It may be blasphemy on this site, but I think Scholes is grossly overrated, especially since retirement. His reputation has blown completely out of control since he stopped playing.
Scholes, Gerrard, Lampard debate.
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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.
I think he was underrated for a very long period of time which lead to a lot of people then over-selling him to compensate. I think the reality is in the middle. He was never the best player in the world but he was definitely just under that Xavi/Iniesta bracket for a period of his career.
I don't get how that makes him overrated; doesn't that just mean he was world class at what he did? Yes, he was essentially an attacking midfielder, but why would you play an world-class attacking midfielder in central midfield? That is just stupid, which is why England did exactly that. That would be the same as Belgium playing De Bruyne in place of Witsel, or whatever CM they play nowadays.
Chelsea setting up to make the most chances for their best goal scorer is not really a discredit. Every team sets up to make the most of their best attackers.
Even Ferguson said he wished he signed Lampard.
Gerrard and Lampard are much similar to each other than they were to Scholes (his early days notwithstanding) so it probably was never a fair comparison to begin with.
Each would fit a a diffrent team a diffrent formation etc etc.
Gerard is the weirdest of the bunch, he never played in a truly great team so and due to away being head and shoulders above everyone else was given the permission to basics do anything he ever wanted so it's really difficult to see how he fits in a team where the playing fields is more level and he should play a more discipline role why we have exact blueprints of how the other 2 would play in such teams.
Each would fit a a diffrent team a diffrent formation etc etc.
Gerard is the weirdest of the bunch, he never played in a truly great team so and due to away being head and shoulders above everyone else was given the permission to basics do anything he ever wanted so it's really difficult to see how he fits in a team where the playing fields is more level and he should play a more discipline role why we have exact blueprints of how the other 2 would play in such teams.
Maybe not overrated, but he's not underrated. Maybe fairly rated as in a lot of people here have him third of the three players. Lampard was a fine player, of course, but I felt the other two had more about them.
Yes, Scholes is overrated as well by some people. I think it showed how much his reputation inflated and also how little Piers Morgan knows about football that he put Scholes as the only central midfielder in his "Greatest XI of all-time" on Twitter. Scholes was great but not at the level of someone like Xavi, never mind various other midfield greats of all-time.
There has also been a lot of attaching his late career bloom as a deep-lying playmaker to his whole career, when it was Roy Keane that actually who dictated the play with his passing for United in the 1990s/early 2000s. Scholes was very effective in other ways, and always had great technique and passing, but he was more box to box/attacking midfielder before Keane retired.
I don't need discuss with the notion that Scholes is over rated but xavi genuinely be rated as the best ever in his position and I don't think that's controversial so not a knock on Scholes being rated below him.
Yes this is a problem when discussing Scholes as a player and comparing him with these others, along with the romanticization of his final years.
No, Scholes is one of my favourite ever players, but just sometimes people get carried away and put him in all-time XIs and put him alongside company he was never really with when he was actually playing. There are some people in threads here who will argue him above Xavi, Modric, Pirlo etc.
Fair enough that's quite understandable.
Lampard surely the player with the most goals deflected in history, felt like it was weekly his long rangers would be iflying off someone and going in
The most unlikeable of the three was the best of the three
Didn’t Scholes only start playing in midfield in the late 90s?
He started as a striker
Scholes was easily on par with Modric and Pirlo.
You’re underrating him to say otherwise tbh
Something that I always find a bit overplayed is the idea that Gerrard constantly played with mediocre players. There are times when this was true but the club finished 2nd place three times in his career at Liverpool, he went to two champions league finals and won a fair few cups including a mickey mouse treble. He played with players like Owen, Suarez, Mascherano, Alonso, Hypia, Hamann (who was not an elite player but a very very good one) Torres, Reina, etc. While it's true that United and Chelsea had better teams these aren't exactly poundland players Gerrard played with.
Also a weird thing that's never acknowledged with Scholes is that you were never shocked to see him benched or rested for certain games, either in his earlier days or the later ones. Butt was often preferred to partner Keane against tough midfields in the early days, and then there were times when the likes of Hargreaves, Anderson, Fletcher were preferred for certain games in the later days. He was a world class player but I always felt Sir Alex used him carefully.
Also a weird thing that's never acknowledged with Scholes is that you were never shocked to see him benched or rested for certain games, either in his earlier days or the later ones. Butt was often preferred to partner Keane against tough midfields in the early days, and then there were times when the likes of Hargreaves, Anderson, Fletcher were preferred for certain games in the later days. He was a world class player but I always felt Sir Alex used him carefully.
While this is true it was only really the case from when he first broke into the first team up until around the 99/00 season, and then again towards the end of his career after 2007. From 1999/00 to 2006/07 I don’t really remember it happening, he wasfirmly first choice in those years when fit.
I think 1999 to around 2004 were Scholes best years, then his re-birth in a deeper role in 2006 was great but he was much less important to the team after 2007.
(edit): sorry, I just re-read your post and saw you acknowledge it was in his early and later years, so never mind
England too played better with Scholes. You look at 98-04 they really went toe-to-toe with the best teams, wheras after him they stunk up the place in 2006 and 2010, and didn't qualify for Euro 2008. I think when Lampard and Gerrard played together in a central two for England, you really saw how they were exposed when not being in a midfield three like at club level. With Alonso and Mascherano for support, or Essien Makelele or Ballack, of course those two looked world class. Hargreaves - Scholes would have been a better partnership for England, but what they all needed was probably a three man midfield. I don't think Lampard or Gerrad ever put in a big World Cup performance likes Scholes v Argentina in 2002.
I would have Gerrard second, but there seems to be a belief that he won the 2005 CL final on his own. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't he a headless chicken in the first half till Hamann came on in the second half to shore up the midfield? And Smicer and Alonso scored, plus Dudek made a ridiculous save from Shevchenko then won them the shootout.
I would have Gerrard second, but there seems to be a belief that he won the 2005 CL final on his own. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't he a headless chicken in the first half till Hamann came on in the second half to shore up the midfield? And Smicer and Alonso scored, plus Dudek made a ridiculous save from Shevchenko then won them the shootout.
Modric has 5 CLs, won Golden Ball at the World Cup, won the Ballon d’Or and is going into the World Cup in his late 30s as one of the best midfielders in the world. Modric has long surpassed him. Pirlo there is more of an argument but again he’s had quite the career in deciding games of the highest level, probably beyond Scholes.
Scholes was definitely a better CM than both and better than Lampard overall.
He wasn't a better player than Gerrard in my opinion but the myth of Scholes has grown so much since his retirement that its an opinion that would get ridiculed now even though it was quite common in their playing days.
He wasn't a better player than Gerrard in my opinion but the myth of Scholes has grown so much since his retirement that its an opinion that would get ridiculed now even though it was quite common in their playing days.
That's probably the worst revisionism yet.
Scholes was known as the invisible man for England in those years (before he got farmed out to the left). He was being carried by Gerrard under Sven.
End of the day they were close and it comes down to tactics and personnel. Like for this World Cup, England would take Scholes because they have nobody to control a game and Bellingham can do some of the stuff Lampard/Gerrard did well. The Dutch under Van Gaal I think would take Scholes to play as a 10 in their type of football too, though under Marwijk with Sneijder as a 10 and a more workmanlike team and it might be Gerrard next to either De Jong or Van Bommel to give them some legs. Then I look at the Brazil squad and think Gerrard would have been the guy you'd take in the role Fred plays now as they ask their CMs to cover far more territory defensively and could use some power in the midfield. And if you're say Senegal and Mane is out and you have good DMs but not enough goals in the squad, you pick Lampard to play as a #10 or Gerrard to try to do the Roy of the Rovers thing.
I do think Lampard probably had the best career though as he hit his 99% outcome whereas Scholes probably hit like his 80% and Gerrard maybe even lower. If he'd gotten the right manager and Liverpool had been better during the Houllier years or bought better out wide in general (a star instead of just one of the Berger/Smicer/Kewell/Riera/Benayoun/Garcia/Kuyt carousel even if the latter 3 would have been fine as the 2nd and 3rd wingers). He might have won a league if they'd just bought someone like Malouda on the wing and a good fullback where they were always poor apart from Riise and Finnan's best years.
I do think Lampard probably had the best career though as he hit his 99% outcome whereas Scholes probably hit like his 80% and Gerrard maybe even lower. If he'd gotten the right manager and Liverpool had been better during the Houllier years or bought better out wide in general (a star instead of just one of the Berger/Smicer/Kewell/Riera/Benayoun/Garcia/Kuyt carousel even if the latter 3 would have been fine as the 2nd and 3rd wingers). He might have won a league if they'd just bought someone like Malouda on the wing and a good fullback where they were always poor apart from Riise and Finnan's best years.
Nah he means under Hoddle and I’d agree.
Scholes was moved because he was the only one technically gifted enough to do it.
Gerrard played almost double the amount of games for England that Scholes and just has few goals more
Not only was Scholes the most technically able to transition and adapt his game as he got older, he was also the only one of the three who HAD to do that constantly throughout his career because of his physical limitations. He didn't have Lampard's engine or Gerrard's power, he was a short dumpy fella with asthma. So from his earliest days he had to be sharper and cleverer to overcome those shortcomings.
Yet without Gerrard they did well in 2002, only beaten by that Ronaldinho cross shot in the searing afternoon heat of that QF. They were arguably the second best team that year, unfortunate to draw the winners in the QF (having famously dispatched eventual runners-up Germany 5-1 away in the qualifiers).
And maybe you're right to an extent, after all none of them exactly excelled for England, but wasn't he more the invisible man to the press towards the end when he wasn't scoring? The same press that famously mocked Xavi, and voted Scott Parker football writer's player of the year. Sven said he was his England's best player, and Hoddle the best player he ever coached. If he could have ran around chasing players, looking knackered, I think the press might've rated him more.
Strange too that Lampard only ever scored in one tournament of the four he played, Euro 2004, whereas Scholes scored in three of his four tounaments, yet Scholes was the invisible one.
He was decent under hoddle. He was moved because he was very dispendible in midfield under Sven and had been so for years by the time Lampard took his place.
Gerrard had way more positional versatility than the other two and would have been the obvious choice to try on the left it were versatility it came down to.
Gerrard was a better the best player of the 3. Scholes was the best midfielder of he 3.
You into the feet stuff huh
England should have dropped one of Lampard or Gerrard for me.
Midfield would have been more balanced with Carrick/Hargreaves sat in with Scholes.
He's not, he's definitely below their levels. How far below is debatable though.
How so? Why is he?
Mainly because they dictated play a lot more and better than he did.
Says? What I’m getting at is you’re just being subjective.
By its nature everything said here is subjective.
Not really true. You can use statistics.
The caveat is in your opinion you don’t rate him as high.
Out of the three, only scholes would get into guardiola's barcelona side and suit the way they play. Gerrard was an incredible driving force in midfield but not suited to barcelona. Lampard i would say is the weakest of the three technically. Not sure how he would have suited spainish tiki taka under guardiola.
Using statistics to show any sort of accuracy takes a huge amount of statistics and a lot of processing.
Anything less only gives very basic answers like "who scored more goals", it doesn't answer questions like "who was the better goal scorer".
I think that was because of the way football shifted and the perception of central midfielders. After Xavi's dominance, the way central midfielders became viewed changed. Before, it was strong physical midfielders that were rated all around Europe and you could see that with the players the big teams fielded. So in retrospect, what Scholes did has become more elevated. It's all about perception.
He had to readjust late in his career to stay at the top level. I think the issue here is that a lot of people superimpose the controller he became very late in his career from like 2006 till his retirement to the earlier parts of his career. He played very different roles at very different times.
Ultimately, he was a great player whose skill set would be perfect for the way the game is played today. Had he played today, his standing in the game would be much higher.
Gerrard
Scholes
Lampard
Scholes
Lampard
I don't agree with that assessment.
Modric is not a controller. Pirlo, yes. Kroos acted more like the controller in real Madrid. Paul Scholes has played as a second striker, a regular central midfielder and a controller.
What version of Paul Scholes are you comparing to Modric?
In terms of controlling games and passing, Scholes is superior to Modric. In terms of defending (especially in a low block) and press resistance, Modric is superior. Goal scoring, we saw that Scholes could play as a second striker and scored a lot more goals than Modric ever did or could.
Modric is more of an all round midfielder that was competent in a lot of areas, but his main asset is his extreme press resistance that arguably be matched by only Xavi Hernandez.
What also has to be taken into consideration is the teams they played for and the 'perception'. In fact, the English media did not rate Pirlo till he dominated them in the 2012 Europs similar to how Zlatan Ibrahimovic wasn't really that rated till he scored that amazing Bicycle kick against them.
Had Modric played for Manchester United, would he have done any better? I doubt it.
Modric's game did not change that much from his Tottenham days, the only difference is he played for Real Madrid and performed at a Higher level (Which he contributed to of course).
I think Modric is "greater" than Scholes because of his achievements and his "big game" performances, but in terms of their skill sets at various times, I would argue Scholes was superior.
In terms of greatness, I would say:
Modric
Pirlo
Scholes
Scholes was just as good as those two in the AM/support striker role.
As an actual midfielder Scholes destroys both. His passing and ball retention was world class.
As an actual midfielder Scholes destroys both. His passing and ball retention was world class.