I don't think so, I thought this about Beckham at the time. He was brilliantly effective because he had a fantastic engine and the best right foot delivery I've ever seen - and in his best season he also had Yorke heading in those crosses like a metronome. But he had his weaknesses too. Now IMO in the position he played, he compensated for those weaknesses because his delivery was so devastating he didn't need to draw defenders out in order to get in behind them like a normal winger, and he had Neville on the overlap as well to fill those spaces. So yes, he was a great player but he wasn't a complete one.
How good was David Beckham?
- Thread starter Lord SInister
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I agree. Keane was always the best player after Cantona retired and before Van Nistelrooy arrived. He was never going to be as flashy as Beckham and co, but the two aren't comparable in terms of impact.
Keane seems to be even more underrated than Scholes, in that regard.
As far as Beckham goes, he was exceptional prior to 2003, and was easily one of the best in the world. I think he might have been 2nd or 3rd best at the club at his peak, and retired having accomplished so much.
But some of the comparisons here (to DeBruyne for example
) are a little wild.Don't think he's better than DeBruyne, as I'd actually argue DeBruyne may be the best midfielder in Premier League history, but I also think Beckham would really thrive in the midfield 3 in the DeBruyne role. In that system, he wouldn't have to dictate play, but can use his stamina and work ethic to cover ground, rotate with the wide player and deliver outstanding crosses and long passes. I'd wager that he'd also be a very efficient player. Not too many touches, but would be impactful and dangerous whenever he got the ball.
Agreed. Scholes and Giggs, in my opinion, have been overvalued in comparison to Keane and Beckham due to their longevity and personality. I believe modern fans struggle with the perception that Keane was dictating play for United in the late 1990s and early 2000s, failing to recognize that, despite having the skillset, Scholes developed into the deep-lying metronome we admire once Keane began to fade in 2003/04.I agree. Keane was always the best player after Cantona retired and before Van Nistelrooy arrived. He was never going to be as flashy as Beckham and co, but the two aren't comparable in terms of impact.
Keane seems to be even more underrated than Scholes, in that regard.
As far as Beckham goes, he was exceptional prior to 2003, and was easily one of the best in the world. I think he might have been 2nd or 3rd best at the club at his peak, and retired having accomplished so much.
But some of the comparisons here (to DeBruyne for example
Another issue, I believe, is that the media has always portrayed United as an industrious, fast-paced team rather than the technical passmasters we were at the time. Instead, they painted Arsenal with that brush, despite the reality that Arsenal were the fast-paced, hardworking team. For this image, Keane and Vieira were always used as the faces of this contradiction, and because Vieira was French and Keane was Irish, even if you could argue that Keane commanded games more than Vieira did, Vieira was always seen as more sophisticated. It's also why Arsenal's teams, despite not winning as frequently, were more widely praised when they did. It was media representation regarding playing style based on stereotype rather than reality.
Clearly a well considered opinion.
Lets be real, he's been City's best player by a mile in the most dominant team ever. They're massive cheats funded by blood money who are almost certainly doping out of their eyeballs, but De Bruyne is one of the greatest PL players ever.
Best free kick taker I’ve seen at the club.
David Silva was better than him for City. Plenty of City players are made to look better due to Pep and his system, yet don't perform elsewhere. KDB might be one of the greatest PL players ever but so is Beckham.
City had their most dominant PL season points wise when KDB was injured for nearly the entire season, they didn't even skip a beat, which shows how good Pep really is and how he makes players perform above their level. KDB is not as great as people think last season Pep had Foden playing better than KDB has for 90% of his Man City career.
On the day David Beckham was transferred to Real Madrid, BBC R5 interviewed a pair of MU season ticket holders who never missed a United game, home or away.
These lads were renown for keeping all sorts of stats about United matches; corners ,throw-ins, fouls etc, including goals scored by David Beckham from direct free kicks. They claimed his track record for United was one goal in every 35 attempts.
They both claimed in the interview United would be a better team with Ronaldo playing right wing because he was quicker, a bigger goal threat and less prone to trying to win free-kicks . They claimed DB's best years were behind him and the transfer was in our best interests.
The Beeb didn't challenge their opinions or that surprising statistic. That said, 1goal in 35 attempts is not that impressive.
Beckham was runner up to the legendary Rivaldo in 99 Balon dor and there was genuine arguments at the time feeling Beckham was robbed.
De Bruyne best finish was 3rd, losing out to Benzema and Mane.
Balon dor isn’t the best measure of a players ability, but it is a pretty good measure of public opinion at the time.
My point is, there was a genuine opinion in 99/20 that Beckham was the best in the world. People forget that too easy
Not that good if the fans don't sing about him anymore
Rivaldo is no more legendary than Benzema (completely different debate), anyway 1999 wasn’t the strongest year ever for candidates. They had to pick someone from United when we won the treble and he had by far the biggest profile. He was very good Beckham but it’s no coincidence he used to get plenty of Ballon d’Or votes and Scholes never got any because he was far, far more famous.
Beckham put in a good shift that night but United were completely outplayed by Munich before the famous finale. With Keane that probably wouldn’t have happened, he was the engine of that team.
Beckham said he wanted to play centrally, but Ferguson never did, wonder why that was? He wasn’t good enough there. He could possibly play a roaming midfielder 4-3-3 in the modern game like Pogba did I believe but Eriksson tried Beckham in deep midfield for England against Northern Ireland as a Pirlo-like quarter back and he was dreadful and they quickly abandoned that experiment. Beckham at 10 would completely expose his weaknesses. Even today his best roles I believe would be right wing, followed by left wing, followed by loose midfielder in a 3, then full back before playing number 10.
That's not a popular opinion amongst Man city supporters. KDB took apart the German league before he ever joined City and it's not like Beckham ever really shone anywhere else other than United. His record with England was poor at best and KDB at least has a major tournament semi final to boast of.
KdB started all but 2 of the games in City's best ever points season, the second to last game vs Brighton and the loss to United. He got 16 assists.
And if we're talking about managers getting the best out of players, then it seems silly to ignore that Beckham was managed by Sir Alex fecking Ferguson.
It’s not a popular opinion among any football supporters, KDB surpassed Silva a few years ago.
People seem to forget great moments of KDB, understandably due to City fatigue. But Liverpool were 10 minutes away from winning the league a few years ago and he had one of the best assists of the season, driving at the defence and laying it on a plate for Gundogan with a brilliant pass.
Agreed on Belgium, De Bruyne’s 2018 World Cup was arguably better than any major tournament of Beckham’s.
I guess the stats don't lie. I just remember he scored some worldies from a free kick. Always fed the strikers with pin point crossies. York, Cole, RVN and Sheringham all benefited. Great player.
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Sorry but this sounds pretty unlikely to me. He scored 18 freekicks in the league in his time at United which would equal 630 direct freekick attempts, Ronaldo in his entire career has taken 532 and scored 38 in approximately 5x as many matches. Even if you only account for 2014 onwards, Ronaldo has taken 150 with a conversion rate of 7.1%. The memeably bad freekick Ronaldo would have a conversion rate 50% better than peak David Beckham. That doesn't pass the smell test to me.
https://www.balls.ie/football/statistics-reveal-best-free-kick-takers-premier-league-history-187045
This states since 2000 Beckham scored 5 freekicks from 54 attempts (a conversion rate of 9.3%). So prior to this for that number to be true Beckham would have had to have scored 13 freekicks from 576 attempts (over 3 per game) at a conversion rate of just shy of 2.3%. I have a pretty decent memory of United in the 90's and I don't remember Beckham taking 6x fewer freekicks from 2000-01 onwards but with a 4x better conversion rate. Even at his peak of trying to score from everywhere Ronaldo was only taking 1 direct freekick a game in teams which were far more territorially dominant than the United side of the 90's. The odds that Beckham was taking 3 per game seems very, very slim.
Fair comment. I did say R5 did not challenge the stat of 1 in 35 when conducting the interview. Pity you didn't hear it, a post interview telephone call would have been interesting.
Beckham signing for Madrid was announced mid-June. He joined them on 1st July.
Ronaldo wasn't signed until 12th August and no United fan had heard of him before we played Sporting in that friendly a few days before that.
As per the poster above the stats sound way off as well.
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Chingford's finest
Was watching his ability to play some amazing long balls that would easily beat over 3 to 4 players.
If he played in the EPL these days he would have been a fantastic deep lying playmaker like Pirlo, a Xabi Alonso or a Carrick atleast.
If he played in the EPL these days he would have been a fantastic deep lying playmaker like Pirlo, a Xabi Alonso or a Carrick atleast.
Best Crosser, free kick taker and passer we’ve ever had. Difficult conclusion because scholes was an amazing passer too.
I can’t remember any player with a cross like Beckham in PL history.
I can’t remember any player with a cross like Beckham in PL history.
Beckham was much better than Scholes at the time. Becks truly was one of the best players in the world for his three peak years (99-01), which was a level that Scholes never really reached. Any votes he got after that I'd agree it was his fame, but he deserved everything he got (arguably more) for those three years.
It wasn't really until the mid-2000's that Scholes overtook him, as Scholes just kept getting better while Beckham had dropped off quite a bit by that stage.
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I don’t believe this to be true. Scholes wasn’t a celeb. Both were great top top players but Scholes was a world class midfielder and I don’t think we’ve seen one as good in utd shirt since.
We were lucky to have both
I agree. During lock down I had a look at quite a few old Man Utd-games during that period. Keane and Beckhan was our best players at the time. By quite a distance.
Scholes did become a world class midfielder, but not until the mid 2000's. Before that he was obviously good (still better than any other midfielder we've had since then other than Carrick), but he wasn't at the absolute top level and was generally seen as one of the players in the team that we could improve on. Even after that point he was never competing to be the actual best player in the world, which is what Beckham was doing from 99-01.
I'd say Stam was fairly close (and Yorke during the treble season), but otherwise yeah.
Scholes is my second favourite Utd player ever but what @MadDogg says there is pretty impossible to argue. The first time you could realistically look at the two players as getting close to equal footing would be 02/03.
Bloody brilliant was becks
My fave player.
Assist king, provider.
Everything we desperately need in this team.
All our wingers like to do the same thing, cut inside and shoot, even when there’s a better option for the team, 9 times out of 10, they’ll revert to type.
Beckham had the imagination and vision (along with a wand of a right foot) to just generally do the right thing and make the right decision, for the team, such a selfless player. Top work rate with the mentality to boot. What I’d give to have peak Beckham on our right hand side, I’d swap any of our wingers for him. Infact any of our players for him.
One things for sure, we’d have double the goals on our tally and be higher up the league table with him in our team. Any strikers dream.
Assist king, provider.
Everything we desperately need in this team.
All our wingers like to do the same thing, cut inside and shoot, even when there’s a better option for the team, 9 times out of 10, they’ll revert to type.
Beckham had the imagination and vision (along with a wand of a right foot) to just generally do the right thing and make the right decision, for the team, such a selfless player. Top work rate with the mentality to boot. What I’d give to have peak Beckham on our right hand side, I’d swap any of our wingers for him. Infact any of our players for him.
One things for sure, we’d have double the goals on our tally and be higher up the league table with him in our team. Any strikers dream.
I still struggle to think of many other players to this day that were able to make those amazing pin point long ball passes from deep like beckham would that lead to either a goal or a great goal scoring chance for a striker.
Ask yourself if prime beckham was signed by pep during this period where he is dominating the premier league, would he look an even better player, especially when the sport for good or bad has become softer in terms of physicality.
Ask yourself if prime beckham was signed by pep during this period where he is dominating the premier league, would he look an even better player, especially when the sport for good or bad has become softer in terms of physicality.
I genuinely think he's the best long ball specialist of all time. You just don't see much of that kind of long ball vision in the modern game, Trent Alexander Arnold probably the closest but he's ways off Beckham in his pomp.
IMO Becks was underrated as a footballer.
Still can't belive I used to take for granted his otherworldly crossing/passing skills. 25 years passed and I don't think anyone has come close with what Becks offered week in week out.
Beckham was brilliant, but I think sold at the right time.
To add to the new ongoing Scholes debate though - he was outstanding going forward but awful at defending. His long ball accuracy and passing ability was sublime.
Can you compare the two though? Probably not. But at the time they were equal in their positions in terms of ability.
To add to the new ongoing Scholes debate though - he was outstanding going forward but awful at defending. His long ball accuracy and passing ability was sublime.
Can you compare the two though? Probably not. But at the time they were equal in their positions in terms of ability.
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Beckham could have stayed at united for another decade and been a starter for the majority of that time really and probably would have gotten close to our record appearance makers(but then we don't sign Ronaldo, possibly)
Beckham in that treble year was a sensation. There seems to be a bit of revisionism playing him down due to either the whole media courting, or the shorter period here than Giggs or Scholes, but he had the better standout season than any of our home growners, and arguably as good as anyone in that treble year.
I work with a guy who is adamant that Anderton was better.
I know football fans are utterly one eyed at times, but that's an opinion so upsetting it doesn't even warrant a debate.
I work with a guy who is adamant that Anderton was better.
I know football fans are utterly one eyed at times, but that's an opinion so upsetting it doesn't even warrant a debate.
I remember the days Nani got dog's abuse. Yet Nani would waltz into this current team. Let alone Beckham who was levels above!
Why sell one of the most marketable faces on earth who also happens to be a very very good footballer who ended up playing for another decade at a high level? I never got the selling him at the right time thing. A player like Beckham is rare why sell him at all if he was happy? Love Fergie but he wasn't always right
The only thing is Beckham was superb in the days of the standard 4-4-2. He had spells in the centre, but was best from a wide position.
It'd have been interesting where he'd have fitted in now everyone plays these 4-3-3 variations.