Feels like we should have a parallel conversation for the overlooked!
I’ll start with a few:
Alvaro Recoba. Special left foot, pretty much erased from footy history.
Ivan Cordoba. Quite short, but a top class centre half in his time. Also rarely discussed.
Eidur Gudjohnson. Just pure class with everything he did.
Paul Pogba. Think people are often so consumed with what they think he could or should be doing that they are not paying enough attention to what he is doing. A few United league titles would have transformed the entire perception of his spell here.
Marcio Amoroso. Was a world class striker for a while, had everything, and also pretty much deleted from football history.
Harry Kewell. I thought that he was, at Leeds, the best forward player in the league, and better than Ryan Giggs in that particular period. Devastating player, rapid, strong, skilful and a goalscorer.
Fred. He’s had a poor spell this season, admittedly. Ultimately though, I think he was a relative unknown when he came to England, and he and United had a poor season in his first. From then, it became a constant case of ‘he’s actually had a good game’, but I feel that if you find yourself saying that every week, maybe he’s just a really good player.
Chris Smalling. Think he was a brilliant defender for us. I remember his first season, him forcing his way into our first XI that had both Rio and Vidic. Put in a brilliant performance away at Marseille, and started getting picked in a few games ahead of either Rio and Vidic - meaningful games too. He was consistently good for a few years, amazing in the Allianz when Evra scored that stunner and pocketed many top strikers. I always felt that his performance thread was a constant loop of ‘played well, but can’t help feeling he has a mistake in him’. And that would be repeated every week for months, until he did make a mistake, then everyone would say ‘there, see!’.
Robert Pires - aside from Ronaldo, put up probably the best season I’ve seen from wide in the PL, at least before the 433 era, and had a spell of about two years where he reached an incredible level.
I’ll start with a few:
Alvaro Recoba. Special left foot, pretty much erased from footy history.
Ivan Cordoba. Quite short, but a top class centre half in his time. Also rarely discussed.
Eidur Gudjohnson. Just pure class with everything he did.
Paul Pogba. Think people are often so consumed with what they think he could or should be doing that they are not paying enough attention to what he is doing. A few United league titles would have transformed the entire perception of his spell here.
Marcio Amoroso. Was a world class striker for a while, had everything, and also pretty much deleted from football history.
Harry Kewell. I thought that he was, at Leeds, the best forward player in the league, and better than Ryan Giggs in that particular period. Devastating player, rapid, strong, skilful and a goalscorer.
Fred. He’s had a poor spell this season, admittedly. Ultimately though, I think he was a relative unknown when he came to England, and he and United had a poor season in his first. From then, it became a constant case of ‘he’s actually had a good game’, but I feel that if you find yourself saying that every week, maybe he’s just a really good player.
Chris Smalling. Think he was a brilliant defender for us. I remember his first season, him forcing his way into our first XI that had both Rio and Vidic. Put in a brilliant performance away at Marseille, and started getting picked in a few games ahead of either Rio and Vidic - meaningful games too. He was consistently good for a few years, amazing in the Allianz when Evra scored that stunner and pocketed many top strikers. I always felt that his performance thread was a constant loop of ‘played well, but can’t help feeling he has a mistake in him’. And that would be repeated every week for months, until he did make a mistake, then everyone would say ‘there, see!’.
Robert Pires - aside from Ronaldo, put up probably the best season I’ve seen from wide in the PL, at least before the 433 era, and had a spell of about two years where he reached an incredible level.