He clearly was the best player at PSG during his first 3 seasons.
The natural successor: Has Neymar blown it?
- Thread starter Fortitude
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He's a better player than Mbappe
and this means what? how is any of this mutually exclusive with him being a top3 or top5 player?
are you just being purposely dense or do you really just not watch football?
and for what it’s worth, around 14-15 Neymar arguably had a better year than Messi
True. I was (mostly) joking.
PSG seem more interested in Mbappe than Neymar.
It just seems to me that since he left Barcelona, he's mostly just killed Ligue 1 teams. I dont watch Ligue 1 games but I watch Champions League games and it's been a while since he seemed one of the best players there. Maybe that's because PSG are so dysfunctional but if it is, he's partly to blame for that.
PSG isn't that dysfunctional in the CL. I mean last year, they dominated Real for 150mn (but not enough, the last 30mn killed everything).
The year before, they reached the semi final and Neymar was hands down the best player against Bayern, he bossed their entire midfield in the 1st leg.
The year before, he was easily the best player in the final 8 when PSG reached the final.
While I agree we expected more from him, last season was the only year when he didn't have dominant games in the CL.
He has avg 12.5 goals per season in Ligue 1 over past 4 seasons though. For some reasons (partying, injuries, lack of motivation, visiting his sister etc) He hasnt really delivered up to his price tag and expectation for a lengthy period of time. He still has good ratio but very bad overall numbers of player of his caliber.
But with this year being possibly his final WC year, and with threats from Mbappe to totally over-throne him at PSG, lets hope he will be back to his best form and have the consistency/fitness/drive to last over the season.
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Hm, I think Mbappe since winning the world cup has been comfortably PSG's best player, or at least its most impactful. From the 2018-19 season and onwards, Mbappe's stats dwarf Neymar's every single season, goals or assists. Neymar's absence is a huge negative for the team, it's not his fault but it definitely takes away from his 'best player' status at the club, to me at least.
Because he's young and the darling of French football...
At the end of his career, Neymar will not be remembered any more fondly than a showboating Andy Cole. The gap between PSG and other French teams is so huge that at a minimum Neymar should be hitting 40 goals and 15 assists a season. I bet Shearer, Morientes, RvN and Inzaghi would hit at least double of what Neymar has done so far playing for this PSG in the French League. Sick and tired of hearing these johnny-come-lately PSG fans pretend their club is relevant or that players grow up dreaming of joining P$G. Imagine constantly shrieking about reaching a CL final during Covid, when the health of all top teams was a bit of a crapshoot.
Are you Brazilian?
Neymar's per minute numbers are monstrous actually. Messi-esque
The only reason we're not putting him up there with Ronaldinho is the injuries
The only reason we're not putting him up there with Ronaldinho is the injuries
Mostly because he's Feench and younger. He's not actually a better footballer.
He's better than Ronaldinho for me either way. Ronaldinho wouldn't have 2 Ballon D'Ors playing at the same time as Messi/CR7.
Far better longevity at the top and he's been better for Brazil than Ronaldinho has.
If he has a great WC, I think Neymar would edge it clearly for a wider spectrum of people.
No. I just watch football matches.
This is a debate I've seen crop up a lot recently. Neymar has been good for longer, of that there's no doubt. But peak Ronaldinho is better than peak Neymar IMO.
Odd post
I think you can argue for both.
I think Neymar fits a wider range of teams and can easily play 2nd fiddle to someone like Messi in a team. I'm not convinced Barcelona get better if they swap out Ronaldinho for Neymar during the MSN era. I think they get worse.
But I certainly think peak Neymar has an argument too. The biggest problem is his constant injuries at PSG has people underrating his time there.
He was brilliant in the treble winning season playing mostly off the ball.
When Messi got injured he then picked up the creative slack for the team. He's just a brilliant player all-round.
Disagree. Since Mbappe has been there I've watched them a fair bit because I wanted to see the pairing. Neymar (when fit) runs the attack almost entirely. Mbappe just doesn't have that kind of ability, though he is an explosive player. I've always maintained that Neymar is the only player other than Messi who combines elite creativity and prolific scoring.
Neymar has been injured a lot though, that can't be denied.
Yeah that's my point.
I don't think Ronaldinho can be that direct winger that Neymar was during the 2014-2015 season playing a 'supporting' role and thriving.
And Neymar was the best player in the world by far for a 2-3 month stretch when Messi was out the following season too.
And then the following season after that, his goal=scoring dipped, but he was the best creative attacking force in football behind Messi.
He's an incredible player that's been heavily underrated(especially by some posters here) because of recurring injuries at PSG.
I agree. Neymar has easily been better than Mbappe(bar last season) at PSG. He is the engine behind the team and their creative fulcrum. Mbappe simply doesn't possess that playmaking ability and creativity that Neymar has. Even Neymar's dribbling is better than Mbappe's comfortably.
He's been underrated because he burst onto the scene as the heir to Messi and the next great Brazilian to lead his country to a World Cup, and he has underwhelmed on both fronts.
He's a great player but he wouldn't break into any of the historic Brazilian forward lines and that sums up his legacy for me. Had he stayed at Barcelona it might be different, but he accepted an easy ride at PSG in return for having to shine once or twice a season on the European stage, which he has failed to do and subsequently faded into irrelevance.
He's been good in Europe for PSG(bar last season). His problem at PSG has been injuries.
He could still in theory lead Brazil to the World Cup.
Not being as good as Messi or being a rightful heir isn't an indictment on Neymar. There's arguably no one as good as Messi.
And him not being as good as Pele or Ronaldo Nazario isn't an indictment either.
It doesn't matter how good he's been. He hasn't won it, and when he's come close he's bottled it.
It's an indictment only because of the potential he possessed and the brand he created. He could have been up there with those names but a series of bad decisions led him away. It might have set his family up for life but the PSG move was terrible for his football career.
When exactly did he bottle the CL when he came close?
Mbappe was the one who missed the golden chance in their CL final vs Bayern.
If you go by their impact, it's only last season that Mbappe stepped up and overshadowed Neymar, carrying most of the offensive load for the team.
Their tenure together has basically been two of them switching on and off with carrying, depending on who's fit and on form. Mbappe certainly being the more reliable one.
His problem (Neymars) is however, when team doesn't function well, he goes on this "me against the world" crusade and tries to way too hard to beat teams on his own. Which ends up with him hogging the ball and getting mowed down, rinse repeat until his ankles crack. It's been a vicious cycle, and he looks too immature and stubborn to break it on his own.
The one thing that could save him is a functioning team, as these few games under Galtier have indicated/illustrated. He plays a much more simple and direct game, utilising his instinct and his vision/passing which in turn lifts his team to a whole new level.
For past 3 seasons his overall numbers are hugely underwhelming though.
It easy to blame it all on injuries, but I think it’s not only that. He also got distracted by partying, money and visiting his sister.
Have you actually bothered to look them up?
This is redcaf. The moment you dont win you bottled it. That the opponent is just better doesnt matter. Didnt win = bottled it.
Wouldn’t bet against him driving Brazil to the World Cup and putting himself up there with the all time greats.
He had the early shot against Bayern. After that he spent most of his time dribbling into blind alleys and was generally awful.
There’s a reason why Real Madrid were doing everything in their power to get Mbappé and PSG broke the bank for him. Mbappé is far more reliable, more devastating (fastest top player in the world), better finisher, scarier for the opposition, his stats are better. They’re slightly different styles of player but I’d far rather Mbappé. Reliability is a big thing, you can’t rely on Neymar playing less than 50% of games since he arrived.
Last season for example - Mbappé 39 goals in 46 games. 6 in 8 in the CL including two against champions Real Madrid. Neymar 13 in 28 games, 0 goals in the CL, poor in the big games.
Neymar needs to remain healthy for an entire season, that would be a huge deal in and of itself.
Feels like any time he gets going and performing as he should, a ruinous injury is right there to blight him.
Feels like any time he gets going and performing as he should, a ruinous injury is right there to blight him.
Yes
Doesn’t have to, almost everyone knows.
I would still give Ronaldinho the edge thus far (Neymar's career is not over yet of course) but it's close. Many would have you believe that it's not close at all, which is just false.
This makes no sense, with respect. Madrid wanting to buy Mbappe and PSG paying him a lot to keep him means nothing in this debate. He's a relatively young great player.
The injuries point I can accept, Mbappe has played more games and been more available for sure. That doesn't make him a better player however.
Posting stats from last season doesn't help either, it's already been acknowledged that Neymar was out for a period (further enhancing your point above TBF) and didn't play his best when he was available. This season he already has 13 G/A in four official games l.
Of course he hasn't, that's why he made that laughable post in the first place
And Mbappé has 4 goals in 2 games. Agree to disagree, I would rather Mbappé in my team.
It's a difficult comparison. If the argument is Messi, Neymar and Cristiano scored more, then that is true. But Ronaldinho hit his peak when the game was more defensive - as the success of Greece, Porto, Benitez's Liverpool and Mourinho's Chelsea showed - and less imbalanced between the elite clubs and the rest. Barcelona scored 60-80 goals in La Liga every year from 1999 to 2008. And then in the decade that followed they averaged 95-116 goals a season, around 50% more. And the numbers of the attackers benefited accordingly.
And fundamentally he was a different type of player - much more a creator and much less a goalscorer. For every goal he scored, he provided 0.8 assists. Most modern wide forwards at top clubs provide just over half that. To give a few examples:
Ronaldinho 0.82 assists per goal scored
Neymar 0.62
Mbappe 0.51
Salah 0.50
Messi 0.47
Cristiano 0.32
If the argument is he didn't win as many games as Cristiano/Messi did, then that is true as well. In his defence I would say it's very hard to quantify how he unlocked space through his unparalleled close control and creativity. It's not unlike how Zidane's mastery of the ball - which drew defenders to him like a magnet - cannot be reduced to just goals and assists. Neymar and Messi had a lot of that too, but I think the difference is their teams more frequently enabled them to use that skill closer to goal.
Both Ronaldinho and Neymar remain great "what if"s to me. Ronaldinho because he failed to crown his status as the best player in the world at the 2006 World Cup and didn't a sustain a lengthy career at the top that would have added another layer to his legacy. And Neymar because he has been consistently brilliant in the build-up to the most decisive moments in his career and then hasn't quite been able to see that through, either through injury or his own in-game decision-making.
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