6, Rieper 6, Hartson 7 (Dowie 6), Lomas 8, Ferdinand 9, Moncur 8 (Lampard 6), Lazaridis 8, Kitson 7 (Hughes 6), Berkovic 8
    Tottenham: Walker 8, Edinburgh 6, Howells 7, Nielsen 6 (Sinton 6), Ferdinand 6, Carr 6, Ginola 6, Vega 7, Scales 8, Iversen 7, Campbell 6 (Clemence 7)
     
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  21. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Very brief highlights can be seen here (0-2 win for Manchester):

    https://odysee.com/@TJSSports:4/s-l400:c

    That 9/10 for Campbell looks as a classic 'England golden boy' (but e.g. Italy not alien to this too) and 'England national team captaincy' bonus.

    In those two minutes you can see his positioning wasn't great and I've often noticed that myself in the bigger games at club level (for example the 1999 League Cup final). This was though less/not of an issue when playing for the national team. I'd seriously doubt such an elevated rating above all but one Manchester United player, and far above his team mates (except Ginola).

    Although it isn't definitive, he has even a negative plus-minus rating for this season (indeed, as proven previously, the raw data show Tottenham wasn't getting worse results when he wasn't playing). It's harder to be in the greens for a mid-table team.
    [​IMG]

    This is how a 'healthy' profile at a good team looks:
    [​IMG]
     
  22. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    If I still don't find that particular issue, there will be a few others also from 1990/91 that I can show instead.

    I'm not sure whether it was particularly those games you were interested in, or anything from around that time? I do know I was in two minds whether to throw some magazines away and decided to go ahead a while ago, but I can't be sure which ones or whether that end of season 1990/91 Shoot edition was one of them (but I didn't find it again yet anyway, just the one from early 97/98 with the ratings I posted included, as well as a few others including one from summer 1998 - hence I posted some ratings etc on the 1998 World Cup thread).


    By the way (for everyone, not in reply to Pavlin specifically), I had already been wondering whether 3 Man of the Match awards for Bergkamp in 96/97 (plus 3 more in the FA Cup) could be referring to overall Man of the Match according to Shoot (rather than just highlighted as top Arsenal player), and given they do award overall Man of the Match during 1998 World Cup games then maybe that does seem feasible and more likely. But it's just that I don't think for English league games they announced overall MOTM as such for each game, even if sometimes it would be obvious where a player is given the single highest grade, more than any team-mate or opponent. Maybe they did keep track of MOTM awards for their own purposes, like they seemingly did with average ratings (unless they specifically went back and calcualted the Arsenal ones for 96/97 in order to put the stats in the Bergkamp piece I posted about in this thread).

    I tend to think Campbell was a bit more mobile as Tottenham player than Arsenal player Puck, generally speaking, so maybe he relied on covering the ground a bit more and didn't focus as much on positioning? He was a bit better with the ball in those days I think (related to mobility/agility I suppose too). I probably was most impressed with him for England, but I think under George Graham for example he'd probably have been instructed to play the ball long if in doubt or as a tactic and suchlike, so that's a consideration outside of the defending itself (on the defensive side probably I'd think that he gradually learned his trade as it were and for example in early Tottenham years he'd not be the most secure or difficult to bypass in that respect, but yeah maybe surprising the plus-minus rating in late 90's doesn't correspond at all with the media ratings, even if of course it's dependent on which games were missed and can at times not really be reflective of the overall influence). The plus-minus rating for Pires could be interesting to see probably - in 01/02 it could be affected by Arsenal actually continuing to do very well without him, with Bergkamp really excelling in the final games and Ljungberg too having taken over Pires's position on the left. I wonder how his 01/02 plus-minus would look, even compared to 00/01, as well as for example the 03/04 invincibles season (although the one before and the two after might provide more opportunities to compare when he plays and when he doesn't I guess).
     
  23. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Yes, it is not always clear what the instructions are. Re: Sneijder, he claims at one point the likes of Benitez forced him to shoot on sight, something he himself disagreed with but received negative takes in the Italian/domestic media (indeed, when playing for the national team he didn't do this).

    I'd say Campbell looked at his best in a couple Arsenal seasons and at certain phases of his England career (1998, but not 2000). There the positional problems were at a minimum, top class level, and he was part of an unbeaten streak (compare: the unbeaten home streak with Stam and Van Dijk at the top among starters).

    His 56 games unbeaten streak is the most of all Premier League players (he missed some games within the Invincible run too and that makes he doesn't come into the picture for the home unbeaten run). Sometimes the positional issue was still there when fielded with a 'lesser' defender at Arsenal I think.

    Anyway, I just think/thought a 9/10 in that specific 0-2 loss against Manchester United in 1997 looks suspicious. Of course highlights of a few minutes show a partial picture but it connects with what I saw in e.g. the League Cup final
     
  24. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    I think if I had to pick out a moment when I rated him highest (or was most evidently impressed by him overall) it probably would be during World Cup 1998 indeed. I remember when I looked back at this game (which I had seen at the time also) I actually had him as second best England player (but England were, due to Italy's defending in part, not exactly fluent and incisive in attack generally speaking to be fair), interestingly playing in a back 3 between two natural 'full-backs' (according to the modern use of the term of course), and IIRC it was more on the defensive side (as might be expected in such a role), while in WC98 it wasn't purely that side of the game but yeah probably around that period in general his mobility was at it's peak whether in defensive situations or coming forwards.
    EDIT - Sorry, inserting link now!
    England vs. Italy 1997 | Footballia

    I read that a player psychologist had told Raddy Majewski of Forest to shoot more often (with praise for doing it, and/or targets for numbers of shots on target or at target or something), and I didn't really agree with that myself, especially with Majewski being a creative player with presumably a much better footballing sense and instinct than the psychologist assigned to mentor or instruct him. It was in a bit of a down phase in terms of his form and general confidence I think, but I didn't think of that as a good way to help him out of it necessarily. Maybe there are vague parallels to what Sneijder refers to there, I don't know. I suppose on the flip side there is always the 'if you don't shoot you can't score' kind of argument, but it would seem to me best to leave such players to decide on their preferred course of action in each moment, shooting when they feel they have a good chance to score ideally, because every time they shoot they are potentially giving up other options to help a team-mate receive a chance (and even if the player shoots immediately whenever anywhere near the target they give up opportunities to dummy or dribble their way into a better scoring position, or play a one-two with that aim for example).
     

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