Top Ten Overrated players

[dave u]

10 minutes ago, Trumo said:

 

Where? Even the best current Spurs players rarely get linked to moves elsewhere.

Mourinho was desperate to take him to United because he loves a big shit yard dog. Think he wanted him to be his new Jon Obi Mikel.

[The Guest]

You can throw Van Der Sar in there as well.  Bang average keeper of his generation.  Made plenty of mistakes which just seem to have been completely forgotten about and they now talk about him being some legend.  United went through a host of shite keepers before he arrived which is why people overrated him at the time.

[aRdja]

Mascherano. Generally seen as world class by most of our fans. I appreciate what he brought to our team. However, he wasn’t nearly as good on the ball as the other great CMs of the recent past; Gerrard, Xabi, Gary Mac, and Didi.

[Nolongerathletic]

1 hour ago, aRdja said:

You’re gonna hate me for this, but Roy Keane. He was a very good player, but not as good as Gerrard or Vieira.

I don’t mind that! I hate you for that pretend Irish breakfast! 

[Lee909]

8 minutes ago, aRdja said:

Mascherano. Generally seen as world class by most of our fans. I appreciate what he brought to our team. However, he wasn’t nearly as good on the ball as the other great CMs of the recent past; Gerrard, Xabi, Gary Mac, and Didi.

He wasn't on the ball but far better than all of them at hunting the ball and actually marking a player out of games. 

[lebron]

I've pulled Ardja up on this previously, but with a bit of time on my hands, I'll have another go:

 

I'd take Silva over all the other City players every day at his peak, and possibly even now. A little bit of that is because of our need for a player with his ability even more than a pacey player out wide (Mane and Salah aren't too bad), and even if Aguero's peak form would be useful, there's less drop-off to Firmino (who's also perfect for the way we play and especially played last year) than there is for peak Silva to Shaquiri (who I really like). 

 

I actually think if Silva had stayed in Spain (Barca/Real) he would have had even more than the impressive number of caps he's got. I also think that the 08-12 Spain side is by far the best NT I've seen. Once you were in that side, there wasn't really going to be a lot of changes (Alonso suffered because of this at the 08 Euros). I'm actually a bit surprised Real didn't try (harder) to get him to come to them, as they would have had a much better chance to match up with Guardiola's Barca than they eventually did.

 

In the last 10 years, I think only Messi surpasses Silva in terms of being able to control the game from an attacking midfield position. He would have been absolutely perfect for Barca as well, his only problem being his peak coming almost simultaneously as Messi/Xavi/Iniesta/Busquets', so they never really "needed" him. I actually rate him as better than both Busquets and Xavi (different players/positions I know), and almost on a par with Iniesta. He's also the one player of any opposing PL team I really look forward to see play.

 

If you like explosive (CRonaldo, Gerrard, Sane), physically gifted players, long-range shots/long passes and a playing style where those attributes shine more than the technical/tactical  aspects of the game I can understand why you think Silva is overrated. Personally I'm more in awe when someone without the slightest doubt and with a hint of arrogance traps the ball consistently no matter how or when the ball is played to him and no matter how much pressure he's under and still manages to work something positive out of the situation 99 times out of a 100. I don't think I've seen a player with as consistent a good 1st touch in my lifetime (and I've devoured a LOT of football since the mid 80's). His importance to his team can't really be measured by assists or goals, as he's basically orchestrating their entire "playbook" whatever the position he plays. KDB/Gerrard or Silva/Alonso. I think the former duo will show up a lot better in the numbers and on highlight reels, while the latter are the players that can take your entire team to a new level. I don't think it's a coincidence that our entire team fell apart after Xabi left, and I'm equally unsurprised when City struggle when Silva's not playing. Tactically his positioning and decision making is extraordinarily good too.

 

Anyway, as someone on the previous page said, I actually think he's a bit underrated, and him not earning POTY is more a testament to what type of football culture is appreciated on your shores than what Silva has done for City and the PL. Unless we win the league this year (in which case VVD or Salah might win it), I think Silva is going to be rewarded (and it won't be a lifetime/sympathy award like Giggs got). Not that I think he cares too much, he doesn't strike me as one of those players clamouring individual awards (whose hype and wrongness is the true shit of modern football anyway. Imagine a young kid watching football on Youtube or equivalent platforms 20 years from now and learning from the Ballon D'or list that Ronaldo was Messi's equal - shiver....). 

 

Signed football hipster

 

 

 

 

[lebron]

Edit: This is what I'm alluding to when it comes to our needs as a team. We have lacked this ever since football evolved from the 4-4-2 and into midfield battles and congested midfields.... From the piece on Silva in the NYT:

 

Even City, with all its resources, lacks something in Silva’s absence. “He is one of the most incredible players in the world at playing in the pockets,” Guardiola said of his playmaker earlier this season. “He is maybe the strongest in the world in those spaces. We try to attack those spaces: he is a master of it. Few players can do it.”

 

 

[No2]

If City were to lose a player to an unfortunate injury, the player they would miss most is Silva. Take him out and they are good team with some really good players but nothing special, certainly not the best team in Europe or one of the best ever in the PL.

 

He is the one that makes them tick, it's him that slices defences open for Sane to square it for a tap in for Sterling or vise versa. It's him that makes them brilliant.

[3 Stacks]

Players like Silva, Scholes and Carrick (to a lesser extent) aren't overrated because they score or tackle less than other midfielders. The reason people rightly mention them among the best is because they help(ed) control games and are/were so comfortable in possession. Those are great skills to have.

 

If Messi hadn't finished a billion of their passes, would people have called Iniesta and Xavi overrated? I hope not. Obviously, Silva, Scholes and Carrick are of a lower echelon than Xavi and Iniesta, but they're quite similar in style and were effective enough to be cogs in some great sides. 

 

Nevermind Silva and Scholes, I would've quite liked Carrick in my team. He never hid from the ball and was a terrific, brave passer

[LFC 6 Times]

Ozil, Pogba, Wilshere, Maguire, Pickford, Pulisic, Odegaard, Moussa Dembele, John Stones and Kyle Walker.

[LFC 6 Times]

Think De Bruyne is massively overrated too, I've heard people say that he's better than the likes of Gerrard and Lampard, he's absolutely no where near, genuinely don't know how rival fans viewed Gerrard, the guy was an absolutely ridiculous player, probably the most rounded player I've ever seen. David Silva is miles better than De Bruyne.

[Evelyn Tentions]

13 hours ago, dave u said:

Coutinho is a fair shout. He was brilliant but massively inconsistent.

 

Until Barca showed an interest in him and then he was mostly dynamite for about six months.

 

What I would say about him though was when we played him in midfield he was almost always top class. It's when he played on the left he could be erratic and go missing.

For me, Firmino and Coutinho in the same side never gelled. I'd much rather Bobby, less selfish, better brain and no back problems.

[aRdja]

14 minutes ago, LFC 5 Times said:

David Silva is miles better than De Bruyne.

With all due respect that’s rubbish. 

[VladimirIlyich]

3 hours ago, aRdja said:

With all due respect that’s rubbish. 

Its a very fair point considering Silva's contribution both domestically and internationally. Silva is a superb player that somebody who worships Harry MacGuire obviously can't see.

[dave u]

11 hours ago, lebron said:

“He is one of the most incredible players in the world at playing in the pockets,” Guardiola said of his playmaker earlier this season.

 

 

 

Yeah, Hendo's pocket. Amirite?

[Vincent Vega]

Klopp picked out David Silva as the opposition player who impressed him most when he appeared on Sky's Monday Night Football with Carragher early last season.

 

For years he's been my favourite player in the PL that didn't play for us. Such an intelligent player, and one that's caused us a lot of problems in the past.

 

I wish we'd had the money to go and sign him when Rafa was manager and we were getting linked.

[The Guest]

1 hour ago, Vincent Vega said:

Klopp picked out David Silva as the opposition player who impressed him most when he appeared on Sky's Monday Night Football with Carragher early last season.

 

For years he's been my favourite player in the PL that didn't play for us. Such an intelligent player, and one that's caused us a lot of problems in the past.

 

I wish we'd had the money to go and sign him when Rafa was manager and we were getting linked.

He would have played him upfront on his own or chose some workhorse to play instead of him.

[Jairzinho]

5 minutes ago, The Guest said:

He would have played him upfront on his own or chose some workhorse to play instead of him.

Do you like Rafa Benitez, The Guest? Hard to tell at times.

[Manny]

There's a sub-genre of players that really cunt me off: players who are almost universally deemed "underrated" - thus rating them and making the "underrated" tag completely redundant. The mancs specialise in this, presumably it's a way of trying to maintain some sort of aura of being a proper football club and a special fanbase whilst at the same time signing players based on Instagram stats, but the misuse of the term drives me fucking insane. Nobody thought Paul Scholes was shit. Nobody thought Michael Carrick was shit. Maybe some people didn't think Paul Scholes was god's gift to football but that's a different matter; yet for some fucking reason there's this myth floating around that when they were active they were derided by all as yard dogs or some shit.

 

It's how Ryan fucking Giggs won player of the year and it just makes me hate them more.

[El Rojo]

The 'can you imagine him under Klopp, eh? Eh?' is the new underrated.

 

Not getting off the bench with his own club and a sulking underachieving mess when he does play, but can you imagine him under Klopp, eh? Eh? Eh? He'd be one of the best players in the world.

 

(It's a small price to pay for having him as our manager. Don't remember it being applied to Roy Hodgson.)

[Bobby Hundreds]

Plenty of people think scholes was better than Gerrard. He wasnt the little ginger bollocks.

[VladimirIlyich]

10 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

Plenty of people think scholes was better than Gerrard. He wasnt the little ginger bollocks.

That's stupid but a team with both of them in the line up (no,not shitty England) would have been a threat. Also,Scholes got better when he retired in the same way our injured squad players suddenly become world class.

[TheHowieLama]

23 minutes ago, VladimirIlyich said:

,Scholes got better when he retired in the same way our injured squad players suddenly become world class.

Scholes got better when foreign based players ( especially Zidane) started saying he was the player in England they admired most

[aRdja]

5 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Scholes got better when foreign based players ( especially Zidane) started saying he was the player in England they admired most

Scholes was better than Gerrard and Lampard at playmaking. Lampard was better than the other two at scoring goals. Gerrard was better than the other two at everything else.

[Trumo]

Beckham against Greece is by far the most overrated individual performance. He might have bailed the side out with that last-minute free kick, but he was a headless chicken that day and a massive factor as to why England put in such a disjointed performance. A better side than Greece would have exposed Beckham's tactical indiscipline and taken England to the cleaners.

 

Gerrard was by far the most versatile out of himself, Scholes and Lampard. You couldn't play either of the others anywhere but central midfield whereas Gerrard could play in any central midfield role, as a right-sided midfielder, off the front man or even right back. He could probably fill in ably as a centre back too.