Let me start off by saying that I hope this thread doesn’t descend into typical shitposts about Giggs’ personal life or the things he’s done off the field, it would be much better if we can celebrate Ryan Giggs the player here instead.
That being said, the above is one of the reasons I feel compelled to make this tribute, because since revelations about Giggs’ affairs came to light in 2011, we have seen an incredible underrating of his abilities and impact on Manchester United by those who cannot look past this.
The other reason being, he is my all-time favourite footballer. That wasn’t always the case, my first love was Andrei Kanchelskis but both Cantona and Giggs soon took over as they excited my young eyes with their skill, and in particular Giggs with his speed and silky dribbling.
Giggs’ mazy runs at the opponents’ defence was such a joy to watch, the way he would swerve his body to send the defender one way and by the time the defender had turned, Giggs was already going the opposite direction, dribble after dribble, game after game. He also scored some great individual goals and made assists like they were running out of fashion, he really did light up Old Trafford in his early years, tearing people apart again and again.
I can’t say Giggs was the greatest dribbler of all time, but he was certainly one of the most pleasing on the eye. He would glide effortlessly at speed with amazing balance and grace, and this on some really dodgy surfaces at the time. One can only imagine how Giggs would fare in today’s game, probably cutting in from the right in a more advanced position, increasing his goal tally while painting his crazy assist output. He may even fit in the second striker role, where I imagine his speed and guile would be absolutely devastating.
Anyway, I digress.
Another aspect of Giggs’ game that I loved was his tracking back with slide tackles, which always seemed to be timed perfectly and he had the ability to return to his feet with the ball in a single motion, turning defence into attack immediately. I think his defensive contributions are often forgotten, possibly because of Becks’ workrate on the opposite flank being off the scale at the same time, but Giggsy put in the work too and wasn’t afraid of getting stuck in when required.
During his long and storied career, Giggs has numerous moments of individual brilliance, which we are all aware of, such as the FA Cup goal, the CL semi equaliser vs Juve in ’99, the 2 goals off the bench vs Juve in Turin in ’03, and there’s many more.
But some other moments were just brilliant because of their importance or timing. Think to some of our best moments during SAF’s time as manager. Sheringham’s CL final goal, Macheda’s winner vs Villa in ’09, Owen’s winner in the 4-3 derby, it was Giggs setting them up each time and it goes on and on. People who mention clutch players rarely mention Giggs, but he produced time and again in the big moments for us.
If you don’t already, I implore you to watch United’s ‘Goal of the Day’ videos through their social channels. It’s amazing how many times Giggs crops up either with the assist or directly involved in the move to set the goal up. His constant presence during Sir Alex’s success is overlooked.
We all know Giggs’ amazing assist record, but I posted some stats before in the Giggs vs Bale thread which were mostly ignored but blew my mind at the time of discovering them:
Giggs played in 941 of 1,235 games under SAF since his debut, being directly involved in 476 goals (168 goals, 308 assists). This makes up 19.4% of all goals scored under Sir Alex since Ryan’s debut. That discounts those that he was involved in without the final two touches, of which I’m sure there are many.
The above stats don’t even cover only games where Giggs was actually playing. If you took an average goals scored across the whole time, the percentage of goals he’s involved in then shifts to around 25.5%. That’s one player, involved in a quarter of our goals, for 941 games (or 62.7% of games under SAF (76.2% since RG debut)).
Just incredible.
I purposefully haven’t posted any videos, as I hope others can contribute with their favourite Giggs moments to build on the thread. And as I said at the start, please let’s just celebrate the player and his phenomenal contribution to this club and its success.
Almost forgot to mention his glorious man chest