How good was Ryan Giggs?

Such a good and consistent player. He’s a genuine person aswell. I remember he came to my old school and turned up in assembly once. Was shocked.
 
Quite simply the player that made me a United fan. Growing up in the States, I was originally schooled on Total Football and was an Ajax fan. Then I saw Giggs and the rest of the Class of 92 play. I was hooked. Giggs was the player I wanted to be. Well skilled but not flashy. Always where you needed him to be even before you realized it. Always working. Great on and off the ball. Good finisher and good passer.
 
So much about what made Giggs great are the things about him that are unheralded. Yes he was wonderful running with the ball at his feet, yea he could twist and turn at speed like no other United player I’ve seen, the sort of player who genuinely gets fans off the seats. But what I loved about him was that he coupled that with an amazing work ethic. He’d get up and down that line like no other. He was always back defending, putting the team before himself. He was a great tackler too. So many times he did that trademark hook tackle after tracking back, and set us off on a counter attack. His delivery was so consistent as well. Just a really intelligent, hard working, and talented player. Bloody brilliant he was.

One of my favourite memories from the 90s is seeing Schmeichel come off his line to dominate his area, claim a cross and then send Giggs tearing away down the left with a 50 yard belter of a throw.
 
Melville Red said:
Over rated in my book. His final ball was lacking at times which was a shame after all the hard work but a good 60% of his crosses ended up failing to hit the target.
He was a good player but not world class and to compare him to George Best is ridiculous Best and Ronaldo far better players, Giggs however a far better servant to the club.
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Aye his final ball was lacking...

260 odd assists over his career, only a handful of players have ever done that.
 
It would be interesting to see how he'd be deployed today if were coming through as a 17 year old - most likely as a wide forward from the right. I wonder how his numbers would then compare to someone like Bale's, who he's sometimes compared to for obvious reasons.
 
Giggs was a top player no doubt and clearly a United legend, but it's more about longevity and consistency rather than world class ability.

He was an outstanding teenage talent but didn't win many individual awards until late in his career - even only won our own Player of the Year on one occasion (1998) so there was almost always better players around him.

I see several talking about him as one of the all time greats but he's not on that level for me.
He definitely would not make my Top 5 United players and debatable if he gets in the Top 10.
 
Rood said:
Giggs was a top player no doubt and clearly a United legend, but it's more about longevity and consistency rather than world class ability.

He was an outstanding teenage talent but didn't win many individual awards until late in his career - even only won our own Player of the Year on one occasion (1998) so there was almost always better players around him.

I see several talking about him as one of the all time greats but he's not on that level for me.
He definitely would not make my Top 5 United players and debatable if he gets in the Top 10.
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All you had to do was watch how scared the big European teams were of him in the Champs League. You forget how often he was injured early in his career, until he figured out how to protect his hamstrings.
 
Rood said:
Giggs was a top player no doubt and clearly a United legend, but it's more about longevity and consistency rather than world class ability.
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Yeah, mostly agree.

You could easily argue that he was "world class" in his very prime as a winger, though. Unless your definition of "world class" is extremely narrow, that is.

But, sure, it is mainly about longevity (and consistency).

I would add that what makes Giggs stand out among players of his own generation (and earlier generations) is how good he still was at a stage where most players were * decidedly done at the top level.

* Still are, I suppose: but we're seeing more and more high-profile players who are genuinely top class at, say, 35+ these days.
 
Rood said:
Giggs was a top player no doubt and clearly a United legend, but it's more about longevity and consistency rather than world class ability.

He was an outstanding teenage talent but didn't win many individual awards until late in his career - even only won our own Player of the Year on one occasion (1998) so there was almost always better players around him.

I see several talking about him as one of the all time greats but he's not on that level for me.
He definitely would not make my Top 5 United players and debatable if he gets in the Top 10.
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Scholes never won our player of the year and was only twice in the team of the year, to 6 for Giggs.

He was an incredible talent, nonsense to suggest he was more longevity than talent.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Yeah, mostly agree.

You could easily argue that he was "world class" in his very prime as a winger, though. Unless your definition of "world class" is extremely narrow, that is.

But, sure, it is mainly about longevity (and consistency).

I would add that what makes Giggs stand out among players of his own generation (and earlier generations) is how good he still was at a stage where most players were * decidedly done at the top level.

* Still are, I suppose: but we're seeing more and more high-profile players who are genuinely top class at, say, 35+ these days.
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Yes Giggs did amazing to reinvent himself as a midfielder and keep going as long as he did - very rare for players who breakthrough as teenagers to still be going strong in their 30s and that's testament to his professionalism

As a team player he was great but there were often question marks over his final ball and shooting which was not quite at that elite level that wins you Ballon d'Or etc

But yes that again points to his main attributes being longevity and consistency
 
In his prime as a wide man he was a fantastic player. Extremely direct and lightening quick. The fact he was able to adapt his game later the way he did is also testament to his quality.
 
L1nk said:
In terms of pure raw talent is he up there with the best players to ever play the game in my opinion. Same with longevity, not many have been able to adapt and keep a relatively high level of performance into the latter stages of their career as he has.

However 168 goals and 259 odd assists in 963 games is not a world class winger output by any stretch of the imagination.

People who say he is overrated I think is massive hyperbole, or i've seen quotes saying he is lucky he just appeared when we had a dominant team. The reality is you don't get your debut at 17 years old and you aren't a mainstay of a dominating football team unless you are a really good player, which he was.

Giggs at his best would absolutely destroy the wingers we have at the club right now... Garnacho is a fantastic talent but if you were to ask me if I would take 18 year old Giggs over 18 year old Garnacho right now the answer would be Giggs everyday, this isn't even a question when it comes to Sancho, Antony etc.

So then why are there question marks about his footballing performance, one could argue inconsistency, or him never having a truly world class season like Ronaldo did for us despite Giggs' talent. I always felt that Giggs was always outshone by other players, he was the new kid on the block with the brand deals and so on when he first emerged but then Beckham quickly established himself and took all the attention, even though I think Giggs was supremely more talented than him. I don't think his National team exploits helped him either.

It's kind of hard to pinpoint really... I'm mostly going to chalk it up to recency bias though, there's a lot of wild opinions these days on how a lot of footballers from many moons ago, of the 90's and so on, just aren't that good anymore compared to footballers of today. Hell there was a twitter thread going around the other day about how Rio Ferdinand wouldn't make it in todays modern game, which of course we all know is a joke.

The fact remains is that Giggs made his debut at 17, had amazing technical and physical abilities a lot of players can only dream of having, he chalked up over 900 appearences for the club, won almost everything there is to win on a professional level, multiple times, and all this in a Manchester United side that remained pretty dominant for a good chunk of his time at the club. Was he lucky? No he was an important cog in that machine.
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Assist counts have changed since he started playing. Assists weren’t registered for players that got fouled for a penalty for starters.

To my mind, no stats site has gone back through English Football and provided reworked assists for every game. Happy to be proven wrong.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Assist counts have changed since he started playing. Assists weren’t registered for players that got fouled for a penalty for starters.

To my mind, no stats site has gone back through English Football and provided reworked assists for every game. Happy to be proven wrong.
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Will never happen because not all matches were televised so any such stats would be incomplete prior to the PL era
 
Red in STL said:
Will never happen because not all matches were televised so any such stats would be incomplete prior to the PL era
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Aye. My point was that you can’t go back and compare assist stats.

Gambling, better data collection, and fantasy league shit has combined to ramp up the hard numbers.

It’s utterly senseless to compare historic stats on everything other than things like goals and clean sheets.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Aye. My point was that you can’t go back and compare assist stats.

Gambling, better data collection, and fantasy league shit has combined to ramp up the hard numbers.

It’s utterly senseless to compare historic stats on everything other than things like goals and clean sheets.
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Personally I think stats are way overrated, especially when they are used without any context or are used to provide meaningless comparisons, I don't need stats to tell me if X is a decent player and Y isn't!
 
Red in STL said:
Personally I think stats are way overrated, especially when they are used without any context or are used to provide meaningless comparisons, I don't need stats to tell me if X is a decent player and Y isn't!
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Agreed. The average fan boils players down to what they believe are key metrics. Managers and coaches look at all the boring shit. Time taken to retake defending position after possession is lost. Passes made under pressure. Receiving the ball under pressure. It’s the totality of the data that’s valuable.

Stats are overrated in the hands of you and I. Not tough to read or process, but wholly useless without knowing what the managers have asked the player to do in the first place.
 
His game can be like Bruno at times, constantly giving the ball away because he tried those risky passes. But few of them will show how rewarding those passes can be, his number of assists is a testament to that.

Dribbling and ball control is top notch, he was great at the middle during his latter years
 
I seem to recall him not being able to take corners properly for about 3 seasons.
 
What’s the situation with his assists count - I’ve heard that the number usually stated doesn’t count a large number of assists from early in his career..?
 
Joel Miller said:
In his prime as a wide man he was a fantastic player. Extremely direct and lightening quick. The fact he was able to adapt his game later the way he did is also testament to his quality.
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I remember when he broke through people said he was the next George Best.

The hype was similar to Rooney when he first broke through.
 
Giggs was ridiculous. We were blessed to have him. He was a step above all. He came at a time when the game was fairly tumescent compared to Europe but he was as good as anyone.

Pity he's a dick.
 
The man had a direct goal involvement every other game for 23 seasons, playing as a winger mainly in a 442 system for the vast majority of it. He was an excellent defensive player too. You look at late goals when Utd were chasing games back in the day and Giggs is involved in winning goals/equalisers so often.
 
He was even a decent midfielder once he got older and played till what 40? Not many wingers have ever managed that. Showed what a good all round player he was
 
It amazed me how seamlessly he was able to transition into being a creative CM in a midfield 2

He was honestly as good as anyone really
 
He was absolute top class, his speed and the speed he could run with the ball while weaving all over the shop I don’t think we’ve seen since.
Can’t people believe people in here are saying he wasn’t all that and bring up goals scored and assist statistics to put him down
 
Absolute top class, brilliant footballer.

Have always thought If he had played for England they would have won at least one major trophy.
 
Pascal Quiff said:
Top of my head, I can only think of Ribery, Robben and Barnes who were truly top class wingers, alongside Giggs.
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Robben was RW. Ribery was a great player, he was a bit more of an inverted attacker but was supreme with the ball. I think Giggs edges him on raw pace though. Barnes was a top player.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Robben was RW. Ribery was a great player, he was a bit more of an inverted attacker but was supreme with the ball. I think Giggs edges him on raw pace though. Barnes was a top player.
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Fair enough, I always thought of Robben as LW for some reason
 
Pascal Quiff said:
Fair enough, I always thought of Robben as LW for some reason
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Well you said winger and didn't specify which side so I'm not sure the qualification was actually needed.

An absolutely fantastic player all the way through from a 17 yr old with pace to burn terrorising defenders, to adapting his game when he was only able to run at something like 80/90% through to his transition to a midfielder and playing at the highest level til he was 40, making over 1000 appearances for the club.

It has to be said though that all of his talents as a player are in sharp contrast to how he behaved in his personal life.
 
Giggsy was a real gem. In terms of present players such as Antony he was head and shoulders above in all aspects of play.Faster, two footed, scored goals, ran for 90 minutes and was not greedy with the ball. A complete legend.
 
Hound Dog said:
He was a notch below the very best wingers, such as Robben and Figo.
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Disagree. He was right up there with the very best.
Checking the stats he has both more career appearances and more goals than Robben and Figo and all at one club. He’s a proper legend in footballing terms, and a real United hero.
 
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