There’s been loads of mediocre players who have had better seasons than Mane this year, but I wouldn’t say they were better players in a vacuum.
Keane joins Sky Sports
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Obviously. I'm not sure why this has gone on quite so long.
The only debatable thing about this is whether Mane's best season is better than Giggs' best season. That's a fair debate. For instance I've always said that Beckham had a three year period (99-01) that was better than Giggs ever had, but Giggs was always better in every other season of their long careers. Mane may end up doing the same. Obviously it's extremely unlikely that he'll end up being a better player than Giggs overall, but his absolute peak may end up being higher.
Salah has been rated a top 5 player in the world for the past 2 years now, finishing in the top 5 of the Ballon D’Or rankings in both 2018 and 2019.
Was Yorke ever rated anywhere near that highly?
Again, I didn’t see much of Yorke so I can’t comment on his playing style, but my general impression tells me that Salah is rated much closer to the best players in the world.
He gave you a way out for posting such a ridiculous comment . Giggs was levels above Mane.
But, apart from goals, what is he doing better than Giggs?
Mane is a striker in all aspects, this is a ridiculous conparison to make. There are few wingers even left in football these days
Clearly, all Giggs longevity has done for some people is taint how they remember him as a player overall.
If giggs had retired at 32, he would still be best winger in the history of the PL. The fact he carried on for 8 more successful years is a bonus, not what defines him.
I honestly think you need to go back and watch Giggs as the force of nature he was in his twenties. I can only believe that you haven’t done that in a while, and that’s why you have this take. He was absolutely world class and had been for almost a decade at Mane’s age.
Mane is a fantastic player, but he would need another 3-4 years at this level to even be in the same conversation.
At the moment, he is the Kevin Philips to Gigg’s Aguero, and I think that is a much fairer example than the Crouch/Van Basten one, which does Giggs a massive disservice, even as just an illustration.
Really can’t disagree with this. Hate to say it but that team 99 still had the best season too. A treble is a treble.
Ryan Giggs has 13 fecking premier league titles to his name. Sadio Mane is great n all but Giggs is a legend of the game. Mane can wait before he gets into this combined XIs ffs.
I don't know why this is even up for debate???
Are some people drunk or on drugs or something?
I didn’t think there was much wrong with the team Carragher picked, I agree with Keane though that Giggs should be in the team, at least on the basis of scoring that goal in the FA Cup semi final.
Looks like a kid whose been told that Christmas has been cancelled
The debate is because it’s based off one year, a year which Giggs missed some games due to injury and was like Uniteds 5th best player overall.
This!
Liverpool have won 1 CL and 1 League so far - If they win a treble and three titles in a row then we can have that conversation. Until then, sorry.
Why the feck has this become giggsy Vs mane? Take that shit elsewhere. I'd rather read about the Scouse smashing, Vieira slapping Roy Keane
It's a difficult debate, at their absolute best you would be happy with either, but they are/were used so differently that I'm not sure they can be compared like for like.
Mane is a forward with more limited defensive responsibilities, Giggs had to track the line and spend more time in defensive positions. In these debates you have to choose a system as a manager and pick the players that fit that system best and do the job required from them. The question really is are you playing a 433 or 442.
Defence for me is the same either way:
Keeper - Either
Stam, VVD, Irwin, TAA
In a 433 I go for:
Scholes, Beckham, Keane
Mane, Yorke, Salah
In a 442 I go for:
Giggs, Keane, Scholes, Beckham
Salah Yorke
I do think peak Giggs frightened defenders more than Mane, not too much different to watching C Ronaldo running at people and them backing up continuously.
Mane is a forward with more limited defensive responsibilities, Giggs had to track the line and spend more time in defensive positions. In these debates you have to choose a system as a manager and pick the players that fit that system best and do the job required from them. The question really is are you playing a 433 or 442.
Defence for me is the same either way:
Keeper - Either
Stam, VVD, Irwin, TAA
In a 433 I go for:
Scholes, Beckham, Keane
Mane, Yorke, Salah
In a 442 I go for:
Giggs, Keane, Scholes, Beckham
Salah Yorke
I do think peak Giggs frightened defenders more than Mane, not too much different to watching C Ronaldo running at people and them backing up continuously.
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In todays football, I'd have Giggs playing on the right and my front three would be
Giggs - Firminho - Mane
Giggs - Firminho - Mane
Hehe. ‘Mané needs at least another 3 or 4 seasons like this to even be in the conversation’. What nonsense. If Mané played 3 or 4 more seasons at the level Mané is at now it would not be a conversation at all. When did Giggs ever play 6 seasons in a row at the level Mané is performing at now? List them.
Giggs is never there best winger in the history of the PL’. He’s not even the best fecking Welsh winger in terms of his top level, as Gary Bale is just one of a number of other wingers to have been the best player in the league, something Giggs has never been. A number of wingers have won PL player of the year, one did it while he was on the opposite wing to Giggs at United. Giggs never did.
Take Giggs at his ‘peak’. When was that? Pick an age. 24, 25, 28, 31. Wherever you want to draw that line, then ask yourself how good was THAT player? The best in the world? One of the best in the world? The best in the PL? He was an inconsistent player capable of brilliance. You can’t add all the times he produced that brilliance over 20 years and say ‘that’s his level’. Gary Bale was producing it weekly. He’s an overrated player, and reading this thread makes it clear just how overrated he was to me. He’s the sort of player that if foreign would attract the ‘you can be as naturally gifted as you want to be, but you need to see it every week’. Look at the shit Martial gets here in the UK. Every ‘expert’ caveats how ‘gifted’ he is with his inconsistency. He’s not the player he COULD be, one that destroys teams weekly. Neither was Giggs. As a young player, he looked like he could go on to become one of the best players in the world at his peak. Did he ever become that player in your opinion? And if so, tell me when? At what stage was he the player Mané is today, Bale was in 2012, Sterling has been for 2 years, Hazard has been etc. I don’t need a collage of ‘what he was capable of’. I know. I was there.
Keene’s ripened beautifully in his middle age. He’s no longer at war with the world and is able to take a step back and look his himself honestly and with a bit of humour and it’s made him fantastic value as a pundit. He used to be a hard watch, anxiety inducing at times but mellow Keane is a pleasure to listen to. You can understand why Fergie trusted him as his captain, he’s clearly very bright.
in the Keane/Viera documentary Roy wouldnt even have Giggs in the United - Arsenal 11 
. sums him up
. sums him upYeah, but he was choosing between Giggs and Ronaldo there.in the Keane/Viera documentary Roy wouldnt even have Giggs in the United - Arsenal 11
It is very difficult to pick a best 11 from just United players, let alone adding Arsenal players from 98 to 02/03. Just because he omits someone is really neither here or there?in the Keane/Viera documentary Roy wouldnt even have Giggs in the United - Arsenal 11
Disappointed that no one has argued Henderson-Wijnaldum > Scholes-Keane yet.
When you're picking your team it's not the only thing. The two don't play the same role. One is a left sided forward in a 4-3-3 with high pressing. Other is a left sided winger in a 4-4-2 who's focused more on assists than goalscoring. If you play with a winger you pick Giggs and if you're playing with 3 forwards you pick Mané because their roles simply don't overlap.
Agree with what?
The discussion was about one season isolated. Not the entire career of the the two...
Mane win this purely because the discussion is about Giggs in 99'. He played "only" 1.722min that season compared to his usual 2200-2500min.
He wasnt that great and was often benched for Blomqvist. He scored 3goals in the prem.
Mane clearly wins, but this a stupid discussion.
Overall its a different case
I just don’t agree at all mate. Consistency and doing it across seasons, in multiple big games means far more than having a couple of intense peak seasons.
A 20 year career playing at Giggs level trumps the 2-3 year spell of Mane. Giggs was winning leagues as a world class footballer while Mane was being average for Southampton.
Players like Aguero have not won player of the year either, but he has had a better career and has been a better player than so many that have come and gone. I would rate him above Mane too.
Mane needs to do it for longer, it’s that simple. Giggs has 20 years that match up or beat ANY of Mane’s years bar 2019 and 2020. There is no point using a peak season as a barometer. He was a better all-round footballer and was more technically gifted than Mane. That was proven by winning trophies as a midfielder after his pace was gone.
But I just wanted to explain myself without derailing the thread more!
But I fully understand why Keane was so eager to have him in. He knows how good he was. It was nice to see Keane sticking up for his players and talking about how much he loved playing with them. The sly smiles are great fun to watch.
Giggs overrated, I've read it all.
Anyone know why this @Rozay geezer keeps claiming Giggs didn’t win player of the year?
I guess as part of his agenda he’s going to pretend the 2009 award was erased from history.
I guess as part of his agenda he’s going to pretend the 2009 award was erased from history.
Mane wouldnt get in either side.in the Keane/Viera documentary Roy wouldnt even have Giggs in the United - Arsenal 11
It really feels like you've only been watching football a few years.
Pretty sure hes the poster who thinks Pogba is better than Scholes as well while calling him overrated.
Nobody hates United legends more than United fans trying to be clever.
All depends on the system if it’s Man Utd 4-4-2 then it’s only going to be VVD over Johnsen, as the fullbacks job were to support the wingers rather than being overlapping fullbacks that is why I would have Neville over TAA.
If it is Liverpool’s 4-3-3 then TAA, Robertson, Mane and Salah come in for Neville, Irwin, Giggs and Cole
If it is Liverpool’s 4-3-3 then TAA, Robertson, Mane and Salah come in for Neville, Irwin, Giggs and Cole
Ah so he’s consistent with his bullshit, guess that’s fair.
Surely a Mane v Giggs thread would be appropriate now as this one isn’t really about Roy Keane anymore.
Cant be that consistent if this argument somehow has Mane ahead of Giggs and Pogba ahead of Scholes. Unless we are pretending Scholes getting his side to 4 CL finals doesnt match Pogbas best... Summer i guess?
Makes it up as he goes along that boy.
Edit feck me Mane is soon to be 28. Its not even a youngster here, at that age you can absolutely compare careers.
The 20 year thing is a skewed metric, because one player is like 50 and one is 26. You are again air-brushing by implying Giggs maintained a consistent level for 20 seasons. He didn’t. Mané’s level are Southampton; that had United and Liverpool after him, was not worse than Giggs has ever played either. You say ‘2 or 3 peak seasons’ as if what has happened is that he then became rubbish and signed for AZ Alkmaar. This is where we are now. No player has to be great for 20 seasons to be considered as good/better than Giggs. That isn’t the metric, it’s a silly goalpost, a player doesn’t have to play for 20 seasons to be judged.
I agree that Giggs was more naturally talented than Mané. I don’t agree that he used that natural talent to become a better player. And if so, I again ask ‘when’? And if the answer is ‘when he retired after being a footballer for 23 years’, it again highlights it as a stupid metric. Mané may not have played for 20 years, but what he has done, at least since he came to England, is been a top player for the vast majority of his career here.
It’s similar to the Gary Neville argument. Where everyone consistently says he basically wasn’t that good, but he gets plaudits for being good but not that god for a long time. Giggs played for the best team in England for 20 years and never had to move etc. I can’t recall many seasons where I can say he drove us to the title. He flitted in and out as he felt in terms of brilliance and rubbishness, but picked up titles all the way because he was in the best team. When he was 26, and had not played for 23 years and therefore wasn’t judged from that perspective, he was not considered by anyone as the best player in the team or league. I can say the same for 27, 28, 29 right up to 40. Then boom, he retires and is the best winger ever. For being old. He was a flawed genius. Ronaldo game along and in a few years showed what he COULD have been. Hazard came along later and showed it again. Giggs is a PL great. Every United regular from that era is. Because they won lots of trophies.
And it’s not about Giggs not being the best player in the league. I didn’t mention strikers, I’m solely tal of wingers. In his 23 year spell in the PL for the team that won it most years, he made the team of the season 6 times. He never won the award of best player, but the other winger did a number of times - Ginola, Ronaldo, Pires. These players were all in the team of the season between 3 and 4 times I think, and spent far fewer years of their careers in the PL. Bale made it twice, and he’s been in Spain most of his career. And was voted the best player. As a winger.
You’re overrating the player he was, and perhaps confusing it or creating a cocktail where natural talent, longevity, trophies are all mixed together to create an outcome, but the reality is he may have been one of the most gifted PL players ever, but he wasn’t one of the best. And he should have been.
Oh feck off. This whole conversation began because two ex-footballers could not come to the same Redcafe consensus that Giggs was better than Mané, it’s not pie in the sky. One of the ex-footballers in question also put forward ‘loyalty to my teammates’ as his argument as to why Giggs was better.
And nobody decides a person ‘hates’ a player more often than a child on Redcafe who cannot get someone else to agree with him.
Ouch.