What the feck
Who then?Van Dijk revisited
- Thread starter Pexbo
- Start date
Who then?Henry? Are you joking?
Not sure. Probably one of our players who won considerably more. Giggs, Scholes, Rooney, Keane etc.What the feck
Nope not joking. I was aware of him being in the conversation, but had no idea that he was seen as some unanimous, landslide choice.
You would be.
I think the majority of neutrals would put him top to he honest. Then the next tier is probably dominated by Utd players and like Salah and KDB and Shearer I guess?
Spot on mate, especially the bolded part.
Think Henry is generally on top of most lists. Ronaldo is obviously a greater player, but he left too soon.
Ronaldo is obviously better overall but this is only based on their body of work in the Premier League.
Henry is by far the most popular choice for the best PL player ever.
Fair enough. He was brilliant, don't get me wrong.
Every ex player, pundit, fan channel goes on and on about it.
Clearly you haven't followed Premier League media much.
I'm surprised that few people here have never heard this discussion before.
Who's the best player then? Ronaldo doesn't make it because his body of work in the Premier League included only 2 of his prime years.
Genuinely no idea. I just didn't realise that Henry was the automatic correct answer. I'd have assumed one of our players who won a lot more and did it for longer, would probably be well placed. I'd probably go for Giggs.
Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. Particularly when it’s dumb stuff you said on the internet many years ago.
Best to pretend it never happened.
How can Giggs be the best Premier League player of all time if he was never the best Manchester United player at any point in his long career?
Longevity is great but you need a massive prime to win these debates.
No neutral is picking Giggs as a better player than Henry.
Suppose it depends on what you base it on. Henry was probably top 2 or 3 in the world at his peak. Yet at the same time, he only won a couple of league titles in 8 years. Whilst, Giggs, on the otherhand, was at United for over two decades and was a key contributer in thirteen league title wins. What do you value more? Who's body of work in the Premier League was greater?
The first thing is that you need to be the best player in the league at some point. Otherwise it would make no sense.
The United players who are in this conversation are Ronaldo and Rooney.
Ronaldo is the best player to ever play in this league but he isn't the best Premier League player ever because he left too early. There's a difference between the 2.
Rooney is right up there in the conversation. Generally people seem to rate Henry's ability more though.
Players like De Bruyne, Gerrard, Lampard, Shearer, Hazard, etc are always mentioned in these conversations in the media.
Then when does longevity stop to matter? Because Ronaldo’s top level for those two seasons were beyond Henry! Then there is KdB and Salah…
Or perhaps, you can judge a player's body of work. How long did they play in the league? How much did they win? How integral were they to their team's success?
Anyway, just to bring it back on topic - Van Dijk in my view is definitely in the top 10 Premier League centre backs of all time. Likely, top 5.
A great prime with atleast a decent amount of longevity. So Suarez doesn't count because he only had 1 all timer season in this league.
Ronaldo only had 2 peak seasons in the league and he's still in the conversation because of how insane his peak was.
De Bruyne is obviously right up there in the conversation too. As is Rooney.
Henry had a number of amazing seasons in the Premier League where he was clearly the best player in the league. Great statistics and amazing on the eye.
I’ve never heard anyone say that until Virgil’s mum earlier
My choice would be Rooney. But i get the impression he’s horribly underrated by English fans. Unbelievable footballer, skill and mentality. That he scored so many goals whilst still being back winning last gasp tackles or sending an absolute belter of a pass, I genuinely don’t see why he isn’t better than Henry. Henry was a forward, a great one. But Rooney was the most complete footballer I’ve ever seen
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdWjh5mD/
Pool fans love showing Rio getting done by Bellamy in that City game and make out Big Virj is flawless.
Pool fans love showing Rio getting done by Bellamy in that City game and make out Big Virj is flawless.
I also think Rooney for what its worth and i dont think its as close as it could be.
I think you clicked on the wrong post when you went to quote someone else. But everyone in the thread noticed, and the title got updated saying that you'd quoted yourself. I don't remember the exact thread but it was in 2014. Good times on the Cafe.
I mean, OneFootball refers to the thing that I've already put in my post as a dodgy source (some Liverpool fan account for Brazil "quoting" Romano in a way that twitter "quotes" people — without any link, just by tagging someone as the supposed source of such information). Literally, they put the twit in the post and basically wrote a nothing "article" just rephrasing in. It is a dodgy source, not that it necessarily means that it's fake.
Well he was the best player in the league the year he won the PFA's player of the year ! Unless you think you're more knowledgeable than professional footballers ..
Why would English fans underrate Rooney? He played for Manchester United and was England captain too.
As someone with Rooney in my top 3 favourite players of all time, respectfully he isn’t even in the convo with Henry for PL best.
There’s only two players who reached Henry’s level in the PL and it’s Ronaldo and Suarez but both were only able to do that for 2 or 1 seasons respectively before moves to Spain. Henry was different class for 6 consecutive years. He’s widely seen as the consensus best PL ever.
As much as I loved Rooney, he never even had back to back excellent PL seasons. Had the talent to be the best but lifestyle choices and being too much of a team player curbed that.
Didn’t Nesta also proclaim Rio was better than he himself?
Not quite a landslide choice but he's generally considered by the majority to be the best/greatest PL player overall. I'd imagine that the majority of PL fans would agree upon this, the majority of ex-players and pundits certainly do even though there are some other strong shouts getting mentioned as well (Cristiano for his peak, Giggs for longevity and overall productivity, Shearer for the record, recently — Salah... etc.).
This is why I said English fans underrate him.
Rooney was better than Henry and I don’t think that’s controversial at all
Yes and Xavi said something along the lines of Scholes being the best English footballer, it means diddly squat
Scholes and Giggs' impact in the EPL is seriously underrated. They played until they were 40 and you don't win 13 Premier Leagues by being average. They deserve to be in this conversation and that includes Keane as well.
Even if (big if) the quote is from the man himself, it really should be thrown in the bin. It's all well and good these Italian CB gods playing themselves down and being humble, but there's now a whole generation who wouldn't have seen them play and might even take them at their word, which is incredibly damaging (and very annoying).
Maldini might tell you the barista who makes his coffee was a better defender than he ever was, for his next troll. Nesta paying homage to Tyrone Mings.
Hold on, Rio is definitely comparable to Nesta. I don't agree that he was better than Nesta but his career at Utd was much better than Nesta's in AC Milan. Rio was also a top player before Utd and he was the most expensive English defender of all time when he was signed by Utd.
I actually prefer young Rooney to Henry, but Henry is generally the consensus it seems for best PL player.
Think that’s largely my point, and I think we’re agreeing with each other. Some players are just being humble with these things.
Yeah that was basically my point.