Couldn't start a new thread because am newbie, I guess... Maybe Comme can help in a lack it seems to be related with old right-halves. While researching about ancient wingers I found names like Needham, Joe Mercer, Jimmy Dickinson, all of them arguably great stars and left-sided. For the right midfielders, none comparable to Beckham, if not considering Ball suitable to an hypothetical half-back line. Was there anyone before the 50s who could be considered actually great, besides Ben Warren, Alfred Strange, Willis Edwards, Ken Willingham? Perhaps Jack Reynolds?
Good God man! first you want to call our world draft team 'The Irish 26s' and now I find this!? You're just an overall bad person, really.
The Greatest Players in English Football History?? read this ITW and learn what Pelé himself thinks about this purpose ! Pelé_ITW_The_SUN.htm
For me over the time that I have watched football. -------------------Schmeichel Petrescu----Lawrenson----McGrath----Irwin ---------------------Keane----------------- Ronaldo-------------Gerrard------------Giggs ---------------Shearer----Henry------------- Subs: Peter Shilton,Alan Hansen, Nemanja Vidic, Ashley Cole, Bryan Robson, John Barnes, Ian Rush
The four keepers ahead of Schmeichel are all time greats who spent their entire career in England - Schmeichel was 27 before he played his first game for Man Utd. No shame in him coming behind them. Irwin was ranked about right in the top ten left backs. Anderson was a right back until the late 80's. His last caps for England in 1988 were in that position and he played there almost exclusively for Forest and Arsenal. Mark Wright? He doesn't belong anywhere near this discussion. Campbell was one of the best centre backs in the league for over a decade. Most of the others were listed in the other list for central defenders. A while back I did a comparison of the two weighting their goal totals against the average goals per game each year and Greaves came out slightly on top. He is the all time leader in top flight goals in England so it's pretty difficult to leave him out.
Manchester United I have got a huge and complete information on the greatest players in English Football History..... very well written..... manchester united
Yes they are all greats but Schmeichel is without doubt the greatest keeper ever to play in the English League. I've seen Peter Shilton play and he was great but never as commanding as Peter Schmeichel. On Denis Irwin, there is no doubt in my mind and I'd say that most people agree that he was the best right back ever to play the game in England. If it were not for the legendary Paolo Maldini he would have been rated as the best full back in the world for most of his career. While a lot of his England caps were at full back and he did start his career in that position, he started splitting his time between right full and Centre back during the late 70's and it became more regular in the early eighties and after that when he moved to Arsenal and United. I still think he was a better centre back than right back. Mark Wright does not belong in the discussion but Sol Campbell does?????? Do you remember his world class performances in the 1990 World Cup? Do you remember Mark Wright playing for Southampton and they finished runners up on the back of exceptional defending? Do you remember his performances for Liverpool in the late nineties?This shows how little real knowledge is involved in these selections. Mark Wright has an outstanding career in the English League, injuries might have affected his international but when he played for England he was nothing short of outstanding. Stats don't cover everything. The omission of George Best is clear proof of that. I understand the stats feature, but when you take into account the standard of football in the Premier League compared to the English League when Greaves played there is a huge difference.
Schmeichel has a fair claim to be the best GK ever I think. But purely in English domestic football terms there are 4 keepers there who did it to a similar level to him, for much longer. As such I really think he was fairly placed. I would be very surprised if most people regarded Irwin as the best right-back ever in England, not least for the fact that he played as a left-back most of the time. Maldini, Carlos, Amoros, Lizarazu, Cafu, Zanetti all were ahead of Irwin during his career. Irwin was a steady 7 out of 10 man, which is great for a full-back but not enough to make you one of the world's best. Fair enough, but for almost all of his career in his prime he played as a full-back. Mark Wright was a sweeper/centre-half, he doesn't fit in the same category as Campbell. Plus if you wish to bring internationals (which had no bearing in this list) into it, surely the fact that he was 3 times in the squads of international tournaments trumps the claims of Wright. Best missed out to Matthews and Giggs, two legends who combined longevity with brilliant which was a major part of the criteria set out. When Shearer was playing in his early days the league was actually weaker IMO than when Greaves was about. Shearer's most prolific years came during arguably the weakest era of English league football in the post-WW2 era.
No, there is nobody that did it to a similar level, there are great keepers who played for much longer than he did in British football but there is nobody who was close to as dominant as he was. Yes Left back I meant although he was imperious when he played at right back also, which was mainly for his country but I digress. You say 7 out of 10, thats ridiculous. The thing with Irwin is that you hear about the Le Saux's and the Zantetti's because when they made a mistake or were caught out of position they got back and made a great tackle or got back and hassled the player off the ball on most occasions. Quite simply Denis Irwin did not make those mistakes so he was not lauded for those extra special tackles. The man was as close to perfect as you are ever likely to see in football in his postion. No, I didn't say that. If you include internationals then he played most of his games at right back, but in the football league he spent more time at Centre back than at right back. Regardless of Mark Wright and what you think of him, Sol Campbell is still miles behind others for that postion. Giggs never got near the brillinace of Best, he was an exceptional footballer in his own right, but all the greats of the sixties rate George Best the best footballer to ever play the game in England but you don't have him in your team. LOL, ridiculous post. I challenge you to back that up.
Shearer's peak years were 92/93 - 96/97 England's UEFA coefficient rankings during that time were as follows: 1993 - 18th 1994 - 5th 1995 - 8th 1996 - 19th 1997 - 5th It was only the performances of Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool in the Cup Winners Cup (by far the weakest European trophy) that were really of any note in those periods. During that time, only two English clubs (Newcastle and Forest) lasted more than 2 rounds in the UEFA Cup.
18th and the 19th best league in Europe? ********ing hell, I was expecting somewhere between 5 and 10. Or are these just for that specific year and not for a 5-year period, as is the case right now?
Alan Shearer was a top goalscorer up until 2004. You conveniently pick out five years where he was with Blackburn for four of them and Newcastle for only one. When Shearer retired from the England team in 2000, many considered it was too early but due to a serious injury he felt it was right to retire. You do know that he then went on to have another three seasons where he scored high in the twenties. And that brings us up to the middle of 2004, I think you could say that he was on the slide after that. Also can you provide a link for those stats.
He picked them out because that was Shearer's peak period, including the 3 times in his career that he broke 30 goals. He didn't have any seasons when he scored high in the twenties, he had two of 23 and one of 22. Given that I stated that during Shearer's peak years the league was weak, those were the ones he picked out. In Greaves' entire career the first time he failed to break 20 league goals was in 1965-66 when he was suffered with jaundice. The first season where he wasn't hit by injury and failed to hit 20 league goals was 1969-70, his last season at Spurs and a full 12 years after the start of his career.
Yes they were. Did you watch Southall or Shilton in their prime? Schmeichel was a first rate goalkeeper, arguably at his peak the best. But he was not a level ahead of the rest. Yes, 7 out of 10 every game was Irwin's level. Excellent player, but not that outstanding. If you want someone close to perfection in that position it was Maldini, and Irwin was never close to his level. His prime position was right-back, but he could play both. I had to put people in one position, I chose right-back which given the amount of time he played there is far from a stretch. Why do you care so much about Viv Anderson? Not of stoppers. There were arguably better centre-halves (Moore, Hansen, McGrath) but no better stoppers. Because he played for abou 8 years in the league at his peak. He won 2 titles. Giggs has played for 18 years, won 10 titles. I based alot of it on longevity, that was the criteria for this. As lanman has pointed out just look at the performance of English clubs in Europe in the early and mid-90s. Look if you care so much about these, why don't you post up your top 30s and give us all a laugh?
Shearer from 93-97 - 169 games 137 goals Shearer from 97-04 - 212 games 106 goals In the first period he was simply sensational, in the second just very good. http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/index.html#part4 This is a database of all historical UEFA Coefficients and Rankings.
For all those that enjoyed this thread I have now widened the scope of it to the top 100 players in the world ever, by position. It starts off here with the 100 greatest goalkeepers ever https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1245346 Thanks.