Player’s You Don’t Rate As Highly As Others

Alan Smith and Gabriel Heinze:

Two of the most perfect examples of how a lot of football fans in this country are seduced by any chest-thumping slide tackler. Both were terrible footballers, Smith more so than Heinze. Heinze came in and played left-back for us with no pace or any real technique, but he flew into tackles and became a hero.

Smith was doing the same, but from fecking centre forward. Think he scored one league goal in the last 5 or so years of his career. I remember he didn’t score for us in his last 18 months or so, and I kept checking every so often at Newcastle and MK Dons to see if he had scored a goal yet, and he hadn’t. He was a centre forward that people genuinely looked at, in his prime years and thought ‘let’s try him out in defensive midfield’ because his strengths lay in slide tackling. I can’t think of many strikers who anyone would even think ‘maybe they would make a better DM’. The likes of Rooney was asked to drop deeper at times as he could pass, and Messi could probably replace Iniesta with ease - but to be moved back to play a Gattusso role just shows a lack of talent as a forward.
 
Rozay said:
Alan Smith and Gabriel Heinze:

Two of the most perfect examples of how a lot of football fans in this country are seduced by any chest-thumping slide tackler. Both were terrible footballers, Smith more so than Heinze. Heinze came in and played left-back for us with no pace or any real technique, but he flew into tackles and became a hero.

Smith was doing the same, but from fecking centre forward. Think he scored one league goal in the last 5 or so years of his career. I remember he didn’t score for us in his last 18 months or so, and I kept checking every so often at Newcastle and MK Dons to see if he had scored a goal yet, and he hadn’t. He was a centre forward that people genuinely looked at, in his prime years and thought ‘let’s try him out in defensive midfield’ because his strengths lay in slide tackling. I can’t think of many strikers who anyone would even think ‘maybe they would make a better DM’. The likes of Rooney was asked to drop deeper at times as he could pass, and Messi could probably replace Iniesta with ease - but to be moved back to play a Gattusso role just shows a lack of talent as a forward.
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To be fair, Heinze was a CB playing at left-back much like Rojo.
 
mancan92 said:
He scored 100 premier league goals that's definitely Premier league standard
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That speaks to his consistency, which I would praise him for. It is less than a goal every four games though. That is right at the bottom end of what you can get away with as a Premier League striker.
 
killerboi2 said:
So Luis Figo used to get hyped as an world class legend on an worldwide level but I used to question whether he was really much better or even better at all than our players at the time (Beckham, Scholes and Giggs)
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I think at his peak he was. Brilliant dribbler, great vision, leadership, two footed. Beckham had a sweeter right foot and Giggs was faster, but Figo all-around game was more complete.
 
Ramos; He made his name due to titles won, scoring goals, and being a hard man. He would probably go down as the best centre back of the present era, while not being anything special as a pure defender.
Sterling; yes he's got pace and agility and can be a nuisance for a fullback, but he's finishing is atrocious, he would struggle to get 10+ league goals in any other EPL side.
Henderson; How he was in contention to win EPL player of the season last year I don't get, a decent hardworking player and nothing more.
Declan Rice; he looks like a centre back playing in midfield, would be exposed if he made the step up to a bigger club, could potentially be a very good centre back though.
Ibrahimovic; he played most of his football in the French and Italian league, in a era were the English and Spanish league were superior and speaks like he has conquered the world and most people buy it.
 
Ribery (only good vs the very worst defenders), Beckham (nice right leg, but that's it) , Khedira (the ball is his personal enemy), Özil (no fighting spirit), Lloris (just bad)
 
Tevez. Just because he was part of the fabled holy trinity, some people act like we let the Argentine R9 slip through our fingers. His second season was atrocious, and he couldn't handle being dropped. His bottom level was easily Martial level, or Lukaku on his worst days. I'm so glad Fergie replaced him with Berbatov, who was much classier both on and off the pitch, and became a mini legend of sorts.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Tevez. Just because he was part of the fabled holy trinity, some people act like we let the Argentine R9 slip through our fingers. His second season was atrocious, and he couldn't handle being dropped. His bottom level was easily Martial level, or Lukaku on his worst days. I'm so glad Fergie replaced him with Berbatov, who was much classier both on and off the pitch, and became a mini legend of sorts.
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He was also top class at City though. His PL career isn’t defined by a two year loan at United.
 
Jordan Henderson, Alisson, Saka, whole chelsea squad, Rashford, Fred (rate him less than anyone else does).
 
Going to say Sancho. Boy is good but many people seem to think he is the one player that’ll win United titles like he is peak Ronaldo or something.
 
GoranIvanisevic said:
I was thinking and actually what about Sterling, he is highly rated until recently but his end product is horrible and there are way better players
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United fans mostly see him peering out from AWB's back pocket, so there's not been much to rate has there?!
 
Rozay said:
He was also top class at City though. His PL career isn’t defined by a two year loan at United.
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Big fish, small pond. Martial shouldn't be judged on his second or current season either as he's been with us for 6 years, nor is he useless, but definitely not as highly rated.
 
Ali Dia said:
Busquets is not even that highly rated for the most part but his role in their success can’t be overstated. People majorly under estimate the difficulty of the position. You have to be a baller but you need a dirty side too. To conduct you need balance, strength, vision, precise dribbling in tight spaces, razor sharp passing and all while knowing a mistake almost certainly leads to a bad chance against you but he could recycle the ball in almost any situation and get them up the pitch. He showed the opposition just enough of the ball to get them to press him and then he’d effortlessly take them out of the game.
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Yeah totally agree. Such a tightrope of a position and requires many talents, demonstrated by the fact we have to pair Scott and Fred together to make up for one another's weaknesses in the role.

One of the most difficult positions to play, like rocking horse sh*t to find.
 
Kaka wasn't THE best in 2007 and on a much much smaller scale, that Rice guy. A definition of a nothing footballer.
 
Rozay said:
Smith was doing the same, but from fecking centre forward. Think he scored one league goal in the last 5 or so years of his career. I remember he didn’t score for us in his last 18 months or so, and I kept checking every so often at Newcastle and MK Dons to see if he had scored a goal yet, and he hadn’t. He was a centre forward that people genuinely looked at, in his prime years and thought ‘let’s try him out in defensive midfield’ because his strengths lay in slide tackling. I can’t think of many strikers who anyone would even think ‘maybe they would make a better DM’. The likes of Rooney was asked to drop deeper at times as he could pass, and Messi could probably replace Iniesta with ease - but to be moved back to play a Gattusso role just shows a lack of talent as a forward.
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I remember being amazed at how backwards English football was when people here thought Smith could be Keane's replacement because he's aggressive, vocal and loved a slide tackle. :lol:

Could just be posts made by a small minority of people here. My memory of Smith is pretty hazy.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Big fish, small pond. Martial shouldn't be judged on his second or current season either as he's been with us for 6 years, nor is he useless, but definitely not as highly rated.
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He won the PL with them, with him being instrumental. The pond clearly wasn’t that small.
 
Rozay said:
He won the PL with them, with him being instrumental. The pond clearly wasn’t that small.
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With his 4 goals? He was busy playing hooky the year they won it! Dzeko and Balotelli won them the PL, not Tevez.
 
Tomuś said:
Kaka wasn't THE best in 2007 and on a much much smaller scale, that Rice guy. A definition of a nothing footballer.
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Always thought his performance against us in the first leg was overrated as hell. I remember people were creaming themselves over the second goal when he did the sombrero skill. I mean its neat but it wasn't even the skill that created the goal, it was the dumb mistake by Evra.
 
killerboi2 said:
So Luis Figo used to get hyped as an world class legend on an worldwide level but I used to question whether he was really much better or even better at all than our players at the time (Beckham, Scholes and Giggs)
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I remember crying at primary school when someone rated Beckham above Figo.
 
Figo was comfortably better than Becks, just as Tevez was comfortably better than Berba.
 
Jeppers7 said:
I don’t remember Carrick at all that season to be honest, my memories of Jose’s first season are around Zlatan, Pogba, fellaini and Mikhi, I’m a season ticket holder and I’d forgot he even played for us under Jose.

As for the rest, Cleverly and Anderson kept him out of the team at the start of one season, they looked promising until Cleverlys injury to be fair. As for a past it Scholes, when he came out of retirement he was still twice the deep lying midfielder Carrick ever was.

Carrick had an excellent season in 2013, the rest of his time he was a cog in a fantastic team. Almost every player in that 08 team was world class, only Wes Brown, Hargreaves and Carrick were not.
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The thing with Carrick is that he is, as you do here, normally compared to deep-lying playmakers. But almost every other DLP out there needs to play next to another defensive midfielder. He was good enough to play as the main defensive midfielder himself against most opposition, allowing us to play two DLP's together with him and Scholes. As such he really should be compared to the main DM in other teams, in which case he provided more on the ball than almost any. Busquets is really the only other one who was able to do that same job.

Paul_Scholes18 said:
For me Carrick is way better than Keane and the results show that as well.
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But then this is going way too far the other way. Keane was the most important and arguably the best player in his team, and perhaps the league. Carrick, as good as he was, certainly wasn't at that level.
 
Red Stone said:
We don't need a creative outlet like De Bruyne because we have Bruno and Pogba. We don't desperately need a possession recycler like Kroos either, because we don't play that sort of game. Both would obviously improve us, but not by as much as a rock solid defensive midfielder that plays a simple, accurate and effective passing game. Right now the defensive part of our midfield consists of a whole lot of effort, but not a whole lot of brains or skill.
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Statement #1 in bold = wow.
Statement #2 in bold = this wasn't Carrick.
 
mu4c_20le said:
With his 4 goals? He was busy playing hooky the year they won it! Dzeko and Balotelli won them the PL, not Tevez.
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When he came back from his golfing break to end the season he was quite good. And the season before that, he was brilliant.
 
thepolice123 said:
Guti.

Seriously what was he good at?

@carvajal @giorno
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Technically he was very good, a great vision of the game. Today what lasts are his passes. He had a brutal competition and wasted several years from party to party, and by the time he took it seriously he was too old.
Ronaldo Nazario and Sneijder said he was one of the most talented in the team
 
MadDogg said:
The thing with Carrick is that he is, as you do here, normally compared to deep-lying playmakers. But almost every other DLP out there needs to play next to another defensive midfielder. He was good enough to play as the main defensive midfielder himself against most opposition, allowing us to play two DLP's together with him and Scholes. As such he really should be compared to the main DM in other teams, in which case he provided more on the ball than almost any. Busquets is really the only other one who was able to do that same job.


But then this is going way too far the other way. Keane was the most important and arguably the best player in his team, and perhaps the league. Carrick, as good as he was, certainly wasn't at that level.
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Yeah way better is maybe saying it too far cause they are both great players. I think carrick was a better player in most ways though and often critical for our sucess. It is really only under Moyes Carrick looked poor. Of course they had different roles and might funny enough made a great pair or a great trio if you add Scholes.

I thought that about Carrick and Pogba too, but at that age for Carrick he could not do the same work anymore. Still I liked Carrick-Pogba-Herrera midfield as an idea and we got it with Matic instead of Carrick eventually.
 
Kinsella said:
Sergio Aguero.
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Injuries matter and I don't know why people like to act lie they don't. They stopped him from having the kind of impact even the Drogba's and Rooney's had, yet people try and lump him up with Henry and Shearer. If he had a Suarez 2014 campaign, maybe we can talk, but for me, he's in the RVN, Van Persie, Torres tier.
 
Jordan Henderson

So fortunate to be with the perfect manager for his skillset - running.
 
Lay said:
For me, it’s VDS.
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That's a good shout tbh. Should have saved Eto's shot in the final of 2009 - was really lucky in 2008. Overall a very good commanding keeper but not a good shot stopper.

Edit: And Messi's second in 2011
 
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Righteous Steps said:
Disagree with nearly all of these, Zidane wasn’t just a big game player he was incredible game in game out, the thing is critiques like this one are interesting because truly what team or players do you watch game in game out apart from your own? And how many games do you forget a player has a bad performance because their team wins, and vice versa? It’s clear that Zidane was one of the best players in Serie A at the time, alongside Veron and Rui Costa the chief playmakers and also that his international exploits elevated him furthermore, but that’s the way it has always been for nearly every player, players are elevated by big moments big games at the big stage, in nearly every sport.

Think Kaka has been underrated if anything he was a force don’t think he should have won the Ballon D’or but he was one of the top 5 players in the world for a couple years, I don’t really see people elevate him to a higher level than that.


Bergkamp was on a similar level to Cantona, what makes you think he is not, his
record at Ajax and Arsenal suggest otherwise.

Gerrard wasnt inconsistent at all, from 21-25 he had a few top class seasons as a CM/DM including one where he won PFA young player of the year, finished 2nd with Liverpool and won all major cups bar the PL.
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I admit I'm rating Zidane mostly on his Real Madrid performances. I didn't watch enough of him in his Juve days to judge him properly there so maybe he did show more consistency then.

I'd generally agree with how you rate Kaka. Up there for a year or two, but he wasn't ever THE best. Since I often do see people claim he was, I think he fits this thread.

Bergkamp was a good player (better than Zola who I did mention him alongside), but not Cantona level. Cantona was the main man in a team that would probably have won 5 titles in a row if it weren't for his suspension derailing one of those seasons. He was closer to Henry than Bergkamp.

I think we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on Gerrard. For me he was similar to Pogba in the sense that he could have brilliant matches in midfield but he wasn't consistent. Too often he actually hurt Liverpool's build-up in matches because he was trying to force things to happen too early, something that is fine in a more advanced position (see Bruno for us) but not something you really want in a deeper position.
 
Carrick tops that list for me. Overrated by United fans, he was respected by many players and managers but was a weak personality on the pitch and crumbled under any sign of pressure. He always seemed to play at his own pace, I always thought it was ridiculous to compare him to Busquets, Alonso, Kroos (as deep lying playmaker) because he was never that influential. Good DM but his impact on our attacking game was very overrated.

He would do well in current United team I think (against low to mid table teams), but he surely wouldn't take us up a level in the high energy, high tempo games where we seem to struggle.

Probably underrated on the continent though.
 
432JuanMata said:
Thought I’d make a thread as we all have certain opinions on players that are rated really high but you yourself don’t think so.
You can still rate the player just not as high or a player you think is rubbish but others think are good to great.

I’ll start Etoo
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I gotta say I saw you say Eto and almost deleted my account.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Tevez. Just because he was part of the fabled holy trinity, some people act like we let the Argentine R9 slip through our fingers. His second season was atrocious, and he couldn't handle being dropped. His bottom level was easily Martial level, or Lukaku on his worst days. I'm so glad Fergie replaced him with Berbatov, who was much classier both on and off the pitch, and became a mini legend of sorts.
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If anything that was Ferguson's worst decision. Preferring Berbatov over Tevez. Tevez went on to show that he was very important in the holy trinity with his football while Berbatov went on to show he was better looking and classy.

Getting rid of Tevez was right up there with Pogba as the worst decisions by Fergie.
 
I've not watched any footage of that little Maradona man but could he have really performed against Stoke on a cold Tuesday night ?

Scored less than 800 club goals and was most likely just a speed merchant imo. For a player I've never watched he is massively overrated.

Joke
 
mu4c_20le said:
Tevez. Just because he was part of the fabled holy trinity, some people act like we let the Argentine R9 slip through our fingers. His second season was atrocious, and he couldn't handle being dropped. His bottom level was easily Martial level, or Lukaku on his worst days. I'm so glad Fergie replaced him with Berbatov, who was much classier both on and off the pitch, and became a mini legend of sorts.
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Reading this again - it is such an awful, awful post. So contradictory.

- Martial's bottom level is because of his laziness - not because of his technique. Lukaku's bottom level is because of his technique.
- Martial is almost exactly like Berbatov in the sense that he has amazing technique but not the mentality and aggression.
- Tevez was a workhorse - even on his worst days, he ran like a headless chicken and gave his all.

So you've combined three extremely different players together and separated Berbatov. It just doesn't make any sense.
 
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