Virgil Van Dijk

[VladimirIlyich]

20 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

Rowdy a yard dog!? He was a good old fashioned centre half whose job in those days was just to win all the balls lumped into the box. That's our box not the oppos except for corners because in those days it wasnt the done thing expecting the centre half to do much more than whack the ball up field.

That was my point.

[Butch]

8 hours ago, Kevin D said:

 

A terrible, terrible choice of music*, but this is a tremendous video:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The Kinks, I'm not like everybody else should have been the choice. That, or Smash mouth, why can't we be friends.

He's simply magnificent. 

[Dr Nowt]

8 hours ago, Kevin D said:

 

As he matured, he stop the offensive part of his game. I think it's, because he trusts the rest of the team, so much.

 

He was an absolute bad ass free kick taker at Celtic, for example:

 

 

Save that.

Given he announced his legend by scoring the winner against Everton, he’ll probably sign off his last ever game for us in 2030 by pinging one of those in off the crossbar to win us the Champions League. 

[Jairzinho]

9 hours ago, Kevin D said:

 

A terrible, terrible choice of music*, but this is a tremendous video:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The Kinks, I'm not like everybody else should have been the choice. That, or Smash mouth, why can't we be friends.

Muted the video and now watching it with ZZ Top Sharp Dressed Man. Works very well.

 

As you said previously, best player in the world by an absolute fucking mile. Messi isn't even close now.

[Jenson]

2 hours ago, Jose Jones said:

Barnes played all over the front line really, though young Barnes would definitely be on the right in this team correct?

 

Played left wing when he first joined, and was basically unstoppable in that 1987-1988 season.

[Jose Jones]

2 hours ago, VERBAL DIARRHEA said:

Don’t remember him playing on the right that often although my memory is going a bit. 

No, as Jenson says he played mainly on the left, although also centre forward on occasions. But he was a left footed goal scoring forward (at least until the injuries slowed him down) same as Salah.

 

Swap them around and if Mo is in Kenny’s team he plays on the left, Barnes would mostly be on the right in Klopp’s team.

[magicrat]

10 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

 

 

Fuck off.  Being a fat lazy shit never troubled him at all.

Never going near a razor was ironic too . Scruffy cunt 

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

8 minutes ago, Jose Jones said:

No, as Jenson says he played mainly on the left, although also centre forward on occasions. But he was a left footed goal scoring forward (at least until the injuries slowed him down) same as Salah.

 

Swap them around and if Mo is in Kenny’s team he plays on the left, Barnes would mostly be on the right in Klopp’s team.

The winger inside forward swap.

[RedSand]

6 hours ago, Barry Wom said:

Ron yeats. 

Ah..... cheers mate. 

[The Guest]

I don’t think Klopp is automatically an inverted winger manager.  He played Sadio on the right in his first year and only moved left when Salah arrived.  Barnes is more Mane’s style than Salah I think as well.  Salah is a lot more one footed.  I think Barnes would just be played accommodate the other winger or forwards because he could probably play anywhere for us.

 

I think how well Virg has played this year has gone under the radar a bit.  A bit like Gerrard you could probably play him anywhere on the pitch and he’d be out best player in that position.  He’s not there yet but I think he will go down as our best defender ever when he’s done.

[Razoray]

On 03/02/2020 at 08:21, LFC 6 Times said:

I’ve seen a lot of disparaging remarks about Carra, I was young during his prime. But I thought he was absolutely fucking boss, don’t get me wrong Rafa and Ged’s conservative set ups helped, but Carra was one of the finest defenders in the world 04-10.

Carra was a fine defender especially when moved to CB by Rafa, however he was probably the 5th choice English centre back 04-07 behind Ferdinand Terry Campbell and King (when push came to shove he was always picked ahead of JC).

It was a golden era for CBs in England and he would probably be 1st choice for England now. 

Not agreeing or disagreeing, just pointing out that he was unlucky to be around at that time. 

[Bjornebye]

6 minutes ago, Razoray said:

Carra was a fine defender especially when moved to CB by Rafa, however he was probably the 5th choice English centre back 04-07 behind Ferdinand Terry Campbell and King (when push came to shove he was always picked ahead of JC).

It was a golden era for CBs in England and he would probably be 1st choice for England now. 

Not agreeing or disagreeing, just pointing out that he was unlucky to be around at that time. 

England should have won something between 2000 and 2010. Some unreal players. Ferdinand and Terry at CB was just insane. Carra didn't get as much of a chance for England because he wouldst toe the 'England/Country comes first' line. 

[Elite]

42 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

England should have won something between 2000 and 2010. Some unreal players. Ferdinand and Terry at CB was just insane. Carra didn't get as much of a chance for England because he wouldst toe the 'England/Country comes first' line. 

Ashley Cole

Sol Campbell

Terry

Ferdinand

Gary Neville

Steven Gerrard

Paul Scholes

Frank Lampard

David Beckham

Michael Owen 

Wayne Rooney

 

Never made it past a quarter final.

[3 Stacks]

9 minutes ago, Elite said:

Ashley Cole

Sol Campbell

Terry

Ferdinand

Gary Neville

Steven Gerrard

Paul Scholes

Frank Lampard

David Beckham

Michael Owen 

Wayne Rooney

 

Never made it past a quarter final.

Couldn't get the balance right. Not easy to put those players in a coherent team, to be fair.

[Bjornebye]

14 minutes ago, Elite said:

Ashley Cole

Sol Campbell

Terry

Ferdinand

Gary Neville

Steven Gerrard

Paul Scholes

Frank Lampard

David Beckham

Michael Owen 

Wayne Rooney

 

Never made it past a quarter final.

Ashley Cole in goal was the big problem IMO. 

[VladimirIlyich]

3 hours ago, Razoray said:

Carra was a fine defender especially when moved to CB by Rafa, however he was probably the 5th choice English centre back 04-07 behind Ferdinand Terry Campbell and King (when push came to shove he was always picked ahead of JC).

It was a golden era for CBs in England and he would probably be 1st choice for England now. 

Not agreeing or disagreeing, just pointing out that he was unlucky to be around at that time. 

England were still shit in their 'golden era.' Were they really golden at all? They were quarter finalists at major tournament quality and Sven did a good job to achieve that with them. 'Golden era' is a bullshit term for 'had potential but were actually not that good in reality.'

[Razoray]

2 hours ago, VladimirIlyich said:

England were still shit in their 'golden era.' Were they really golden at all? They were quarter finalists at major tournament quality and Sven did a good job to achieve that with them. 'Golden era' is a bullshit term for 'had potential but were actually not that good in reality.'

Goalkeeper and the resistance by Sven to play a defensive midfielder were the main issues with them not doing better at tournaments IMO.  

[Guest Alex_K]

4 hours ago, VladimirIlyich said:

England were still shit in their 'golden era.' Were they really golden at all? They were quarter finalists at major tournament quality and Sven did a good job to achieve that with them. 'Golden era' is a bullshit term for 'had potential but were actually not that good in reality.'

"Were they really golden at all?". Err .. with 9 players routinely playing Champions League semis & finals as the spine of their respective teams year in year out, yes. As individuals, the 00s had some sublime English players.

[TheHowieLama]

22 minutes ago, Alex_K said:

"Were they really golden at all?". Err .. with 9 players routinely playing Champions League semis & finals as the spine of their respective teams year in year out, yes. As individuals, the 00s had some sublime English players.

The quality of the 98 and 02 England teams was atrocious.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Ferdinand reckons Henderson, Mane, KDB and Vardy are worthier Player of the year shouts. 

[Guest Alex_K]

8 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

The quality of the 98 and 02 England teams was atrocious.

Who said anything about the 98 side? Given the last time you quoted one of my posts you were wildly out in your surmising of Hazard’s avg. return over a season vs Grealish, Id have thought you’d skipped this one.
 

The Golden Generation referred to 01-10 players. Take the middle squad - 06 WC managed by Erickson (who was referred to in this thread). 13 of the 23 players were European Cup starting finalists around that time - appearing in over 25 finals between them. That’s finals. If you want to talk about semi finals, you’re heading on your way to 50+. The ones that didn’t - Joe Cole, Owen, Bridge, players like that - had quality too. For context, of the current squad there’s a measly 4 finalists .. and a total of 4 finals. So to say England’s players then were ‘atrocious’ is just silly, isn’t it. On the domestic & European stage they were top, elite players - it just didn’t translate nationally for whichever reason. 
 

EDIT: this is way off topic to the thread, so last post on this. To John’s point above about lack of DM, it is weird that Hargreaves was never considered more for that position, given his partnership with Effenberg won Bayern a World Cup. If injuries hadn’t curtailed him he’d have been a great partner for Gerrard.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

I saw Phil Thompson do 100 “ keepy uppies “ in Tesco in Broadway in the late 70’s early 80’s. Why does this matter you ask? Because Tesco burnt down not long afterwards so Thommo and Tesco we’re both on fire for a time. And that proves England are better when they play 433.

[Carvalho Diablo]

Ingerland are, were, always will be fucking shit.

 

[TheHowieLama]

Yea, aside from that though.

[TheHowieLama]

1 hour ago, Alex_K said:

 

The Golden Generation referred to 01-10 players. Take the middle squad - 06 WC managed by Erickson (who was referred to in this thread). 13 of the 23 players were European Cup starting finalists around that time - appearing in over 25 finals between them.

In 06 there were maybe 9 top level players, then a few good ones, then a bunch of dross. The fact that Chelsea and United each had a few English players doesn't change that. In fact when you think that Us, Chelsea, Arsenal and United all appeared in the final in those couple of years, thirteen players seems like very few.

 

The Golden Generation had one player worthy of being included in the Tournament Team tells you how alot about their performance and how they stacked up against other players in the world at the time.