Johnny Giles greatest United XI.

The Brown Bull

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I heard Johnny Giles on Newstalk the other night picking his greatest United XI and thought it deserved a thread.Giles was a great player, in my opinion 2nd only to Roy Keane as the best Irish (Republic) player ever.I have often listened to him talk about football down the years and he knows his stuff.Matt Busby often said his biggest mistake was letting Giles go to Leeds.Anyway heres the team. 4 - 3 - 3.

Schmeichel

Irwin Stam Vidic Tony Dunne.

Keane Charlton Scholes

Ronaldo Law Best.

Not too shabby.
 

The Brown Bull

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Not sure about knowing his stuff, he always comes across bitter that he never got more of a chance at United.
I must say I never found him to be bitter. Strange thing is that Liverpool fans regularly accuse him of being pro United and unfair on them!
You can't win.
 

Champagne Football

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Probably a tiny bit of Irish bias in that team. I think Evra would get the nod over Dunne.

Then no complaints about Best in the team, but it's a very close call up against Giggs.
 

Andersonson

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Great team. Cant understand that Rio is left out and Vidic is there. And you could argue Evra. Otherwise a great team
 

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Probably a tiny bit of Irish bias in that team. I think Evra would get the nod over Dunne.

Then no complaints about Best in the team, but it's a very close call up against Giggs.
Having seen them both, it's not close IMO - Giggs was one of the players of his generation, Best was a GOAT.

Then again, it's notoriously difficult, sometimes meaningless to compare players outside their generation.
 

Champagne Football

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Having seen them both, it's not close IMO - Giggs was one of the players of his generation, Best was a GOAT.

Then again, it's notoriously difficult, sometimes meaningless to compare players outside their generation.
Fair enough. I've just seen video footage of Best and he was obviously sensational. My old man had pints with him a few times.
Prime Giggs was a pretty scary bloke to play against though. There was a 2 or 3 year period where he was unstoppable.
 

POF

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I heard Johnny Giles on Newstalk the other night picking his greatest United XI and thought it deserved a thread.Giles was a great player, in my opinion 2nd only to Roy Keane as the best Irish (Republic) player ever.I have often listened to him talk about football down the years and he knows his stuff.Matt Busby often said his biggest mistake was letting Giles go to Leeds.Anyway heres the team. 4 - 3 - 3.

Schmeichel

Irwin Stam Vidic Tony Dunne.

Keane Charlton Scholes

Ronaldo Law Best.

Not too shabby.
I really like Giles as a pundit. No nonsense, super honest and doesn't get taken in by media hysteria.

Focuses on a player's quality rather than hype and has his own strong opinions on how football should be played.

Very good team. It's hard to argue with a single player. He would have loved Scholes as a player as he had a similar style to Giles himself, although not as dirty.
 

lysglimt

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As much as I like Keane and Scholes, imo Robson was a better footballer than both. Robsons only problem was that his teammates were nowhere near his class. You could argue that the WBA-team Robson played for in the late 70s was better than any United-team he played for in the 80s
 

Falcow

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Duncan Edwards walks into that team - ask Sir Bobby
Yes no question. I haven't listened to his selection yet but will do, I suspect however he picked his team partly based on how long the players spent playing. Giles has said that he has no doubt that Billy Whelan would have gone on to become Ireland's greatest ever footballer had it not been for Munich so he probably hasn't put him in there for same reason as Edward's.

Slight irish bias alright and I would have Robson in there ahead of Scholes. While there is an irish bias is there an argument that McGrath should be in the team? I would probably have him in there instead of Vidic. Strong case for Rio also.

Dont know much about Tony Dunne but left back is probably our weakest position overall.

Any argument for Rooney over Law? Controversial for sure but try to remember peak Rooney, hes also our top scorer.
 

Falcow

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I think Giles deserves credit also for only picking 4 players from his own area and only one of those is a controversial pick.
 

Gio

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Great team. Cant understand that Rio is left out and Vidic is there. And you could argue Evra. Otherwise a great team
Rio is the obvious miss, but to be fair to Giles he makes a solid case for Vidic and Stam on the show.
 

montpelier

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At peak performance Paul McGrath gets in ahead of Rio and Vidic for me.
 

montpelier

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And Robson was better than Keane. Better on the ball and more goals.
 

Saddy

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At peak performance Paul McGrath gets in ahead of Rio and Vidic for me.
Just beaten me to this one absolutely class defender and nobody beat him in a race but unfortunately alcohol/injury ruined him.

For us 70/80s supporters a shout out to Martin Buchan but there would be no dropping "captain marvel" Bryan Robson - Keane, Scholes but there's "only one Bryan Robson!"
 

Falcow

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What he said about Best...

"Best was the most gifted player I have ever seen, including Lionel Messi in that"

High praise indeed.
 

The holy trinity 68

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I have never seen Dunne play so I can’t comment, but Rio was far superior to Vidic imo and can’t understand why so many people think Vidic was better. Rio was the clubs best defender for 10 years.

Robson over Scholes as well, but I can see why people would prefer Scholesy.
 

Jeppers7

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It’s a great team to be fair...can always argue for four/five others....but that’s a team to be proud of.
 

Maticmaker

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a shout out to Martin Buchan
Definitely agree, Martin Buchan top player and captain. However his best performance IMO was actually for Scotland against Germany when he had the legendary Gert Muller in his pocket for 90 mins.
 

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Great team. Cant understand that Rio is left out and Vidic is there. And you could argue Evra. Otherwise a great team
The RTE lads never liked Rio, they always considered him a flash cockney with concentration issues. I always remember after our defensive masterclass at the Nou Camp in 2008, where Vidic was out injured, Giles went out of his way to praise Wes Brown who had moved into the centre alongside Rio, as if Brown was the lynchpin of the defence.
 

sullydnl

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Great team. Cant understand that Rio is left out and Vidic is there. And you could argue Evra. Otherwise a great team
He likes a certain type of defence-first CB, I think. A mold which Vidic fits more than Rio.

Duncan Edwards walks into that team - ask Sir Bobby
He said he was picking players from about 1960-65 on, so Edwards was outside the range.
 

harms

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There's always going to be a dilemma:
1. You have to choose two from Keane, Robson and Scholes (although the more I watch of him, the more I'm thinking that Robson should be the first name on the list)
2. You have to choose two from Rio, Vidić, Stam & McGrath (maybe the latter wouldn't be a popular choice, but individually he was probably just as good as the rest — but, like with Robson, the team he was playing in didn't really match his abilities)

It's the "downside" of having a team that's been so incredibly successful over the years.

Regarding Edwards — aside from the ones who saw him live, I don't really like when people put him in. There's only one full game with him available (while you can get a very complete picture of the likes of Charlton, Best, Law etc.), and while it's pretty clear that he was already performing at the level of peak Roy Keane or Bryan Robson (probably closer to the latter in terms of his skillset), it's still more of a "what if" story. Although he was named 3rd best player in Europe (behind Alfredo Di Stefano and Billy Wright) at the mere age of 21... no doubt that he would've been a shoo-in in United's All-Time XI, and a very likely candidate for our best ever player.

As an outside thought, when you look at the 1957 Ballon d'Or list, it makes you wonder, how that 1958 World Cup could've gone. For those who don't remember, it was the breakthrough moment for a certain Pelé.

3. Duncan Edwards. 21 years old, died in Munich
7. Eduard Streltsov. 20 years old, imprisoned.
8. Tommy Taylor. 25 years old, died in Munich.

And all of them were in the same group as Brazil!
 

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I must say I never found him to be bitter. Strange thing is that Liverpool fans regularly accuse him of being pro United and unfair on them!
You can't win.
He may well have mellowed over the years but I was basing my opinion of him and his eagerness to have a pop at Manchester United from written articles towards the end of his playing career and when he first moved into Management, and not his time with RTÉ Sport.

Maybe he was just the Gary Neville of his time!

Great player though, him and Billy Bremner shouldn't really have worked together, too similar, but as a pair they were as important as anybody to Leeds United's domination at the time.
 

El Jefe

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I have never seen Dunne play so I can’t comment, but Rio was far superior to Vidic imo and can’t understand why so many people think Vidic was better. Rio was the clubs best defender for 10 years.

Robson over Scholes as well, but I can see why people would prefer Scholesy.
The reason why so many think that is because its was very much debatable. Two things which can't be denied is 1) Rio only took his game to the next level when Vidic arrived and 2) Vidic was just as good with or without Rio.

In our record breaking clean sheet run in 08/09, Vidic was the only one in the back four who played all 13 games. He played alongside a rookie Evans 6 times and with Rio 7 times.

Vidic had two PFA POTY worthy seasons. Was robbed by Giggs in 08/09 and Bale in 10/11. I prefer Rio but think Vidic edges it tbh.
 

Raoul

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Hard to believe Stam is there given he only had 79 appearances in 3 years, whereas Rio has a much bigger body of work at club.

PS. I was a massive Stam fan and was pissed Fergie sold him at the time.
 

Buster15

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I had the great pleasure of watching Giles play because a good friend was a big Leeds United fan.

He was a class above some brilliant players in that Leeds team. Fantastic touch and balance.

As mentioned by others, it is very much down to personal opinion. But he has certainly picked a brilliant team there.
 

Irwin99

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And Robson was better than Keane. Better on the ball and more goals.
I never saw Robson sadly and I know his goals and assists dwarf Keane's but I have heard some say that Keane could dictate from deep a little better, no idea if that's true though. I've seen compilations of his goals and assists but if his first touch and passing were better than Keane's then feck, he must have been godlike.

On another note I hate picking between Rio, Stam and Vidic. There are too many valid arguments for each.
 

11101

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Pretty hard to argue with that.

I dont know enough about Tony Dunne to comment on him, and I would just about swap Vidic for Rio, but no surprise a 70s footballer prefers the tougher tackler.
 

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I never saw Robson sadly and I know his goals and assists dwarf Keane's but I have heard some say that Keane could dictate from deep a little better, no idea if that's true though. I've seen compilations of his goals and assists but if his first touch and passing were better than Keane's then feck, he must have been godlike.

On another note I hate picking between Rio, Stam and Vidic. There are too many valid arguments for each.
Don't then, play safe and pick Chris Baresi Maldini Smalling instead.
 

11101

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And Robson was better than Keane. Better on the ball and more goals.
I disagree. Robson was a brilliant player and he took us back to the top, but Keane made us untouchable. He had a wider variety to his game and was a better leader.

Plus there is clearly balance in that team. Robson would be replacing Charlton, and that's never happening.
 

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I listened to that interview on Newstalk the other night, it was great to hear the legendary Giles pick his all-time best United team from the 60's to present. He was very honest in his assertions and made apologies for the legends he had to leave out. He even backtracked on Ronaldo whom he admitted he was over critical of when he played for us. He also said it was very difficult to leave Robbo out of his team but that he thought Keane was the best midfielder he ever saw at linking defence to attack. He also said that Scholes was THE most gifted midfielder of his generation, better than Gerrard/Lampard and that he was never played in his natural position for England. Anyway, the link is in this thread, give it a listen its quality.