Hear! Hear! Completely agree. Gazza was something else - with all due respect to Scholes and whomever else.
Gazza had THAT touch. You hardly ever see it. But he had it.
All time British+Irish Fantasy Draft
- Thread starter crappycraperson
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Hear! Hear! Completely agree. Gazza was something else - with all due respect to Scholes and whomever else.
Gazza had THAT touch. You hardly ever see it. But he had it.
Alex James is a brilliant number 10, a shoe in for the second X1 and arguably should be in the first too if it wasn't for Dalglish/Baxter (Scotland's answer to Gascoigne - sheer genius) hogging the same sort of space.. leading member both of the legendary Arsenal side of !930's and the playmaker in the wembley wizards side who beat England. As for McGrory he's the Dixie Dean of his day and I don't think any other scottish striker can compete for that second X1 spot?
Agreed on James. Hughie Gallacher is a good shout for the second XI spot but McGrory was simply better imo. However, Gallacher is bound to be the better appreciated player due to his better Scottish national team record and his tenure in England esp Newcastle.
I was just wondering if there were any other notable players who might have slipped my mind or were underrated gems that Gio would have more knowledge of. Also wanted to force him into including a few more Lisbon lions into his team if possible
.Agreed on James. Hughie Gallacher is a good shout for the second XI spot but McGrory was simply better imo. However, Gallacher is bound to be the better appreciated player due to his better Scottish national team record and his tenure in England esp Newcastle.
I was just wondering if there were any other notable players who might have slipped my mind or were underrated gems that Gio would have more knowledge of. Also wanted to force him into including a few more Lisbon lions into his team if possible
As for Gallacher, Hapgood I think it is said.. Dean, Gallacher and a guy named George Camsell (can't believe he didn't get picked!), were the three top strikers of his day and inseparable. He said of the three, Gallacher was the most skilful.. but in terms of sheer potency, all three were equal.
As for other Scottish players, Bobby walker, Alex Young .. @Gio could you tell me more about Dave Cooper?
McGrory and James are in the mix, but they're up against Law and Dalglish, so would have to settle for the second XI. We don't have a lot of depth in the nets. After Goram there's a drop-off and even Ronnie Simpson only got 5 caps. And there's Bobby Brown and Jim Leighton in there as well, but Brown was a part-time footballer while Leighton never truly convinced. At left-back there are a few around the same level, Greig obviously although he was more naturally a defensive midfielder. Sammy Cox was an important part of Rangers' Iron Curtain defence while Eric Caldow would be probably in the first XI had he not broken his leg in 1963 against England. Assuming Meiklejohn goes into the first team, there are a number of influential centre-halves broadly around the same level, all famed as leaders as well as being typically uncompromising Scottish central defenders. Jardine's a class act on the ball and given the fairly defensive nature of the central midfield duo you'd need that as opposed to the brick-shithouse approach of a defensively solid George Young for instance. Billy Bremner would be unlucky not to be in the first XI and he ran so many midfields in England and Europe in his prime that he goes in there without question. Alongside him is Alex Raisbeck, partially as a nod to the pre-WW1 era, but also because of the legacy in which he is held. A lot of competition on the flanks and I didn't really have the balls to separate on the left - there's a few all around the same level there. Gone for Willie Henderson on the right who was a very quick and conventional right-winger with good delivery. Front two pick themselves but there are of course a number of heavy goalscorers who could be in the mix - Bob McPhail, Hugh Ferguson and Ally McCoist - in particular.
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Aye, there's one who slipped away. Could have easily been picked. But then again - centre forwards were never the biggest problem here: And spread out over the decades there are just too many of 'em, really. Even if you were to make a list of the 12 top eligible pure CFs out there, you'd still end up with a number of heavy hitters who didn't make the cut.
Davie Cooper was another archetypal lazy genius. Wondrous left peg, capable of both bludgeoning and caressing the ball in equal measure. As with many of that ilk, somewhat lazy, inconsistent and didn't always apply himself to the fullest of his potential. But when he did the dropped shoulder, the swerving hips, saw him dribble with the best of them and brought the kind of praise that saw Ruud Guillit to stick into his perfect XI, saying "I played against him in the European Cup when he was with Glasgow Rangers and he was a really skilful player. Unbelievably skilful. He didn’t have much pace but he was a good dribbler who set up plenty of chances for team-mates as well as scoring some great goals himself." In the video below he thumps a free-kick past Jim Leighton in a League Cup Final at 2.34. After the game Leighton claimed he "almost got to the ball", to which Cooper replied - dead-pan - "Aye, on the way out."
Point re: Hapgood was the rationale for him over Irwin would have been him being better suited for the back three with Charles upfront.
It's not just for Fergie time, at any point during the game you could do it and switch multiple times without making a sub. You know, those times your rival is rattled, nervous, you've just scored and a second would kill it off. Charles overloads, get the goal, go back to normal (also if they start finding their stride again).
Moore-Ferdinand isn't ideal as a CB pairing.
Moore-Ferdinand isn't ideal as a CB pairing.
Very surprised! Also would be a different eleven for me trying to pick the eleven best player who could possibly fit in the formation and picking the best team. I would pick some players from the side who beat Portugal with 10-0 if it was about creating the best team, an absolutely fantastic team and maybe the best English team ever.
Frank Swift (Manchester City), Laurie Scott (Arsenal), George Hardwick (Middlesbrough), Billy Wright (Wolves), Neil Franklin (Stoke City), Eddie Lowe (Aston Villa), Stanley Matthews (Blackpool), Stan Mortenson (Blackpool), Tommy Lawton (Chelsea), Wilf Mannion (Middlesbrough), Tom Finney (Preston North End).
Both Lawton and Mortensen were making their way in to the history books as having among the best goals per game ratios for the English NT(3rd and 4th place respectively, with both players above being players from the start of the 1900's.). Out wide they have Matthews and Finney and in the back the underrated legends Billy Wright, George Hardwick and Neil Franklin which is an unbelievable defense.
The two best English wingers in history, with two of the top four best goalscorers, maybe the finest defensive three that England ever had? Then Mannion has to be mentioned as well as a great player and Slater was part of the team as well.
Very good point and I hope we don't get to see it in the draft.
Best and Finney are more all-round gifted than Ronaldo and Bale. There was a great article about Finney on Guardian, which says "Tom Finney, who has died aged 91, was perhaps the most complete British footballer of all time" and "Stanley Matthews may have been the public's favourite, but to purists Finney was the greater all-rounder". His career's path shows us that he really was very versatile and all-round brilliant. Best is a less "poacher on the wing" than Ronaldo too. So they would work better with another outstanding pure 9 - like Law, for example - who is not overly selfish, but still is a focal point of the attack. Best and, mostly, Finney are more than capable of dropping deeper and providing chances and space for their partners, if needed.
Yeah, when EAP was in that bidding war over Scholes I mentioned he could just get Baxter and wait for Charlton:
----Charlton--Gascoigne
----------Stiles
in a 4-3-3 would be hard to stop.
That I rate Gazza that highly?
Well, I do - and always have. The main question was: Scholes over Gazza? And the answer to that is obvious in my book, not least considering what position we would be talking about. Scholes was very good as an attacking midfielder, of course, but he really had nothing on Gazza in that role. Not for me anyway.
As for that England team - aye, it's great. If you go down the route of picking historic teams, though, it becomes an entirely different game. United '68, Celtic '67, The Babes, Cullis' Wolves, Paisley's Pool, Chapman's Arse, various Rangers incarnations, Ramsey's England...and so forth. All of which would be more organic for obvious reasons than any fantasy side.
Cheers @Gio for that second XI read.
I know but you dont really consider these things in an all time xi.
Its very rare to see a team that would work v.well as oppose to best two cbs,mids,etc.
I agree with your original statement that anybody who got that team would win the final by the way.
It really is no compliment to be more all round than Stanley Matthews, it made me chuckle a bit.
He's such a specialized player and really the opposite of "an all rounder".If you have the defense and midfield in that team.jpg then I can see Finney and Best work together with Law as you already have the best team and you'd create enough chances to justify having another great goalscorer there. In terms of this draft I can't see it as something realistic though considering how your team would look if you spent the remaining reinforcement to bring those three together up front.
I think we're being over fussy on the all time winger front. Best and Matthews could easily work as a pairing and as could Finney and Best. I would go for Matthews because I have seen more of him and I think he's brilliant, but either one in the side could work.
I maintain that I've seen nothing suggesting Giggs doesn't belong in their company. We seem to massively underrate Giggs purely on account of him being more recent and undergoing various reinventions. He was certainly the most successful of the lot and instrumental to that success.
Giggs--Charlton--Best
Best---Charlton--Matthews/Finney
Taking into account Charlton and how adept he was playmaking from the left I prefer Best out right and, it follows, Giggs left. That's really the order, who are the best players and how are they best deployed, and the third is the one that suits them, simply because he is a better fit across three candidates of similar calibre.
There's not an immense gap between any of them, obviously. For that matter you could easily play Finney on the left, as in: Finney - Charlton - Best.
I don't think Giggs is massively underrated, though. For that left slot he's up against Best (if you go with Matthews or Finney on the right) or Finney (if you go with Best on the right). Best and Finney along with Charlton are arguably the three best British players ever by more or less common consensus - so it's not a matter of selling Giggsy short as much as it is a matter of very stiff competition.
I have to disagree there Anto.. I have seen a fair bit of footage of Bestie playing on the left an awful lot and then just drifting where he likes. So he is equally destructive on either flank and it doesn't take anything away from his game to be on the opposite flank. For me Giggsy doesn't belong in that company. Again I can't comment on Finney in great detail but from what I've seen of Matthews, his agility was terrific.. he had a way of beating players through pure body movement and had a close control of the ball that was sensational. He was doing the Laudrup instep dribble, twisting defenders in and out.. but what really stood out was his eye for a pass. His crossing ability was top notch and he had a composure in the final third which really does stand out, much more so than Giggsy. Matthews had an aura on the ball, like here I am.. the main danger, the main threat, the go to man on the ball. Giggsy didn't have that aura for me, abit like Scholes in that respect.. both brilliant players but for me to be in ahead of the likes of Charlton, Best and co.. you need talent yes, but also the audacity, that GOAT aura about your game, a fair amount of arrogance/leadership.
Giggsy in full flight is easily in that company, but these guys were operating at that level game in game out and were seen as the main men in their team. Giggs was part of a strong unit, he was never our marquee player, our Ronaldo. He was part of Beckham Scholes Keane Giggs.
Yeah agree with all that. Being a picky twat, I'd say Gascoigne was a complete 8, in that he excelled in the centre of midfield alongside a more disciplined and self-sacrificing partner. He had plenty of graft and gusto, which combined with his unique playmaking abilities, made him a hell of a force in the middle of the park. And few lived with him circa Italia '90 and, while he was never the same player following his cruciate injury, he still dominated midfields and produced many moments of magic. Almost blending the game-running aspects of your typical 8 with the flashes of inspiration more likely seen in the 10 or second striker.
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Don't think that is a common consensus? Think the more "common consensus" is rather Best>Matthews>Finney and for England, Charlton, Moore and Matthews.
I agree regarding Giggs. He's closer to Johnstone than he is to Best/Matthews/Finney. He never really had that ability to dominate the best full backs ever and make them look like fools and he was also never capable of consistently winning matches on his own by creating 3-4 goals for his team mates regularly like Matthews/Best.
Giggs is probably the best LM though in the draft.
I think the common consensus amongst ex-players and fans in Britain has Finney second only to Best in that top tier along with Charlton, as Chester suggested. Outside of Britain, Matthews seems to have a wider legacy and is rated higher accordingly.
That sounds about right. I had certainly heard of Matthews but not Finney before moving to the UK. The thing that still creates dissonance in the back of my mind is all these oldies who are highly spoken of, when in the international stage, didn't really produce the goods.
England was aloof, an unknown quantity that projected this air of superiority as inventors of football, but when they finally started measuring themselves up with others kept being found wanting. The US beat them in their WC debut, Uruguay twatted both them and Scotland (and instead, Scotland did get the better of them quite regularly from the Scot stories on here), Hungary pissed on them as well... were they really that good or did they have their head far up their own arse?
In that sense Jimmy Johnstone and George Best are the best.
Obviously not as good as they thought they were, as the Hungary fiasco proved beyond any doubt. It certainly was a case of head-up-the-arse to a great extent, I think that's undeniable. That said, I do think there's a danger of underestimating the quality of British football in the period prior to, say, the inception of the European Cup (from which point onwards it becomes easier to measure things).
English club sides did well enough against European opposition both before (Wolves in particular - friendlies, granted, but still) and after said inception: United quite clearly had something pretty special brewing with the Babes, Spurs won the Cup Winner's cup early on, etc.
It's hard to determine how good England were before the war, though, given the refusal to participate in the World Cup. But there were matches against top sides - famous ones too, like the "Battle of Highbury" in '34 where England beat the newly crowned World Champions, Italy.
I don't know, honestly - it has to be speculation to a large extent. But I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that both England and Scotland would have done well if they had participated in those first World Cups, though perhaps not as well as they would have expected. For the health of British football it was no doubt a feck-up of the highest order NOT to participate - that wake-up call England got in '53 against the Magyars could have come earlier and they would've been immeasurably better off for it.
Still, the idea that England were superior obviously has to be seen in a larger historical context too - ruling the waves and whatnot. The empire was dying and people didn't want to think about it - better to bury yer head in the sand and pretend everything was jolly good, I suppose.
But, to sum it up, my conclusion would be that the quality of British football was very high up until the 20s and then began to decline as a result of not being up to scratch with tactical developments on the continent and across the sea. However, this decline wasn't so radical as the results against the USA in '50 and Hungary in '53 would seem to indicate: The former was to a large extent hubris, ill preparation, foolish cockiness - and what have ye. The latter was the combination of being tactically outdated and the immense quality of that Hungarian side.
That would be my take on it. And one should not forget that at club level, the story was necessarily a different one - since the best English sides contained players from all over Great Britain and Ireland (as was the case from the very beginning) and were often managed by more adventurous and/or inventive types.
Well, that's my take on it. England in particular overestimated her powers enormously - but that's no reason to positively underestimate the quality of some teams and players from that era.
Scotland's record in the mid-to-late 1930s was impressive in getting the better of some of the best teams in Europe at the time. Around about the time of the 1938 World Cup, we beat Hungary ('38 runners-up), Czechoslavia ('38 quarter-finalists) home and away (3-1 and 5-0), drew away to Austria ('34 semi-finalists) and beat Germany ('34 semi-finalists) 2-0. It was a pity we didn't get involved with the pre-war World Cups as, by the time we did in 1954, the quality of our players had dipped before resurging from the late 1950s and into the 1960s.
Scotland had the edge over England in the 30s, I believe, in terms of results. And those clashes were probably (not to say certainly) more prestigious than the ones against continental opposition.
England lost against the great Austrian team on the one occasion they played (in Vienna). But then they beat the Italian World Champions in '34 and drew away against the '38 Italian vintage (also World Champions, as we know). Hammered Hungary 6-2 in '36 and Germany 6-3 in Berlin in '38 (in front of Goebbels and Goehring, so the story goes).
Very hard to determine too much from these results, however. The prestige of the matches would have varied, the national team selection was something quite different than we are used to these days, etc.
If anything I'd say the results against Scotland are more trustworthy, so to speak, because there is absolutely no doubt that these were matches of great importance on both sides.
England lost against the great Austrian team on the one occasion they played (in Vienna). But then they beat the Italian World Champions in '34 and drew away against the '38 Italian vintage (also World Champions, as we know). Hammered Hungary 6-2 in '36 and Germany 6-3 in Berlin in '38 (in front of Goebbels and Goehring, so the story goes).
Very hard to determine too much from these results, however. The prestige of the matches would have varied, the national team selection was something quite different than we are used to these days, etc.
If anything I'd say the results against Scotland are more trustworthy, so to speak, because there is absolutely no doubt that these were matches of great importance on both sides.
@Gio , @Chesterlestreet , that's probably a fair take on it. Pre/post war is a very reasonable basis to separate things and not project 50s evidence backwards. WW2 is a dummy variable if I ever saw one (i.e. one that explains inconsistencies/changes in a trend).
Interesting that Chester mentions post-war Britain being in denial, and the EC as a measuring stick. Fitting that the FA opposed it... I'd argue the EC and that Real side probably opened people's eyes more than Brazil's World Cup exploits... until Mexico 70 in colour TV at least.
Interesting that Chester mentions post-war Britain being in denial, and the EC as a measuring stick. Fitting that the FA opposed it... I'd argue the EC and that Real side probably opened people's eyes more than Brazil's World Cup exploits... until Mexico 70 in colour TV at least.
Indeed. And they - as often as not right in the face of all sense and reason - have been a bunch of backwards, conservative, usually downright stupid bastards for a long, long time. And it continues to this very day.
It's also noteworthy that a whole string of less than stupid British (even English, ho-hum) managers have been violently at odds with that lot. We all know what Fergie thought of 'em, for instance.
The FA and the SFA were in the same boat in those days. I know Scotland's 1954 World Cup campaign was an organisational shambles. Rangers didn't allow any of their players to compete due to a summer tour to the US. In a similar measure, Celtic limited the number of players who could take part. Then the SFA decided only 13 of the already seriously depleted 22-man squad could travel to Switzerland. And so on...
Blazered buffoonery at the SFA had denied Scotland of their place at the 1950 World Cup but, just four years later, we were ready to unleash our best on the world's best.
In fact we only qualified courtesy of finishing second in the Home Nations Championship. Regular readers will realise that this was also the case in 1950 when the SFA refused to let us travel. All that seemed to have been forgotten when Switzerland 1954 rolled round. Maybe the blazers liked cuckoo clocks.
1954 was slap bang in the middle of something of a purple patch for competitiveness in Scottish football. Rangers were the dominant side but Hibs, Celtic, Aberdeen and Hearts would all weigh in with league titles before the decade was out.
Motherwell and Clyde had joined Celtic and Rangers in winning the Scottish Cup in the early fifties and Hibs were a season or so away from the semi-finals of the European Cup.
So you would expect competition for places to be fierce. And, with Rangers on tour in America and refusing to release their players and Celtic only allowing Bobby Evans, Neil Mochan and Willie Fernie to travel, this was one of the least Old Firm-centric squads Scotland have ever named.
Predictably, however, the SFA bigwigs still had a couple of cards up their sleeves in their apparently tireless quest to make Scotland look like idiots.
In a nod to modernity they appointed Andy Beattie as Scotland's first manager. They then informed him that only 13 of the original 22 man squad could travel to Switzerland. A cash motivated restriction that the players noted did not extend to SFA committee men.
Having had the carpet pulled from under him, Beattie felt he had no option to resign after the first game leaving a selection committee in charge of team affairs.
All things considered Scotland's opener against Austria, essentially our competitive debut outside the British Isles, could have been a lot worse than the eventual 1-0 defeat.
We know it could have been worse because we then promptly lost 7-0 to Uruguay in our second and final group match. We might well have struggled against the South Americans even if we hadn't been wearing kit that left the players better equipped for a North Pole expedition than a sunny Swiss day.
Partick Thistle's John Mackenzie who played that day recalled:
"Did I play in that game? I certainly didn't touch the ball very often. It was so hot and our kit was unbearable. I lost about half a stone in weight."
And so that was that. Debut over. Two games played, eight goals conceded, no goals scored.
In an interview after Scotland's exit Tommy Docherty was asked if, having played in an FA Cup Final, captained his country and played in a World Cup, he felt as if his ship had come in.
"Aye," replied The Doc, "just my luck I was at the airport."
A decent group of players handicapped by bad organisation and incompetents in charge. A familiar refrain.
Still we'd made our debut. Things could only get better...
Scotland's 1954 Squad
(Amazingly, given the resources at our disposal in the early fifties, only Evans and Brown had more than 10 caps going into the World Cup. Our 13 players combined had only one more cap than England's Billy Wright had amassed on his own.)
Fred Martin (Aberdeen)
Willie Cunninghan (Preston North End)
Jock Aird (Burnley)
Bobby Evans (Celtic)
Tommy Docherty (Preston North End)
Jimmy Davidson (Partick Thistle)
Doug Cowie (Dundee)
John Mackenzie (Partick Thistle)
George Hamilton (Aberdeen)
Allan Brown (Blackpool)
Neil Mochan (Celtic)
Willie Fernie (Celtic)
Willie Ormond (Hibs)
How much did the players receive for their role in the World Cup? Either £15 or their shirts to keep as souvenirs. Many just kept the shirts.
No doubt they were worried the SFA cheques would bounce.
In fact we only qualified courtesy of finishing second in the Home Nations Championship. Regular readers will realise that this was also the case in 1950 when the SFA refused to let us travel. All that seemed to have been forgotten when Switzerland 1954 rolled round. Maybe the blazers liked cuckoo clocks.
1954 was slap bang in the middle of something of a purple patch for competitiveness in Scottish football. Rangers were the dominant side but Hibs, Celtic, Aberdeen and Hearts would all weigh in with league titles before the decade was out.
Motherwell and Clyde had joined Celtic and Rangers in winning the Scottish Cup in the early fifties and Hibs were a season or so away from the semi-finals of the European Cup.
So you would expect competition for places to be fierce. And, with Rangers on tour in America and refusing to release their players and Celtic only allowing Bobby Evans, Neil Mochan and Willie Fernie to travel, this was one of the least Old Firm-centric squads Scotland have ever named.
Predictably, however, the SFA bigwigs still had a couple of cards up their sleeves in their apparently tireless quest to make Scotland look like idiots.
In a nod to modernity they appointed Andy Beattie as Scotland's first manager. They then informed him that only 13 of the original 22 man squad could travel to Switzerland. A cash motivated restriction that the players noted did not extend to SFA committee men.
Having had the carpet pulled from under him, Beattie felt he had no option to resign after the first game leaving a selection committee in charge of team affairs.
All things considered Scotland's opener against Austria, essentially our competitive debut outside the British Isles, could have been a lot worse than the eventual 1-0 defeat.
We know it could have been worse because we then promptly lost 7-0 to Uruguay in our second and final group match. We might well have struggled against the South Americans even if we hadn't been wearing kit that left the players better equipped for a North Pole expedition than a sunny Swiss day.
Partick Thistle's John Mackenzie who played that day recalled:
"Did I play in that game? I certainly didn't touch the ball very often. It was so hot and our kit was unbearable. I lost about half a stone in weight."
And so that was that. Debut over. Two games played, eight goals conceded, no goals scored.
In an interview after Scotland's exit Tommy Docherty was asked if, having played in an FA Cup Final, captained his country and played in a World Cup, he felt as if his ship had come in.
"Aye," replied The Doc, "just my luck I was at the airport."
A decent group of players handicapped by bad organisation and incompetents in charge. A familiar refrain.
Still we'd made our debut. Things could only get better...
Scotland's 1954 Squad
(Amazingly, given the resources at our disposal in the early fifties, only Evans and Brown had more than 10 caps going into the World Cup. Our 13 players combined had only one more cap than England's Billy Wright had amassed on his own.)
Fred Martin (Aberdeen)
Willie Cunninghan (Preston North End)
Jock Aird (Burnley)
Bobby Evans (Celtic)
Tommy Docherty (Preston North End)
Jimmy Davidson (Partick Thistle)
Doug Cowie (Dundee)
John Mackenzie (Partick Thistle)
George Hamilton (Aberdeen)
Allan Brown (Blackpool)
Neil Mochan (Celtic)
Willie Fernie (Celtic)
Willie Ormond (Hibs)
How much did the players receive for their role in the World Cup? Either £15 or their shirts to keep as souvenirs. Many just kept the shirts.
No doubt they were worried the SFA cheques would bounce.
It sounds incredible today, but the fact is that England (like Scotland - not sure when the SFA changed in this regard) didn't have a proper, in-control manager until Ramsey was appointed: Winterbottom was given the manager job after the war but he did not have authority to select his players - that was done by the FA (in the form of a special committee).
It was Winterbottom himself - who was no mug, actually - who finally convinced them to change this ridiculous system. The same Winterbottom also banged on for years to the FA about the need for change in other areas, new tactical thinking, etc. He took the Hungarian lesson to heart - as did others - and knew very well that things were done differently on the continent and in South America. But he was largely hampered and hindered by the FA suits. The fact that he finally managed to convince them to relinquish some power to the bloody manager of the team was in many ways THE most important factor in England's World Cup win a few years subsequent to Ramsey's appointment.
Too bad this spirit of reform didn't take proper hold - because it didn't, the FA remained largely stubborn and reactionary - if it had, the story of English football (the fate of the national team, not least) could have been a different one in more recent years.
It was Winterbottom himself - who was no mug, actually - who finally convinced them to change this ridiculous system. The same Winterbottom also banged on for years to the FA about the need for change in other areas, new tactical thinking, etc. He took the Hungarian lesson to heart - as did others - and knew very well that things were done differently on the continent and in South America. But he was largely hampered and hindered by the FA suits. The fact that he finally managed to convince them to relinquish some power to the bloody manager of the team was in many ways THE most important factor in England's World Cup win a few years subsequent to Ramsey's appointment.
Too bad this spirit of reform didn't take proper hold - because it didn't, the FA remained largely stubborn and reactionary - if it had, the story of English football (the fate of the national team, not least) could have been a different one in more recent years.
Have pmed my tactics to crappy. Best of luck
Done most of mine too, will get it sent tomorrow. You too mate.
Sounds like our FA only ten years ago!
I actually agree with antohan on Giggs/Best as the wing pair. Normally I'm happy to lend support to older players but from what I've seen I don't think Finney or Matthews were on another level to Giggs at all.
Completely disagree with Ferdinand/Moore being a poor partnership. Ferdinand was about as complete as a defender comes and for my money could play with just about any 'type' of defender, it didn't need to be a rock like Vidic. For Moore the one thing he lacked was pace and if you were trying to cover for any weaknesses then you would partner him with someone quicker and more agile, like Ferdinand.
Went for McGrain at right back and, putting bias aside, I think Cole was a better left back than Irwin but both of those preferences are splitting hairs and not that important. The hardest decision is in the middle of the park as there are so many excellent midfielders. Ultimately for me it comes down to two from Keane/Souness/Robson, with Mackay/Bremner/Edwards/Scholes just missing out. Tough between those three and I hate to leave out Souness (who certainly seems to be getting more credit now) but Keane/Robbo strikes me as the most complimentary pairing. I think Robbo would love the freedom which comes from playing with Keane.
Completely disagree with Ferdinand/Moore being a poor partnership. Ferdinand was about as complete as a defender comes and for my money could play with just about any 'type' of defender, it didn't need to be a rock like Vidic. For Moore the one thing he lacked was pace and if you were trying to cover for any weaknesses then you would partner him with someone quicker and more agile, like Ferdinand.
Went for McGrain at right back and, putting bias aside, I think Cole was a better left back than Irwin but both of those preferences are splitting hairs and not that important. The hardest decision is in the middle of the park as there are so many excellent midfielders. Ultimately for me it comes down to two from Keane/Souness/Robson, with Mackay/Bremner/Edwards/Scholes just missing out. Tough between those three and I hate to leave out Souness (who certainly seems to be getting more credit now) but Keane/Robbo strikes me as the most complimentary pairing. I think Robbo would love the freedom which comes from playing with Keane.
I actually agree with antohan on Giggs/Best as the wing pair. Normally I'm happy to lend support to older players but from what I've seen I don't think Finney or Matthews were on another level to Giggs at all.
Completely disagree with Ferdinand/Moore being a poor partnership. Ferdinand was about as complete as a defender comes and for my money could play with just about any 'type' of defender, it didn't need to be a rock like Vidic. For Moore the one thing he lacked was pace and if you were trying to cover for any weaknesses then you would partner him with someone quicker and more agile, like Ferdinand.
Went for McGrain at right back and, putting bias aside, I think Cole was a better left back than Irwin but both of those preferences are splitting hairs and not that important. The hardest decision is in the middle of the park as there are so many excellent midfielders. Ultimately for me it comes down to two from Keane/Souness/Robson, with Mackay/Bremner/Edwards/Scholes just missing out. Tough between those three and I hate to leave out Souness (who certainly seems to be getting more credit now) but Keane/Robbo strikes me as the most complimentary pairing. I think Robbo would love the freedom which comes from playing with Keane.
Yeah, I reckon they'd be fine together. The obvious argument would be that it's "ball playing CB" times two, but I don't really care about that as long as it's defenders of that calibre. And while Moore wasn't the most physically imposing in the business, he wasn't a girl's blouse either - he could certainly put in a tackle or two (as famously demonstrated both here and there).
You somehow managed to squeeze more United players than I didI actually agree with antohan on Giggs/Best as the wing pair. Normally I'm happy to lend support to older players but from what I've seen I don't think Finney or Matthews were on another level to Giggs at all.
Completely disagree with Ferdinand/Moore being a poor partnership. Ferdinand was about as complete as a defender comes and for my money could play with just about any 'type' of defender, it didn't need to be a rock like Vidic. For Moore the one thing he lacked was pace and if you were trying to cover for any weaknesses then you would partner him with someone quicker and more agile, like Ferdinand.
Went for McGrain at right back and, putting bias aside, I think Cole was a better left back than Irwin but both of those preferences are splitting hairs and not that important. The hardest decision is in the middle of the park as there are so many excellent midfielders. Ultimately for me it comes down to two from Keane/Souness/Robson, with Mackay/Bremner/Edwards/Scholes just missing out. Tough between those three and I hate to leave out Souness (who certainly seems to be getting more credit now) but Keane/Robbo strikes me as the most complimentary pairing. I think Robbo would love the freedom which comes from playing with Keane.
As you say, midfield is splitting hairs. I'd certainly leave out the pure DMs with so many great B2B. And with that the playmakers go out the window too, bit of an unneeded luxury. That said, out of those listed I think it's Souness that can best ensure that isn't missed at all, so Souness + Other IMO.
Agree on pace, which is why I mentioned Rio and McGrath missing narrowly. My concern with Moore-Rio isn't two ballplayers but aerial dominance. In a British and Irish draft that's asking for trouble unnecessarily when Charles or McNeill would do. McGrath maybe, to account for pace concerns, but I'd prioritise aerial prowess over pace in Moore's partner.