Not to mention it is an incredibly strange metric to rank PL level by CL achievement in the first place!
Yaya Toure...
- Thread starter Rozay
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There's a group of players who are the best, Scholes, Vieira, Keane, Gerrard, Lampard. The level is similar. He is in that category easily. He was one of the most complete players you could ever find. From playing DM/CB at Barca to becoming a 10 at City, he was just a phenomenal player. Impossible to tackle, long pass, vision, dribbling, powerful shooting, free-kicks, crossing, left foot, right foot, there was nothing he couldn't do. He could build up the play, create, be on the end of the chances, counter from his own box on his own. It was a joke really.
The more you think about it, it's not crazy to believe he was the best actually. All of the rest had weaknesses but what was Toure's? That he didn't like going backwards? What attacking player does? That's not a weakness to me. But that's all you could ever level at Toure.
I think objectively, at his peak, he was the best ever, without doubt.
The more you think about it, it's not crazy to believe he was the best actually. All of the rest had weaknesses but what was Toure's? That he didn't like going backwards? What attacking player does? That's not a weakness to me. But that's all you could ever level at Toure.
I think objectively, at his peak, he was the best ever, without doubt.
I think he has a very good case for being the best midfielder in the PL. Unplayable on his day, played deeper and off the striker to a very high level at City. I think he's somewhat slighted because his career wasn't as long in the PL as the likes of Scholes, Gerrard, Lampard and Giggs but I certainly think there is a case for him being better but not necessarily greater than them.
I'd argue it's similar for Fabregas too.
I'd argue it's similar for Fabregas too.
He was a freak of nature at this peak. Incredibly talented on the ball whilst being impossible to dispossess due to his sheer size and strength.
But like Pogba nowadays, the fact he didn't care much for his defensive duties was used as a stick to beat him with, which is surprising considering he played CB for Barcelona but it was more of an unwillingess to defend which as fine in the PL most weeks but cost them big time in Europe. I'm not sure if this is applicable to his best season but I always seem to remember him gassing around the 70min mark as well and he wouldn't be anywhere near as effective in the latter stages but like I said, they may have just been towards the end of his career.
But like Pogba nowadays, the fact he didn't care much for his defensive duties was used as a stick to beat him with, which is surprising considering he played CB for Barcelona but it was more of an unwillingess to defend which as fine in the PL most weeks but cost them big time in Europe. I'm not sure if this is applicable to his best season but I always seem to remember him gassing around the 70min mark as well and he wouldn't be anywhere near as effective in the latter stages but like I said, they may have just been towards the end of his career.
Well there's that but leaving huge gaps in the midfield because you're far too concerned about doing your own thing is a big weakness in terms of positional play. It happens to a lot of great midfielders that feel they can offer more offensively so i'm not picking on him (Paul Ince, Steven Gerrard, Roy Keane in his very early days) but it was a common complaint that city were exposed a lot in midfield when he started to chip in with more goals.
Personally, I'd say Keane and Vieira were the best but Yaya does deserve to be in the discussion with the other players mentioned.
Also impossible to tackle is a bit much....i remember Scholes clattering him which was hilarious given the size difference between them.
He was irritatingly talismanic for a couple of years. He had pretty much everything.
Nowhere near Keane though, who was equally vital to us for a good 4 seasons. Don't get me wrong, Toure was better going forward but Keane was a genuine colossus for us. Even in a team as good as we had, which was better than the comparable City side of Toure's era, Keane stood out as THE main man.
Nowhere near Keane though, who was equally vital to us for a good 4 seasons. Don't get me wrong, Toure was better going forward but Keane was a genuine colossus for us. Even in a team as good as we had, which was better than the comparable City side of Toure's era, Keane stood out as THE main man.
The way he used to drive forward with a ball was like a steam train. Once he got going, there was no way the opposition were going to stop him. Perfect example of it below:
I think there's a bit of hyperbole regarding Toure here. Yes, he was an excellent midfielder in high-quality City team. Yes, he scored goals and was pretty complete. But, his outrageous 2013/2014 season seems to be carrying people away in terms of how productive he was. I just looked up his goal and assists stats in the PL, and while they are decent it's very skewed by one supernatural season.
Obviously Yaya's position has changed a fair. He started more as CM and became a more traditional #10 eventually. So it's not fair to directly compare him with Lampard / Gerrard for example. I would however take both of them over Toure.
To summarize:
Was Yaya Toure the best ever PL midfielder? NO. I would take Scholes, Keane, Viera, Gerrard, Lampard, KDB over him for sure.
Did Yaya Toure have the single-best season for a PL midfielder? ARGUABLY YES. Those numbers for 2013-2014 are faintly ridiculous.
Obviously Yaya's position has changed a fair. He started more as CM and became a more traditional #10 eventually. So it's not fair to directly compare him with Lampard / Gerrard for example. I would however take both of them over Toure.
| Season | Games | Goals | Assists |
| 2010-2011 | 35 | 6 | 5 |
| 2011-2012 | 32 | 6 | 7 |
| 2012-2013 | 32 | 6 | 6 |
| 2013-2014 | 35 | 20 | 9 |
| 2014-2015 | 29 | 10 | 1 |
| 2015-2016 | 32 | 6 | 5 |
| 2016-2017 | 25 | 5 | 0 |
| 2017-2018 | 10 | 0 | 2 |
To summarize:
Was Yaya Toure the best ever PL midfielder? NO. I would take Scholes, Keane, Viera, Gerrard, Lampard, KDB over him for sure.
Did Yaya Toure have the single-best season for a PL midfielder? ARGUABLY YES. Those numbers for 2013-2014 are faintly ridiculous.
I do agree with the OP in the sense that when the greatest PL midfielders are listed, people rightfully mention Scholes, Keane, Vieira, Lampard and Gerrard. Yaya deserves to be in that group for what he's contributed in the PL. He was an amazing CM and at his peak I'm not sure any of the above could outplay him. He was pretty much a combination of all of them.
The edge they have over Yaya is they also shone in the CL or WC in Vieira's case and that's something Toure wasn't able to do. So in terms of PL performance he's every bit as good as them but overall he's just slightly below them.
The edge they have over Yaya is they also shone in the CL or WC in Vieira's case and that's something Toure wasn't able to do. So in terms of PL performance he's every bit as good as them but overall he's just slightly below them.
Might even add Lampard and Gerrard to that list. He is lucky to make top 10...
Didnt Lampard in 09-19 have something like
36 games, 22 goals and 16 assists.
Thats surely better than Toures 13/14 year.
(And for that season im sure Chelsea won league and fa cup double whereas city won league and carling??)
This is the basis of my point though. Any 5 year old can see that he didn’t spend 10-15 years in the league.
He has as much a claim for being the best (Which by my definition is ‘not been bettered’) PL midfielder as Cristiano Ronaldo has of being the best ever PL player. If we are using everyone’s favourite longevity argument, Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t in the best 10 players let alone best. Tbh, I imagine if Ronaldo played for a different team the caf would dismiss him in place of the class of 92 due to the longevity argument, which nobody can really compete with.
Best means best to me. Scholes, for example, is possibly the greatest midfielder in the PL for example, but I don’t think he was ever better than Toure in 2013/14. Same for the rest of that group. Nor were they as good as Fabregas in the season before he left Arsenal for me but that’s another conversation.
You followed up your ‘Ruud wasn’t a great finisher’ with another barnstormer here.
Yaya was great. Top player. But he’s not even the best midfielder City have had. Silva and KdB both better.
Lampards 2009/10 season is better than toures best season.
Had almost 40 g and a iirc in the league alone.
Had almost 40 g and a iirc in the league alone.
And in both cases, I said what I said.
And I never said Ruud wasn’t a top finisher either, obviously, I don’t think he was as good as you think. And similarly to your point, he wasn’t even United’s best finisher for me - Solskjaer and Scholes were both better. And later on, the other Dutchman.
I thought that can't be true, but Lampard really had 38 goal contributions in 36 PL games, that's actually remarkable.
Gerrard also had 1 similar season to Toure's stats-wise, but that's why I don't judge midfielders on stats alone.So his one PL season could be a complete outlier as he never came close to it ever again. It's not indicative of his entire body of work to be considered the best PL midfielder, ever. What happened? That is a serious contender for the best, most complete midfield annual performance in the PL ever. Wouldn't doubt that and it would be a great contender.
I agree that he was unplayable many times and had everything, but playing as a SS/#10 a la Gerrard did a couple of seasons behind Torres make their influence as a central midfielder a bit overstated.
There's something to be seen and said about large framed footballers with high end technical skill/ability like Toure because it's not fair for people with that physicality have the intelligence and ball skills and agility. That said, players like Paul Scholes could never do those exact things because he had one-third of Toure's physicality and agility and size, but he could make the same match winning and impact as well from multiple central midfield positions.
I agree that he was unplayable many times and had everything, but playing as a SS/#10 a la Gerrard did a couple of seasons behind Torres make their influence as a central midfielder a bit overstated.
There's something to be seen and said about large framed footballers with high end technical skill/ability like Toure because it's not fair for people with that physicality have the intelligence and ball skills and agility. That said, players like Paul Scholes could never do those exact things because he had one-third of Toure's physicality and agility and size, but he could make the same match winning and impact as well from multiple central midfield positions.
Lampard was far less involved in playmaking though, what makes that Toure season so great is that he was an attacking midfielder who also played as a playmaker averaging some of the most passes per match in the league, Lampard was less involved as a playmaker in my opinion.I thought that can't be true, but Lampard really had 38 goal contributions in 36 PL games, that's actually remarkable.
Definitely one of the best. I think his glaring defensive holes makes him inferior to a few, namely Vieira, Keane and others
I never get this obsession with seemingly weighting any midfielders defensive work above anything else. Could Keane and Vieira do what he does going the other way? Do they not have ‘glaring offensive holes?’.
No, but a center midfielder is judged by both aspects. If he was a forward, I wouldn't be saying that.
So why are we not judging Keane and Vieira on there offensive contributions as well as their defensive?
I am too, I just find them better. Why do we have to agree?
This would be like trying to argue that Walter Samuel was the best Serie A defender ever on an AC Milan forum. 
Fair play for trying, I suppose.
Fair play for trying, I suppose.
We don’t have to agree, once we have established the parameters of the comparison. Toure isn’t great defensively, I’m curious to know why it is more of a negative than the fact that the others aren’t great offensively, is all. Perhaps everyone thinks defending is more important.
He had few great goalscoring seasons, and he was a good player in general, but his "midfielding" was overrated by the fact that he spent lot of time playing as a second striker from what I can remember. I would say he was a better forward than a midfielder, similar to Rooney in later years, don't really get the Vieira, etc. comparision.
Its weird to think of the player he was at Barcelona and what he became at City
He was very good. I wouldn’t say no midfielder has gotten close to his best though. Even at City alone you have KDB in the 17/18 season and David Silva and his consistency over the last decade. You’ve had Lampard and Gerrard both ending in the top 3 for the Ballon d’Or, Scholesy Keane and Viera with multiple high level seasons and performances. You yourself mentioned that Fabregas season which goes under the radar. Essien had a couple phenomenal seasons before his injuries.
I think you may have been inspired to write the no one comes close comment due to the fact Toure for the most part gets underrated. Or appraisal of his ability comes with a caveat of laziness or not being bothered. Which isn’t strictly true, he sometimes lacked urgency during games but it was clear that he was pacing himself, he’d often burst into life towards the end of the game and I think has resulted in the idea that he didn’t always fancy it.
I think you may have been inspired to write the no one comes close comment due to the fact Toure for the most part gets underrated. Or appraisal of his ability comes with a caveat of laziness or not being bothered. Which isn’t strictly true, he sometimes lacked urgency during games but it was clear that he was pacing himself, he’d often burst into life towards the end of the game and I think has resulted in the idea that he didn’t always fancy it.
He played in the midfield. City would often take a striker off at some point in the second half and then push him further forward. That said, before Guardiola, they almost always played a front two - either Aguero/Tevez, Aguero/Dzeko, Aguero/Negredo. Toure was very much a midfielder, and one that people typically couldn’t get near.
He was good but not the best ever. He had a few decent seasons, one of which was outstanding but it’s a stretch to put him over Scholes, Gerrard, Lampard and Silva.
Not sure why people keep mentioning Silva tbh. I never see him included in these ‘Scholes, Keane, Lampard, Vieira’ conversations. He’s clearly not the same type of player.
Why wouldn't people mention him? He might be small and technical but he's as much a midfielder these days as Lampard or Gerrard were. Gerrard had his best seasons coming in from the right, Lampard had his best when the midfield was anchored by Essien and Makelele.
I agree, I think Pogba can/could be as well rounded and the better passer.
I agree with the OP that at his peak he was one of the best the league has seen, force of nature.
Are you kidding me? id bet if you put a poll out to City fans 90% would pick Silva over Yaya.
Yaya had a couple of good seasons but was also pretty mediocre in large parts for City, it felt like his last 2 years was tainted, he was talking about leaving every few weeks before topping it off with ’birthday gate’
Ill be honest mate he’s nowhere near the best ever, the more I think about it the more ridiculous it’s becoming.
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Clearly haven’t understood the post you just quoted.
I don't think he's ruling out Silva on ability, but for positional reasons.
Edit: Not that I agree with that distinction though.
Out of interest though, why would you have Gerrard and Lampard on the list but exclude Silva?
He scored more goals in the 13/14 season alone than he had recorded in his entire career up to that point I believe. But, to be fair, he did show glimpses of what he was capable of. At Barca his goal v Bilbao stands out. At City he just took it to another level. He’s still possibly the best player I’ve seen at City. Silva has longevity and de Bruyne has a better peak (first six months of 17/18 were sublime) but considering everything I struggle to put someone ahead of Yaya. Technically blessed, his passing and vision was really underappreciated. Even if you took away his goalscoring ability he’d still have been comfortably world class.
Mata had an incredible season at Chelsea in 2012/2013. 28 goal contributions in 35 PL games, 54 in 64 in all competitions. Not sure if we can class him as a midfielder though, however I remember he played as a CAM as well and when on the right, he was always drifting inside the pitch.