Did I ask you to?
BBC article on Ruud van Nistelrooy
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My first United away game. Still the only one I've been to where I've watched it from two different stands, nevermind rows.
Absolute beast. He also scored 25 league goals at madrid in his first season (something the likes of the original Ronaldo never did) and Raul only managed once in his long career there. No i am not saying Ruud was better then Ronaldo or Raul, im merely stating that he scored goals everywhere he played. 349 goals in 592 games is a serious record.
Loved the pitch invasions during that game, looked like great fun
Yes, you're right, RvN only once beat Henry's PL tally. However, as pure goal scorers, the Dutchman was a little more prolific. A goal to game ratio of 0.68 in comparison to Henry's 0.61. You could also add that Henry came to PL a few years earlier and had time to adjust as a younger player (being 22 at the time), Ruud also came off a pretty serious injury and never showed signs of it.
As for the better player, Henry takes that accolade. Growing up, he was one of my favourite players to watch and might be the best player to grace the PL.
Nah. You had furious outrage on your side. Why try to understand what someone else means?
Great game. I was sat in the home end, sat on my hands as we went 2-0 down. I had to stay sat down as RvN bagged two beauties and we won.
Great goalscorer but his tantrum in the league cup final and non performance in the fa cup final vs Arsenal when he handed in a transfer request that morning taunts him for me .
Add to his rows with Ronaldo and the fact we played much better football without him and won trophies Noone can argue we were not a better team without him .
I think we relied too much on him earlier and the top teams marked him out of the game too often . Once he left we were more dangerous quicker and harder to work out
Add to his rows with Ronaldo and the fact we played much better football without him and won trophies Noone can argue we were not a better team without him .
I think we relied too much on him earlier and the top teams marked him out of the game too often . Once he left we were more dangerous quicker and harder to work out
Probably not Ronaldo but I honestly don't see why he couldn't be compared to someone like Raul. RVN's legacy is massively handicapped by not having a stellar trophy count, not leaving the Dutch league until he was 25, and catching us in a transition period. But in terms of both talent and consistency he's in the tier 2 category of all time greats IMO.
He smashed it instantly at Madrid and was the top scorer of La Liga in his first season.
Saying 'My word' is a furious outrage?? You probably go to the hospital when you get a papercut
The most incredible striker to ever play for United. THE best goal scorer the PL has ever seen IMO.
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nokillingmoths deserves a title: ”Bit of a nothing poster”.
Maybe i should have said tedious outrage, but then you didn't manage to make it to the bottom of my post before hitting quote so who knows.
Clearly not on both counts
Looking at goal tallies Kane, Salah, Sterling have been putting up in recent years just makes me think the league used to be a lot tougher. No way are any of them as natural at scoring goals as RVN, but are delivering similar or better numbers.
I think the only way to appreciate how good he was is to consider he was the top scorer in the CL til Messi, despite playing in our relatively terrible team at the time.
Also Inzaghi and Chicarito are poachers, Ruud was a centre forward. It's like people forget how good his hold up play, touch and distribution were. For a few years he was by far our best player, the only one who would get near a world XI.
I think the only way to appreciate how good he was is to consider he was the top scorer in the CL til Messi, despite playing in our relatively terrible team at the time.
Also Inzaghi and Chicarito are poachers, Ruud was a centre forward. It's like people forget how good his hold up play, touch and distribution were. For a few years he was by far our best player, the only one who would get near a world XI.
It also had a more defensive mindset. Football has been on a fairly continuous offensive trend ever since we hit peak defensiveness in the 1990 World Cup. With some brief regressions mainly due to the influence of Mourinho, whose monster Chelsea seasons happened when Ruud was here.
The current Premier League season has the highest average goal count ever.
Easily the best goalscorer I've seen and my all time favourite player. Every great striker misses some easy chances, like Aguero missed vs Chelsea at 1-0 and so on, but this guy never took any chances. Always smashed the ball into the back of the net even if he 6 yards from the goal. Absolute monster in front of goal and the only player to have been top scorer of 3 major European leagues (and he was CLs top scorer for 3 seasons as well)
Interesting, thanks for that.
One of my favourite all time players - and a good read as well!
Agree with RVN, he's likely the best out and out goal scorer I've seen. At least top three. He also had the horror injury but wherever he went he scored a load of goals.
Our Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuud chant is also one of the highlights of my youth spent watching United
Amazing to hear ruud being seen as an out and out united great despite the fact he forced his way out to go Real Madrid. Yet ronaldo who was clearly better is seen by “some” as not a united legend for doing exactly the same thing.
Ruud gave us his best years while Ronaldo left after giving us only a taste of what was to come. Ronaldo leaving and going on to achieve what hes achieved undoubtedly stung a lot more for the majority of fans
Ronaldo won us a lot more and was the best player in the world with us . That's a lot more than Ruud
Yeah it's more similar to Ronaldo leaving for Juventis.
I loved the guy! One of my all time favourites...he lived for goals and gave me so many great memories.
Elite goalscorer but players like him invariably raise the question over how valuable one dimensional scorers truly are? To be fair Utd were going through something of a transition in his best years at the club, but I have always preferred a more rounded forward who meshes well with the rest of the team.
That is one of the reasons why I doubt Shearer would have driven us on to greater team success if we had secured him instead of Cole for example, you end up tailoring so much of the game to suit one player that the top team level is lowered..
RVN was fantastic at what he did, but I wonder about the impact of that ACL. If you watched any of his highlights in Holland he would go on these long runs from deep quite often, a bit like the Fulham goal, very powerful runner over distance, did he move towards becoming more of a specialist in the aftermath of that injury?
That is one of the reasons why I doubt Shearer would have driven us on to greater team success if we had secured him instead of Cole for example, you end up tailoring so much of the game to suit one player that the top team level is lowered..
RVN was fantastic at what he did, but I wonder about the impact of that ACL. If you watched any of his highlights in Holland he would go on these long runs from deep quite often, a bit like the Fulham goal, very powerful runner over distance, did he move towards becoming more of a specialist in the aftermath of that injury?
My favourite striker ever. He was the main man when I started following United. I loved the 02/03 season.
Till today I believe he is The only player who kept us competitive in the era of the Invincibles. People tend to forget we were pretty shite in the early 00s.
A class guy. I remember being in the trafford centre outside the old vodaphone shop. My missus was in a wheelchair, has she had been in a serious car accident, my son was also with us and he must have been about 7.
He spotted us looking over and waved to us to come over. He shook our hands and then posed for pictures with us. Absolute gentleman with us.
He spotted us looking over and waved to us to come over. He shook our hands and then posed for pictures with us. Absolute gentleman with us.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/b91997a6-8a2b-4c86-a4ac-206596089eb4
A new article has just been posted in this series about Rio.
A new article has just been posted in this series about Rio.
RVN was fantastic. I don't think I've ever seen someone be so dangerous in a penalty box and it was a cert that he'd score if the ball was in the six yard box and he was within striking distance. Incredible scoring record in Europe for us. I remember my mother asking me why he was booed when he scored and I had to explain to her the Ruuuuuddddd chant.
Shame he was mainly involved in the early to mid noughties transition era of Utd. He deserved much more silverware
Shame he was mainly involved in the early to mid noughties transition era of Utd. He deserved much more silverware
A great scorer, maybe the best the league saw. In a poor side , good side etc it didn't matter. After Becks left opportunities weren't exactly flowing at Old Trafford and he just got on with it. Very simple, basic game that's normally reserved for limited players but he didnt seem to care.
I wonder if Sheringham and Rudd would have been a good partnership if either Teddy had stayed an extra year or Ruud hadn't done his knee injury and moved a year earlier. Ruud was a bit unlucky really as he came when Stam left in the early season, Veron struggled and the following year Keane had his hip op and Beckham would soon leave. We also had Fabian Barthez in goal 
That's RVN easily.Fantastic article on a fantastic player. I still remember arguing on Orkut about him being better than Henry
Incredibly underrated when we talk about strikers of last decade.
Also, I wonder where people stand on RvN v Kane debate? Who’s the better player?
He's the only goal scorer I would put ahead of The Lawman of players I have seen play for United.
I have always wondered what he could have done playing with King Eric.
Ruud was a monster of a player, goalscoring machine we need.
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We'd kill for a striker like him now. We don't have the sort anymore.
Great article, thanks, I was absolutely devastated when he left.
Didn't RVN quarrel with Ronaldo or Fergie and was benched in a Cup Final or something like that? Pretty sure he didn't forced his way to Real. As for C7, didn't he stay for another year after Fergie promised that he can go next season? He knew he had to go to Real if he wants to be recognised as the best player and his performance at Real certainly vindicate that.