How good was Paul Scholes?
- Thread starter Paxi
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England could have made good use of Scholes (the older version), no doubt.
He effectively retired from the national team, though, didn't he - as in, he let it be known that he wasn't interested in any call-ups?
Ask any of these players who the best player they played with during that period, I would bet most say Scholes. The man was a genius.
He retired because he wanted to extend his club playing career was fed up with playing a bit-part role in unsuitable positions
In EURO 2004, to accommodate Gerrard and Lampard he was played as a left winger, he was a great player in multiple positions but left wing wasn't one of them
England wasted him, like they have with many other top talents such as Hoddle, LeTissier, Marsh and Worthington to name some of the old timers
Yeah after Euro 2004, he'd have been 28/29 at the time I think. He'd played pretty much the whole tournament on the left of midfield but in fairness he always said it was due to not enjoying it and disliking the England set up at the time being about the individual rather than the collective, rather than playing out of position. I think McLaren and Capello both asked him to go back but he refused.
The common factor was Fergie. I'm not having it that the reason those players were able to do what they did in the CL was because of Scholes. We had many great CL games without him.
If they say that they'd be liars. We had Ronaldo in our team who was the best player in the world or top 3 at worst between 07-09. Keane was better than him until 2002 and from 2004-2006 Scholes was either out of form or injured.
The quotes are lovely and all but don't actually tally up to what actually happened on the pitch. Scholes has been romanticised so much that people have lost sight of what he really was.
Magnificent player but not in the same class of the best CMs to play the game.
Why would you say that to this and not the massive list of quotes from Xavi and Zizou and the like that gets trotted out EVERY time? :P
Obligatory is obligatory.
Anyway, speaking of quotes, that video has a great comment about Scholes under it:
Heheh... and just after watching it, there comes vid in suggested, having Pep, speaking about his player of choice. Must be somekind of mass hypnosis of football giants, including United's opponents talking about Scholes.
He was a genius. Simple as that I haven't seen a player since that has his passing range. His arrowed crossfield passes were unbelievably accurate and delivered so flat which so much fizz they were almost undefendable. And his ability to take the ball under extreme pressure skip out of a few challenges and then play a perfect line breaking pass was an absolute joy.
World class finisher of either foot or with his head and deadly from long range aswell.
Rarely got the plaudits he deserved not asked for then either, he was a player that made everyone else tick his ability on the ball was what made it possible for Beckham Giggs Ronaldo Rooney etc to really flourish.
The hole he left in midified is still gaping wide now, noone has come close to filling it.
World class finisher of either foot or with his head and deadly from long range aswell.
Rarely got the plaudits he deserved not asked for then either, he was a player that made everyone else tick his ability on the ball was what made it possible for Beckham Giggs Ronaldo Rooney etc to really flourish.
The hole he left in midified is still gaping wide now, noone has come close to filling it.
I'm almost scared to say so - but yes, you're right.
Scholes is a player who was underrated in many ways when he played. He was genuinely under-appreciated by non-United fans, especially by English non-United fans (or fans of other English teams).
But he has been romanticized, as you rightly say, in retrospect.
You could say that this was inevitable. Both parts. He was bound to be underrated because he lacked the presence and physicality of someone like Keane. And he was bound to be romanticized (overrated) for pretty much the same reason (i.e. it's all too easy to portray him as someone whose standout traits just weren't likely to be appreciated enough by stereotypical English/British standards).
I've talked way too much about this before, but for me the bottom line is that Scholes is - clearly - below Keane in terms of United peak.
And that's pretty much the core of the thing - he was never the sort of player Keane was for us.
He was something else - a genius in what he did best (no question about that - as a passer of the ball he's easily right up there, and possibly genuinely underrated, even in an historical context), but he just wasn't essential in the sense that Keane was. Or even Beckham. Or Giggs. Not at the time, not as a piece in Fergie's puzzle. There was a reason why Butt (an obviously inferior player in most aspects) was preferred to him as Keano's partner at times.
The problem with discussing Scholes is that people will jump on you the moment you do anything but quote Xavi (or whatever).
None of them could perform at the top level as striker, attacking midfielder, box to box midfielder and as deep lying playmakers. They could only do 2 of the roles, yes maybe they were better deep lying playmakers than Scholes, but not much better, yet Scholes could play more roles than all of them. Which is why as a footballer in general he is as good as any of them.
This isn't true, I've seen Scholes talk about this a few times in interviews, and he had no problem playing off the left for England and he played there at times for united too.
Does it p*** you off that you were considered third-best to Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard and stuck on the left wing by Sven-Goran Eriksson?
https://www.fourfourtwo.com/feature...ngland-id-played-wing-man-united-and?page=0,1
Of course Fergie was part of it but on the pitch Scholes is the common factor, he was an essential part of what made those teams what they were.
I remember the first time I ever saw him play, at a youth team game at The Cliff against Liverpool, United's team that day demolished the Scousers, they were streets ahead of them except one player, Robbie Fowler, Scholes was the stand-out player by a country mile, he was just about the smallest player on the pitch and that team included Beckham and Giggs, I'm fairly sure that Nicky Butt played that day as well as Gary Neville
Was he the best at OT, probably not, Keane probably rates above him but Keano was a different type of player and for Scholes was best at there aren't many that are better
I think he was being polite TBH!
Genuinely don't think so. He says he never really enjoyed going away with England as it prevented him from spending time with his family. I think that was a bigger issue than his position.
IMO, he was one of our three most important players between 06/07 and 08/09. Rio was a monster in the back, Scholes was a monster in the middle, and Ronaldo was a monster in attack.
It wasn't just his passing that was great. It was his ability to always be available for a pass. Other players could take risks because they knew that if they messed up, the safe pass to Scholes was always there to bail them out, and he would safely recycle that possession, and we would be on the attack again.
No idea if he was better than Keane or not, when all is said and done. When Keane was still playing for us, I'd say that the consensus on this board was that he was the better player. But after his exit, Scholes' stock rose higher and higher. Maybe it's the way Keane left or the fact that he's a bit of a prick generally and no longer our pick, so people have soured on him.
In any case, Scholes was incredible. That's all there is to say.
It wasn't just his passing that was great. It was his ability to always be available for a pass. Other players could take risks because they knew that if they messed up, the safe pass to Scholes was always there to bail them out, and he would safely recycle that possession, and we would be on the attack again.
No idea if he was better than Keane or not, when all is said and done. When Keane was still playing for us, I'd say that the consensus on this board was that he was the better player. But after his exit, Scholes' stock rose higher and higher. Maybe it's the way Keane left or the fact that he's a bit of a prick generally and no longer our pick, so people have soured on him.
In any case, Scholes was incredible. That's all there is to say.
Or, you know… he was top quality player.
He subtly ran shit for us. Goes under the radar for some, IMO. Schmeichel said Scholes would be his choice, and mainly for consistency. He was always 8 or above, and if he misplaced a pass or had an off game it was very noticeable.
Most definitely was but I still think his position was part of it, I'm sure inside his head the little voices were saying "how can that Scouse git and Cockney muppet play in my position' - oh bollocks to it
06-08 fair enough. He didn't start many big matches in 08/09. He was probably 5th choice midfielder cause Giggs played the final when Fletch was injured. Carrick and Anderson were also starters.
I think Scholes was brilliant but I agree with people who saying he's been overrated as years go by.
Not really surprising given he was 34 in 2008, not that many players played in his kind of position at that age in the PL
I do rate him. He was on the bench in 1999 - FA Cup Semi vs biggest rivals Arsenal. He was on the bench vs Liverpool in FA Cup 4th round. He was on the bench in CL quarter final away vs Inter. He was on the bench in CL semi away vs Juve (arguably most important game of the season)
He was not a talisman. What was his biggest tournament? did he lead us far? was he our or one of our best players? did he make team of the tournament? He was just another good player who would chip in here and there. Beckham was more talismanic. ok he had an impact but it was nothing to write home about.
No he wasn't. Is was RVN and then Ronaldo from 2006 onwards was basically the best in the world so thats crazy. Scholes made one team of the year in that period and was never Man Utd player of the season once so thats blasphemy. We had Rooney who was better. Rio I would argue was more irreplaceable. In 08/09 Scholes played closer to 20 league games and we still walked the league. What season was he the best?
I agree to a point. At the same time England would try guys like Hargreaves, and Barry to play CM so surely Scholes should have turfed them out if he is that much of a talisman at that level
1) Scholes wasn't all of that at the same time. He evolved into different players as time went by. Some things he couldn't do in his youth, other things he could do better as an elder
2) He was able to do this as he has good striking technique, intelligence, and movement
3) at his peak he was not on their level in his best role as they were in theirs. Scholes was never best or top 3 (striker, b2b, dlp, amc) any stage of his career.
Who was better than him 06-08 in his CM role? There was Xavi before he became terrifying, Pirlo, Deco, Lampard, Gerrard, injured Essien, Chelsea Ballack, young Alonso, old Makelele, old Gattuso, and old Seedorf. Schweinsteiger and Iniesta were wingers at this point.
I don't think you can categorically say he wasn't in the top 3 here, it just depends on what kind of team you were building.
There has been a bunch of players in the PL and Man Utd who have been able to add to a team what Rooney and RvN did. Even at Man Utd during that time we had Tevez, Berbatov and RvP. There has been very few in the PL who could do what Scholes did. Probably just Modric for a brief spell. At Man Utd there has been no other since.
The marginal value of Scholes was higher than no other player. He made the team, the fundmental play of the team, so much better and I have never seen a similar impact at OT. The difference between Man Utd with and without Shcoles in the time period 04-10 was so big, and if you are a Man Utd-supporter and missed that I really feel for you.
England had a player who could have impacted their national team as much as Luka Modric has done for Croatia (when will they reach a final and bronze final again without him?). For that England team that would have ment playing in finals. But unlike Man Utd, England never had the coaches with competence and failed to make use of him. A bit like Mourinho at Real Madrid who did not understand the brilliance of Modric and failed to make use of him in 12/13.
Luckily, we had a coach who did rate and understand Scholes, and made him key in the most successfull era ever for our club.
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In simple terms, he was a very elegant flat-track bully
I have to hand it to you. You really do believe he wasn’t that good. But your justifications aren’t true.
He played very well for England, many times actually. Sven said in his book that Scholes was the best player he had. Sven said he would rather not have played Scholes out left but he was more capable than Lampard or Gerard and he wanted to play all three of them.
Scholes was played out of position for England. He retired at 29 and it was really at that point that he completed his transformation to a CM playmaker. That 29+ year-old version of Scholes would get into any team in the world and you certainly couldn’t just shrug and replace him with Nicky Butt.
The thing is, you don’t need to quote Xavi. There are many dozens of top players who say he is the best player they played against and, apart from Caragher, every player called up for England came back saying Scholes was the best they ever played with.
Redknapp said you could hear Scholes kicking the ball and know it was him without looking because he struck it so sweetly that it actually made a different sound. He may have been exaggerating but he said it.
The sum total of anecdotal accolades even when he was still playing is just overwhelming to the extent that it is a curious endeavour to deny his high standing or pass it off as romanticism. I don’t understand it.
What people conveniently leave out is that Scholes was quite poor for England for at least a year prior to Euro 2004 and Lampard and Gerrard were playing much better for club and country. This is the single biggest fact that all of the "Scholes was misused for England" people miss out.
I remember a few friendlies before Euro 2004, it was Gerrard and Scholes as the CMs and Lampard on the left. Lampard was good there but I believe Scholes got subbed and Lampard went to CM and was incredible and took his role from that moment onwards. There's a lot of rewriting of history but from 2004-2006 Scholes was hands down the worst of the three.
Scholes was played in CM for the overwhelming majority of his England career, he was only moved to the left after his form got worse and other player were more deserving of his CM spot. Another convenient thing people ignore was that he'd played on the left for us a few times too. Sometimes Giggs would be behind Ruud with Keane and Veron in central midfield and Scholes floating off the left. He was really good at it too. Playing on the left didn't hamper him too much as he was a LCM rather than a wide player.
This is Scholes playing off the left for England and having a very good performance against France. Its a myth he was misused for England.
Yeah it’s unfortunate for England that Scholes wasn’t there for his second peak from 2006 onwards, from 2003 to 2005 he wasn’t amazing. He also played 66 times for England, not lots but not nothing, 66 by the age of 30 as he retired.
He started in centre midfield for England in 1998 World Cup, where he played decent, Euro 2000 and they went out in the groups, he started 2002 World Cup and he had a sneaky good tournament.
That’s 3 tournaments with a starting berth for England, more chances than a lot of players get.
He was good for England but hardly a Modric or Xavi figure, when he showed some those traits later on, he’d already retired. The tournament for him to do a last stand, show everyone what he was like was Euro 2008 but England failed to qualify for that and he probably couldn’t have been coaxed back anyway.
His all-around game had came on leaps and bounds at that stage of his career. It was really unfortunate that he suffered that knee injury that ultimately brought the curtain down on his career.
He did say himself that he didn’t retire because he was played on the left (and claims he didn’t mind). But it is a fact that in his last period for England he was played out of position. Sven had his reasons (and you may agree) but Sven admitted he didn’t want to play him there and did it because it was the least bad option. And as you say he could play very well there which is obvious to say because he was an exceptional footballer.
Yes, Scholes did play CM a lot for England and for a decent period he was very good in CM but he did get moved to the left. He might have been off form before that, he admits he was below his best and says it he wasn’t enjoying it. England were 11 individuals and not a team. Both Lampard and Gerrard could play very well but the team as a whole would not really. Sven didn’t get the best out of the team or Scholes.
He was a bit misused in that sense but more to the point he was “unused”, by which I mean the travesty is that Scholes’ best years were after he retired from England and he was “hands down” the best CM of his type in that period and England wanted him back. Capello even tried to get him after he had retired from Utd and said Scholes was what was missing from the England team. Capello didn’t cover himself with glory but he knows what he’s fecking talking about.
It’s one thing to point out the odd good or bad game or a few things that happened here or there but to appreciate Scholes is more of a holistic attitude, tending towards ideological, ie the joy (or lack of it) in watching Scholes is in how you perceive the significance of what he did to influence not just how well we played but the WAY we played. The people who think Scholes is better than Gerrard and Lampard, for example, are (I think) really saying they prefer the way Scholes plays and perceive that style to be more important.
It’s been said on here that Scholes was no better an option than Nicky Butt and the argument for that is that we supposedly achieved comparable results when Butt played instead of Scholes; it amazes me that people would draw that conclusion.
Football fans come in all shapes and sizes and they all see the game in the way that suits them best. That‘s as it should be and I think it’s the nub of the debate - some people appreciate Paul Scholes and some people just don’t.
Don’t think anyone is actually saying that, just acknowledging that after they both consolidated their places in the first team squad, there were certain situations where Fergie preferred the defensive solidity of Butt (and occasionally Johnsen) to Scholes. But hardly ever if at all after 1999.
He was a very good player, but Keane was a level above IMO.
His best incarnation came later in his career when he sat deeper and picked passes without too much pressure on him, because he was actually very awkward on the ball when tasked with beating men with it. He was nowhere near Pirlo, Yaya Toure or Modric level players in that regard.
Carrick was a more important player for the club than him - he arrived in 2006 and United improved drastically in Europe as well as began to dominate domestically again. Not saying it’s exclusively down to him, but he was more of a mainstay of that period than Scholes was, and filled the Keane void - occupying space and breaking lines with passes into feet - in a very different but equally effective manner.
Even Park and Fletcher were more important players in that era - he was a good squad member but to imply he was a key element of that success is naive nostalgia.
His best incarnation came later in his career when he sat deeper and picked passes without too much pressure on him, because he was actually very awkward on the ball when tasked with beating men with it. He was nowhere near Pirlo, Yaya Toure or Modric level players in that regard.
Carrick was a more important player for the club than him - he arrived in 2006 and United improved drastically in Europe as well as began to dominate domestically again. Not saying it’s exclusively down to him, but he was more of a mainstay of that period than Scholes was, and filled the Keane void - occupying space and breaking lines with passes into feet - in a very different but equally effective manner.
Even Park and Fletcher were more important players in that era - he was a good squad member but to imply he was a key element of that success is naive nostalgia.
2 different types of player so not really a fair comparison though Keane probably gets the nod in that respect
Nah, he wasn't. Scholesy had an exceptional football brain which allowed him to both cope at the highest level and to prolong his career. He always, no matter the opponent, seemed able to find a pocket of space where he could receive the ball - facing the goal - and, from that point onward, he was that crucial half step ahead of the opponents. That all important half step that separates the good passers of the ball from the great ones. That's probably the main reason why he's rated highly by attackers/creators and managers like Pep.
But i do think he gets a tad overrated. The thing is that his passing/vision, as magnificent it was, it was the only thing he really excelled at. Despite the occasional long-range beauty, he was never a b2b midfielder. And despite his vision on the ball, he wasn't a metronome in the midfield either. He never covered lots of ground, he wasn't physical, and the defensive aspect of his game was always suspect. In the 90s, Keane was the midfielder who could do the job on both ends of the pitch, and it was his crisp short passing that did at least half the job in the midfield. In the mid 00s, it was Giggs who was often preferred by SAF, alongside Carrick, to instill control in the central areas as United were becoming a more cautious side on the ball.
Anyway, a true legend of the club who worked hard to enjoy the best career he could have. Which is the most important thing in my eyes, and the reason why he deserves to be remembered fondly. As opposed to, let's say Becks, who is remembered now only for his glorious right foot and the Beckham brand, when, in terms of talent, he was head and shoulders above everyone and everything from the class of 92.
Maybe, but it’s been argued that Scholes wasn’t even a certain starter. The times he wasn’t selected can have nothing to do with how good he was imo.
Most of that is inaccurate. All those late goals we used to score came from pressure and the last 20 minutes of games Scholes was on the ball all the time, orchestrating attacks from the area just outside the oppo’s D.
He didn’t beat players by dribbling around them but he was the most comfortable player on the ball you will ever see if you watch football until you are 100. Every manager who saw him, every player who played against him, say it was impossible to get the ball off him.
I’ve said earlier in this thread that it comes down to how you see the game. Keane was among the best players of his type in the world but different and certainly not a class above Scholes. And if you more easily see the merits of Park and Fletcher, there’s no reasoning with you. But, hey, they were both very good as well.
Pirlo knew he was slow as a snail and was smart enough not to try and beat players with the ball, also Modric does not shine at that aspect either.
Comparing Park and Fletcher with Scholes is like comparing Zara clothes with Ermenegildo Zegna.
He was unique in the sense that he had something that you just can't teach a player. He's the kind of player that you don't ever let go because there are just so few who can do what he could do, and so it's nigh on impossible to replace them.
Scholes, Modric, Pirlo, Xavi... They all just made passing football look so easy.
Scholes, Modric, Pirlo, Xavi... They all just made passing football look so easy.
Very much so.
The only thing Scholes wasn't brilliant at was of course tackling. Every thing else, he was absolutely exceptional at. But Keane was exceptional at everything.