PDG1978 was talking about his best periods at Ajax. You said this recently about that: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/best-striker-at-their-prime.2092145/page-18#post-39549857 I think it is not impossible he'll match Suarez his 2013-14 with a WS rate of 8.43. Because he was still more of a dribbler and chance creator than Ibra or Lewa (see the stats for euro 1988 and 1992). 3.8 created chances per 90 at euro 1992 and 2.2 successful dribbles in 1988 (4th most in the tournament). He was more mobile than Ibra was after roughly 2008. But like I said, the odds are also high he doesn't set the WS metric on fire for reasons stated above. WhoScored doesn't differentiate in the place of actions, which the Castrol thing did. Yes, that is interesting, and makes the creative scene a minute before his career ended more poignant.
For me, having never seen Cruyff or Pele, let alone Di Stefano, the idea of Rudd Gullit was perhaps more than the player that I saw live itself. The idea of a Ruud Gullit who was technically excellent, yet also a physical beast, and can play multiple positions at high intelligence was probably something the child version of me created for myself based on limited viewing and fascination.
Surely you would admit this is at least slightly disingenuous Merging 2 separate periods of van bastens career and proposing some kind of Frankenstein version of van basten that really never existed Van basten in Euro 1992 may of created 3.8 chances per 90(no source from you but ill take your word at face value) But he also scored 0 goals+0 assists at that tournament Whether or not he had a wrongly disallowed goal is a completely separate discussion Bearing in mind i called zlatan ibrahimovic a 'minimalist' dribbler in 2011/12 He still dribbled at a rate of 2.3 dribbles per 90 over 32 league matches https://www.whoscored.com/Players/3281/History/Zlatan-Ibrahimovic Ill go with the certainty that is ibrahimovic in Serie A 11/12(with considerably more matches to judge from)rather then the uncertainty of van bastens record(2.2 dribbles per 90 over a period 6 times shorter and the complete absence of any other corroborating data which would suggest this nothing more then a outlier in his career) About Suarez and his legendary 8.43 WS rating There was a point(roughly the mid way point of a league campaign )that Luis Suarez 2013/14 scored and assisted at a rate of 2 goals+opta assists per 90 with 0 penalties in the EPL This with over 3 dribbles per 90 and 3 key passes per 90 It normalised after this otherwise wed easily be talking about a player in the same echelon as peak Lionel messi With all due respect it is a completely different level of all round attacking play @poetgooner said a long time ago and im paraphrasing that classical strikers weren't expected to fulfil the encompassing roles of modern day strikers Ones like Harry kane,zlatan ibrahimovic,Luis Suarez 11-16 there is no pre 2010 precedent for them Im not convinced despite the million dribbling/sprints of Ronaldo 1997/98 in Serie A that he was a player who was the creative hub of the team (with minimum 40 passes and 70~ touches per game)
For starters: You conflate the different periods here, not me. The topic here was the mid 1980s version. You started by making 1989 vs Ibra comparisons. If anything he was a more potent and long range dribbler before his injuries. Which will generate higher values in WhoScored. With better data not known, that makes it valid to cite data from after his significant injury troubles. Not that this will compute anyway.
Why do I remember us arguing over Suarez 13-14? Good to see you coming around Personally, it is not clear to me at all that Suarez's overall impact normalized, and not his role. Between 14-17, he still looked quite similar to his Liverpool self, even if not exactly the same, but his overall impact normalized because he was by then playing with Neymar and Messi. That'll limit anyone's numbers To be perfectly clear, I still stand by my statement, wherever you remembered it from, that the reason stat profiles of strikers have changed so drastically is because of the tactical evolution of the game. This is not to say older players would not be able to do just as well if not better than say the modern players in the modern context. Personally, I lean towards them being able to do so. For example, I have little double in my mind that if 17 year old Giggs were playing today, he'd be turned into a right-winger, and eventually developing into some sort of 15 league goals/season player. So it is quite easy for me to imagine someone like MvB being able to do just as well if not better than the Ibra or better yet, Lewandowski of this world.
I know that Kane and Son went on to the break the record. I can't quite recall for sure now how close they ended up to the all-time tally of Lampard and Drogba, but having posted this before.... ....I do now see this one, citing only OPTA data (I guess Transfermakt have some extra wider assists for recent times, but it doesn't change much at the top end anyway): Didier Drogba And Frank Lampard Lead Top 20 Assist-Goal Partnerships In Premier League History (sportbible.com) 20. Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs: 18 goals 19. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ryan Giggs: 18 goals 18. Harry Kane and Dele Alli: 18 goals 17. Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry: 18 goals 16. Andy Cole and Ryan Giggs: 18 goals 15. Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott: 19 goals 14. Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy: 19 goals 13. Olivier Giroud and Mesut Ozil: 19 goals 12. Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo: 20 goals 11. Ryan Giggs and Eric Cantona: 20 goals 10. Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero: 20 goals 9. Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen: 21 goals 8. Nolberto Solano and Alan Shearer: 22 goals 7. Thierry Henry and Freddie Ljungberg: 24 goals 6. Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman: 24 goals 5. Teddy Sheringham and Darren Anderton: 27 goals 4. Thierry Henry and Robert Pires: 29 goals 3. Harry Kane and Son Heung-min: 29 goals 2. David Silva and Sergio Aguero: 29 goals 1. Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard: 34 goals So that confirms the Bergkamp/Henry tally at 18 Premier League goals for example. Like I say, Kane and Son are now closer to the top and in a clear second place at least. For comparison I can add the 1st Division tally for Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush, with the help of this site: Liverpool career stats for Kenny Dalglish - LFChistory - Stats galore for Liverpool FC! Liverpool career stats for Ian Rush - LFChistory - Stats galore for Liverpool FC! It is 34, so exactly the same as for Drogba/Lampard interestingly (25 Dalglish assisting Rush goals, and 9 Rush assisting Dalglish goals). I don't know whether it would be an all-time record for the English top division though at that figure, or not. Like I noted on Trachta's goal contribution thread earlier, in all competitions, including continental ones, the Dalglish to Rush tally alone is 38 (I don't think there are many extra Rush assists to Dalglish outside the English league games though, just a small amount compared to the 9 league ones).
This table on the Premier League website did have Lampard and Drogba on 36 though (as well as the original source I referred to), so maybe they are two ahead of Rush and Dalglish (and probably still ahead of Kane and Son for now too), in terms of top division goal combinations. I'm not sure why what I posted earlier says 34 and the Premier League site says 36 though (I'd thought OPTA might be the source the Premier League used too IIRC). For Walcott and Van Persie it does seem clear that Transfermarkt does have a few wider ones included though I guess, hence the OPTA total for their goal combinations is lower than the one my original source had (citing both Transfermarkt and OPTA). Maybe there could be some combinations that do better than this in other leagues, involving candidates for this thread's original topic, but I don't know. Something like Messi with Xavi would be quite easily checkable I guess (although Transfermakt might include a few wider ones OPTA wouldn't, and WhoScored might not go far enough back). Pele and Coutinho at Santos could have a big tally I guess, but that wouldn't be so easy to find out!
34 goal combinations in 3 seasons is stuff of legend The understanding and chemistry between the 2 was bordering on telepathy Here for a nice tika taka move almost converted by ozil 1:01 If we account the pre assists aswell they would've combined for a remarkable total of 50 goals in just 3 seasons 2010/11 to 2012/13
2:50 Ozil to Ronaldo to higuain 3:45 Ronaldo to ozil to benzema Ozil and Ronaldo not only combined for a remarkable haul of goals and assists in a relatively short period of time but the former pre assisted many of his goals and even pre assisted some of his pre assists And vice versa Had he stayed at real Madrid ozil was on track to break the 400 assist barrier (in his career) He was already on track for this
To be fair I do think Ozil has been one of the best final ball players in recent times, and all-time too probably (I didn't include him when I tried a general best passers list of 25 or so players, though it's arguable surely that he could be worth a place, but for final balls he was top notch - maybe I could say exactly this about Dalglish too, though they're not similar as players overall really in terms of attributes, role or style of play). His variety of passes, even final passes, was not huge I suppose, but he was really pinpoint with what he was good at, and was great at playing the ball right when and where the team-mate could make most use of it wasn't he. For a while it seemed like him and Sanchez at Arsenal would form a good partnership, although not necessarily to directly assist each other a massive amount (I'd have to check how many times they did do that). I guess most would agree he's not in the end a real contender as an AM for the main topic of this thread, but on his day he could be world class at what he did I'd say, and he was also faster than might be imagined when he got into his stride (I think in World Cup 2010 when playing in the central AM role he at one point easily accelerated past Gareth Barry IIRC). I guess Carlito your numbers aren't La Liga only (as per the 34 or 36 of Lampard/Drogba and 34 of Dalglish/Rush being league only - in terms of numbers of seasons together and maximum in one season even in league only probably the Liverpool pair stand out more I guess with 12 goals where they assisted one another in 1982/83 for example), and that will apply to the players assisting Messi mentioned on this link but the numbers given (given that Messi will surely have assisted some or all of these quite a lot too, and his assist numbers are greatest in La Liga compared to other competitions I believe in outright numbers but also per game) suggest one of more partnerships could be in the ballpark of 50 at least do we think (like I said before we could probably work them out, even if Transfermarkt numbers might have to be reduced a bit to be consistent with OPTA)? 5 players who have provided the most assists to Lionel Messi (sportskeeda.com) Since Xavi's assist numbers to Messi are only 5th (behind Iniesta who stayed longer, Alves the attacking right back, and probably significantly the forwards Neymar and Suarez), albeit it's not OPTA verified data, probably Messi's top partnership for assists between players would be with another player then I guess. I suppose the Pele and Coutinho partnership I mentioned could be estimated for this via Trachta's work, although I know he feels not every assist is mentioned in the newspaper archives he found (again I could be wrong about Coutinho being the player with the most goal combinations with Pele too, although I thought he should have more than say a Pepe, or a Tostao or Jairzinho who only played with Pele for the NT albeit the rate of assists per game between them and him might be pretty good for Brazil?).
If those numbers on there are reliable and in sync with Transfermarkt (and joint goal participation stats refer to what we are talking about here in terms of assisting each other) then I guess that would mean this for all competitions and wide-ish assist rules, according to the Transfermarkt page I link (I couldn't find one just with Messi's overall or La Liga assists breakdown on a single page, showing who he assisted for each goal): Lionel Messi - Teammates (Detailed view) | Transfermarkt Xavi to Messi 35, Messi to Xavi 8 = 43 between Xavi and Messi (33 or less in La Liga since the sportskeeda page says Alves had the record for Liga assists to Messi at 26 so Xavi has 25 or less in the league alone) Neymar to Messi 36, Messi to Neymar 20 = 56 between Neymar and Messi (45 or less in La Liga; surely somewhat less) Alves to Messi 43, Messi to Alves 5 = 48 between Alves and Messi (31 or slightly less in La Liga) Iniesta to Messi 44, Messi to Iniesta 9 = 53 between Iniesta and Messi (35 or less in La Liga) Suarez to Messi 54, Messi to Suarez 45 = 99 between Suarez and Messi (more than 26 by Suarez to Messi in La Liga, so yeah feasibly in the region of 50 perhaps between them just in the league games I guess) In terms of Liverpool assists though, Dalglish has 0.32 per game in the league, and the same overall to the nearest two decimal places too, while Suarez has 0.21 in the league, and 0.22 in all competitions, and Dalglish's output is pretty equally balanced between goals and assists while Suarez's is much more skewed towards goals (I suppose it still was skewed towards goals at Barcelona, without checking the exact numbers, but yeah he has accrued a lot of assists to Messi, even if a few of them might not be OPTA-allowable if we take the numbers from Transfermarkt).
https://ionline.sapo.pt/artigo/7192...onze-s-com-erro-nos-pontos-?seccao=Desporto_i Ao i, fonte da revista francesa explicou que a confusão dos pontos poderá não ser mais do que “um erro de impressão”, em que os pontos atribuídos a Eusébio poderão não ser os corretos. A classificação manter-se-á, segundo o i apurou, com Van Basten no terceiro lugar e Eusébio em quarto, apesar de não ter sido possível confirmar os verdadeiros pontos do luso-moçambicano e do holandês internamente. Esta mesma fonte referiu, no entanto, que “a verdadeira equipa importante é a primeira, e as restantes são mais para ficar na história e conseguir incluir mais nomes”. “a misprint” in magazine. the vote point of van Basten and Eusebio has changed. However, it is not clear.
It's a late thought, but worth adding maybe: also as a 'goalkeeper'! (near the start of this video) 13/09/1980 Liverpool v WBA - YouTube Which going back to the talk of English/British squads would be in theory useful for a squad short on goalkeepers (like my original ones were)! I noticed re: what you were saying about overall him being a better International player than club player perhaps, that according to ratings from Match magazine that we've been discussing on the English league ratings thread, it's true he wasn't often right at the top for average ratings over a season it seems (although that's without considering cup competitions which might change things in his favour on occasion when added in potentially; and certainly for the first half of 83/84 his league game ratings were among the top ones anyway). On the other hand he often made PFA Teams of the Year (which would be mostly focused on club football, primarily domestic, I guess, although picked with some of the season left to play), without actually winning a PFA Player of the Year award though (so in some respects maybe not so far out of line with good to very good but not extremely high magazine/newspaper average ratings). Maybe you remember the save from 1980 anyway!
I had forgotten but recall it now. Veteran poster Roy of the Rovers held a high opinion of Robson, feeling he was the most complete English footballer (excluding goalkeeping!) he had seen going back to the 1930s. Roy included him in his all-time England XI ahead of Edwards. Another point Roy made was that his first choice English centre-back would be Franklin, partnered by either Wright or Moore but not both.
I'd not recalled Roy's comments (I did read a lot of his posts, but the thread below which I'm guessing might be where you saw them was from around the time I signed up here) - good to show a link maybe, as he certainly saw as much of the main candidates overall as anyone here I'd think re: an English or British XI: Classic XI | Page 5 | BigSoccer Forum
Going back to this, because I came up with a revamped England squad of 26, based on a 4-3-3 predominantly (with 4-1-3-2 as possible first back-up plan), and based on my own preferred playing style I guess (as if I was in charge of the whole tactical approach etc myself)....and I think what is difficult is picking players who I never saw anything of really....so I can't really put in Franklin whereas I can put in Billy Wright, can't put in Frank Swift but can put in Ray Clemence (or for example couldn't have put in Raich Carter but could have put in Johnny Haynes, couldn't have put in Eddie Hapgood but could have put in Ray Wilson). I think the back-up plan for central defence if a more physically capable player was needed would be Sol Campbell to partner Moore (one of them being the right CB, depending on situation maybe), although Des Walker alongside Moore is also an option I'd have in mind anyway (for a more pacey partner). I settled on this (1-11 being in theory a first XI, then having a backup XI (with theoretical number to replace in brackets, though Robson for sure could be the more advanced left midfielder too, as could Edwards himself I guess) and a spare GK, defender, supporting forward/AM and striker too, and Finney for sure is an option for right wing so Barnes on the left is a closer backup than Francis, who can be a central attacker too, on the right for example): 1 Gordon Banks 2 Rob Jones 3 Stuart Pearce 4 Duncan Edwards 5 Billy Wright 6 Bobby Moore 7 Stanley Matthews 8 Gary Lineker 9 Bobby Charlton 10 Glenn Hoddle 11 Tom Finney 12 Peter Shilton (1) 13 David Seaman 14 Des Walker (5) 15 Sol Campbell (6) 16 Bryan Robson (4) 17 Trevor Francis (7) 18 Colin Bell (10) 19 Paul Gascoigne (9) 20 Jimmy Greaves (8) 21 John Barnes (11) 22 Viv Anderson (2) 23 Kenny Sansom (3) 24 Rio Ferdinand 25 Kevin Keegan 26 Alan Shearer Stand-by squad of a dozen would be in this case I think: Ray Clemence, Colin Todd, Gary Pallister, Phil Neal, Ray Wilkins, Steven Gerrard, Trevor Brooking, Martin Peters, David Beckham, Chris Waddle, Peter Osgood, Jackie Milburn
I didn't mention the other possibility earlier I suppose re: centre back alongside Moore (though back in the day I guess it would have been seen more as an either/or too since both would be thought of as wing halves rather than centre halves - still maybe when 4-2-4 became the norm it'd have become a possibility, if Edwards was not to be used as midfielder at particular times) - Duncan Edwards (who for sure has the physical side covered moreso than Wright I'd say, but I'm really not sure how similar a Franklin/Moore partnership would be to a Edwards/Moore one - I'm not saying Frankin's main claim would be based on physicality either I should clarify, but he was taller than Wright anyway, albeit I wouldn't think he'd partner Moore in a very similar way to how Jack Charlton did - the PES stats page is kind of interesting for Franklin so I've pasted that below) Pes Miti del Calcio - View topic - Neil FRANKLIN 1946-1949 @poetgooner might like to know about this recent upload for Edwards anyway I think - there is some better long distance passing on there compared to vs Brazil - nothing magical but capability to spray forward passes over significant range, which I guess was due to his physical stature to some extent, as he was already big and strong as a young player of course. I was thinking anyway that be it Edwards or Robson, the anchor player in the midfield would still be given some licence to pick moments to make forward incursions and runs, with the ball (maybe more likely for Edwards) or without the ball (maybe more likely for Robson). I think in the end picking the 5 centre backs was the most uncertain thing for me, although I'd say I was also in a few minds between Brooking, Beckham, Francis and Keegan for two places in the main 26 compared to two in the stand-by squad too (potentially preferring Brooking as a LCAM compared to Keegan for example, though Charlton does provide a big goalscorer in the main XI in that position so Keegan might be closer to replacing him in that particular respect....but 1930s Stanley Matthews did score some and Finney-Lineker-Barnes could also work as a front 3 with plenty of scoring possibilities I think; potentially also thinking even if predominantly using 4-3-3 that since Finney can cover right wing too maybe Beckham's crossing speciality and capability to be a midfielder too could be worth a place still...but like I say Francis doesn't have to be an option only on the right and switching to a 4-1-3-2 would enhance options for both Keegan and him too in theory I think). Re: Roy's comments at the bottom of the page I linked in post #465 it's definitely notable that he said he'd put Lawton in in that attacking 4-4-2 system, because I remember he was a big fan/admirer of Lofthouse for example (who I'm thinking he'd have put in any full squad he picked probably anyway; I also think he'd have put Haynes in, thinking back to comments he made about him).
I was thinking (even though as always these time machine scenarios are theoretical and an All-Time World Cup can never happen of course) if it came to adding a second set of stand-by players maybe I'd end up just thinking Franklin can go in it anyway (but though it could be tempting to speculate on adding someone like David Jack too maybe that's a bit more of a punt/stretch...and I guess a 4-3-3 main setup might not be the most suitable for Jack too). Possibly I'd end up with something like this: Tim Flowers, Neil Franklin, Jack Charlton, Emlyn Hughes, Paul Ince, Frank Lampard Jr, Johnny Haynes, Joe Cole, Matt Le Tissier, Ian Storey-Moore, Mike Channon, Stan Mortensen.
It's probably more on-topic for my posts above (and those of peterhrt and in effect RoyoftheRovers), than the original thread topic (except maybe that in this guy's opinion these players would possibly have been leading candidates England could offer at one point in time), but I saw via Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk that The People had a piece by George Young, former Scotland player, where he, as well as saying Tom Finney was both the best English right winger and best English centre forward of the past 20 or so years ('their time' - I guess he is feeling unqualified to say all-time or not rather than saying definitely not), he calls Billy Wright the finest centre-half England had had for the past 20 years too: He did play vs England when both Lawton and Neil Franklin were playing too (but of course it's only one opinion, and Roy did see all these players and seemed not necessarily to think the same (as per the link a few posts above), at least in terms of picking an XI, though he was using the blueprint of another poster originally I suppose, with a target man type in and with Bobby Moore as one of the central defenders) England Match No. 239 - Scotland - 10 April 1948 - Match Summary and Report (englandfootballonline.com)