Gigs retirement - who are the other true greats?

Goldstone Rapper said:

Still too soon for Bale?

Click to expand...

I really like Bale and think he will become one of the gents. It was quite nice seeing him walking around with the football he had grabbed after the match tonight. Still seems quite a decent and shy bloke. At times I felt he looked a little unsure what to do with himself.

Giggs on the other hand is a turd of the highest order, have no respect for the bloke. Don't get me wrong, fantastic footballer and servant to Manchester untied however a true gent he is not

I remember having a conversation with Goldstone Rapper over some cold drinks a few weeks ago where he made the exact same argument he did earlier in this thread about Ryan Giggs. While I don't entirely agree with his standpoint that he didn't become the player he might have done, I think he fell short of becoming the world class talent his formative years suggested he might be capable of. Particularly, I think one area of his game that he might reflect he should have done better at was goalscoring. I think he called it a day on 109 Premier League goals, which given that he played in all 22 Premier League seasons up to the last one, works out at 5 goals a season. He scored 1 goal fewer in Premier League competition than Emile Heskey.

He was a scorer of great goals and also a scorer of important goals, as witnessed by his goalscoring record against Arsenal. He played against them nearly 50 times in his career and scored 2 goals against them, with each of those occasions being important goals - THAT goal in the FA Cup semi-final when his side were under the cosh and down to 10 men and then 4 seasons later when Man United played Arsenal at Highbury with the 2 of them neck-and-neck in the title race, he scored a header which gave Man United an equaliser which was quite crucial to them at the end of the season.

When you look at Gareth Bale now who started out in the same position as Giggs before being given a freer role in the team, he has scored 22 goals this season in a season when he has missed a number of matches due to injury and he also scored over 20 goals the previous season too. Players like him and before him Cristiano Ronaldo have been real game-changers in terms of how we view wingers and what they should be capable of in terms of goalscoring contributions. If Giggs was starting out in the game now, it would be interesting to see if he were given that type of free role in the team, and if so, if it would have made any difference to the numbers of goals he scored.

I'd probably still include him in the notional top 10 list that's been drawn up here purely for his longevity and for him being the most decorated player domestically of modern times, with him contributing tangibly to each of Manchester United's 13 league titles that were won while he played for them. But like John Barnes before him, he became a different player once his pace diminished. He was still a very good player, but he performed a more unglamorous role and that also restricted his capacity as an attacking outlet.

LlcoolJ said:

For me (and it's all just opinion and conjecture obviously) Shilton was a great keeper but was found out at the highest level and I'll never forgive him for his awful performance in the 1990 shoot out.

Same could be said of Seaman (Ronaldinho /etc) perhaps but I still rate him as better overall.

Click to expand...

Oh yes that shoot out, he got nowehere near any of them, I always thought he qwas a bit small as well for a keeper.

Nobody has mentioned the spelling mistake in the title. It is NSC law to try to make a witty remark therefore I shall do my duty. Sorry:

I thought this was one of the best retirement GIGS.