MadDogg
Full Member
I'm not really sure what any of this has to do with what I said. There are a lot of aspects to being a top goalscorer and Ruud and Ronaldo were obviously better in almost all of them. In a very broad sense, they were both quite a lot better at getting opportunities to score (using positioning, movement, speed, strength, etc), while Ole was slightly better at putting the chances that he did get in the back of the net.Ronaldo was the best player Sir Alex had. He was better then everything in almost anything. The fact that he scored 118 goals in 282 appearances is staggering especially since he to United as an 18 year old, he left prior to his prime and was played mostly playing on the flanks. Ruud only brought goals to the table. He was the typical goal poacher of the time, a selfish player who slept, woke up and lived thinking of goals. Most players in Sir Alex time brought more to table then Ruud did, Ole included. Both played during a time when the EPL was tougher then the one faced by Ole and both had a higher goal ratio then Ole did (0.68 for Ruud, 0.40 for Ronaldo, 0.34 for Ole)
Prior to Ole's arrival, Sir Alex wanted a top class goal poacher. He went for Batistuta and Shearer until he settled for Cole. Cole was a player ahead of his time. He brought far more to the table then the typical striker of the time whose life depended on how many goals he scored. Yet Sir Alex wasn't happy with that. In fact during the time he kept tabs on Batistuta, he tried to sign Marcelo Salas, if my information is correct he tried to get Fowler as well and then he signed Ruud. Still during the time when Ole was in his prime he refused to give the top job to him. Throughout his career Ole was also played as a RW and there was a time when he was on sale. That's not exactly how one of the finest finishers would be treated at a time when the manager wanted a world class goal poacher.
So I think there's a bit of a revision of history here. Which is quite human tbh. On one side you had RVN who was an A class cnut and Ronaldo left the club who was so instrumental to his success long before he hit his prime. On the other hand you have a top top professional who truly loved United, a guy whose so nice that even an ageing and sour Keane finds it impossible to say a bad word against. His main perk was his finishing. So its natural to look at Sir Alex Ferguson's successful history and pinpoint him rather then the latter as top of the class on this particular skill. People tend to like rewarding the good guys.
What I do believe is that Ole was the biggest team player and more intelligent of the lot. He was able to read the game without actually being in it and use his more limited skill set (vi's a vis Ronaldo) not only to be lethal up front but also to help his team mates in other areas like defending. Which kind of explains why his mates adored him.
Ronaldo developed the best off-the-ball attacking movement I've ever seen on a football pitch. He's one of the best aerially. He takes and scores a lot of long range shots. But his actual clinical finishing is worse than both Ruud and Ole. It's still world class and better than 99% of players, but those two were even better. Likewise Ruud was right up there competing to be the best striker in the world during his first three seasons with us. He was fantastic at getting chances to score and his finishing was absolutely brilliant. But Ole's was even better. He just wasn't as good at any other aspect of actual goalscoring.