This thread is the first time I remember reading/hearing about the following players: George Farm Tim Williamson Jimmy Lawrence Harry Hibbs Colin McDonald Ted Sagar Elisha Scott Bert Williams Sam Hardy Can't wait for the right backs to be posted. Of the top of my head I can think of the following names: Neal, Lawler, Armfield, Mills, Cohen, Newton, Neville, that's about it. I'm really curious. Which formation will you be using for the categories? 4-3-3, 4-4-2?
I'm going for a 442. You've got a fair few of the prospective top 10 there. Good to see as well some little known keepers getting their dues. That is really one of the main purposes of the thread. I hope Tom Clare won't mind me posting up some of his alternative suggestions at som point as well.
Bert Williams, from what I've heard, was the best English GK between Frank Swift and Gordon Banks' time. I reckon Springett is too high but I've mostly heard bad things about him. In a Brian Glanville's World Cup book, it stated that he was vulnerable to long-range shots due to having poor eye sight. If Yashin from the USSR copped bad criticism for his Chile 62 campaign, I doubt that Springett wasn't much better. I'm not saying that he was meant to be at Yashin's standard but I'm not implying that he could be as bad as Colombia's or Bulgaria's keeper. Grobbelaar is ranked too low and I didn't know Southall was so highly regarded, especially when he is ranked higher than Schmeichel and Banks. Banks didn't achieve much at club level due to the teams he played in so I'm assuming that's preventing him from being ranked higher.
Undoubtedly? I would disagree. While I don't doubt that Cech is good, the quality of the back four in front of him at Chelsea protects him from far more than the likes of Friedel and Given have had to face at Blackburn and Newcastle.
Cech consistently makes outstanding saves and makes almost no mistakes. That is the textbook top level keeper. Given and Friedel both play extremely well at their level (as do players like Jaaskelainen), but Cech has been number one for me.
30. Gary Stevens 27/3/1963 England 46 caps Clubs: Everton, Rangers, Tranmere 29. Lee Dixon 17/3/1964 England 22 caps Clubs: Burnley, Chester, Bury, Stoke, Arsenal 28. Tom Parker 19/11/1897 England 1 cap Clubs: Southampton, Arsenal
27. Willie Cunningham 20/2/1930 N Ireland 30 caps Clubs: St Mirren, Leicester 26. Ron Staniforth 13/4/1924 England 8 caps Clubs: Stockport, Huddersfield, Sheffield Wednesday 25. Paul Reaney 22/10/1944 England 3 caps Clubs: Leeds, Bradford
24. Paul Madeley 20/9/1944 England 24 caps Clubs: Leeds 23. Steve Nicol 11/12/1961 Scotland 27 caps Clubs: Ayr, Liverpool, Sheffield Wednesday, Notts County, West Brom, Doncaster 22. Steve Finnan 24/4/1976 Republic of Ireland 49 caps Clubs: Welling United, Birmingham, Notts County, Fulham, Liverpool
21. Tommy Wright 21/10/1944 England 11 caps Clubs: Everton 20. Andrew McCombie 30/6/1876 Scotland 2 caps Clubs: Newcastle, Sunderland 19. Chris Lawler 20/10/1943 England 4 caps Clubs: Liverpool, Portsmouth, Stockport
18. Alf Sherwood Wales 42 caps Clubs: Cardiff City 17. Tony Book 4/9/1934 England 0 caps Clubs: Bath City, Plymouth Argyle, Manchester City 16. Paul Parker 4/4/1964 England 19 caps Clubs: Fulham, QPR, Manchester United, Derby County, Sheffield United, Fulham, Chelsea
15. Dick Keith 15/5/1933 Northern Ireland 23 caps Clubs: Linfield, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Weymouth 14. Steve Carr 29/8/1976 Republic of Ireland 44 caps Clubs: Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle 13. Pat Rice 17/3/1949 Northern Ireland 49 caps Clubs: Arsenal, Watford
12. George Male 8/5/1910 England 19 caps Clubs: Arsenal 11. Johnny Carey 1/6/1926 England 4 caps Clubs: Birmingham, Manchester United 10. Jeff Hall 7/9/1929 England 17 caps Clubs: Birmingham
9. Viv Anderson 29/9/1956 England 30 caps Clubs: Notts Forest, Arsenal, Manchester United, Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley, Middlesbrough 8. George Cohen 22/10/1939 England 37 caps Clubs: Fulham 7. Alf Ramsay 22/1/1920 England 32 caps Clubs: Southamton, Tottenham Hotspur
6. Keith Newton 23/6/1941 England 27 caps Clubs: Blackburn, Everton, Burnley 5. Don Howe 12/10/1935 England 23 caps Clubs:West Bromwich Albion, Arsenal 4. Gary Neville 18/2/1975 England 85 caps Clubs: Manchester United
3. Bob Crompton 26/9/1979 England 41 caps Clubs: Blackburn Rovers 2. Jimmy Armfield 2/9/1935 England 43 caps Clubs: Blackpool 1. Phil Neal 20/2/1951 England 50 caps Clubs: Northampton, Liverpool, Bolton
Can't really argue with the top 10, but there are a couple dubious choices in the rest for me. Nicol (especially) and Madeley are too low and Carr is far too high at 14th.
Nicol and Madeley both suffered a bit from their versatility in my rankings. They were both capable of playing all over the back four, and consequently didn't play at right back as much as the others. Carr was named in the PFA team of the year 3 times. Perhaps he is too high, but I'm not sure how many others can claim to have been the best in the league 3 times.
He was excellent from around 1998 to 2001, but since his injury he's been average at best. More recently he's looked poor even by Newcastle's defensive standards. Even though Nicol might suffer from his versatility in such a ranking, he was still mainly used a right back. He is also the only defender to be named the Football Writers Player of the Year in the last 25 years and for that he had to outshine teammates at their peak like Barnes and Beardsley.
Wright and Parker must have had good club careers because their NT careers aren't much to talk about. From what I've read on Wright, he had played two games at Mexico 70, including a poor game against Brazil. From what I've seen of Parker, he didn't impress me too much and that's saying something because there's a lot to admire about most of the English players from Italia 90. Nicol must have been consistent throughout many seasons because in some big matches, he either made errors or he wasn't decisive. For instance, I think he was at fault for Thomas' goal in Arsenal's 2-0 win against Liverpool at the last day of the 1988-89 season and at Mexico 86, he had a chance to win Scotland's match against Uruguay but he didn't put his chance away.
From when he broke into the team he was a very good player. His best period was about 98-2003 with the obvious exception of 2001-2 when he was injured for the whole year. In that time he was the best right back in the Premiership. He hasn't reproduced that in his time at Newcastle, though given their defensive issues it is hardly surprising.
Comme, will you be continuing with left backs or with center backs? Will the central defenders be one category or split apart somehow? (left centerback, right centerback, center halves, attacking CBs, defensive CBs, no sweepers I guess...). Paul Reaney seemed like a heck of a right back. I haven't seen a lot of him, but from what I saw, he really impressed me (his performance against Cruyff's Barcelona in the 1975 European Cup semi final is what I'm talking about). How come such a good right back never really broke into Ramsey's England? If I recall correctly, Paul Madeley didn't only play all over the back four, he was also used as a winger at times and as a midfielder with a specific marking job. I know this versality problem can really hurt a player's position in such rankings. It can be done if a player excelled in two positions, rating him highly in two categories (like Briegel in my Bundesliga ranking - excelled as a left back but also played excellently as a center back for Kaiserslautern). But with Madeley it's really difficult, since he played in so many positions with regularity. Do you allow players to be featured in more than one category?