100 Greatest Premier League Players (V3)
This is the third time I’ve had a go at this list. I seem to be doing it every 3 years.
Since I last compiled it, a lot has happened which affects the order - whereas, even in 2017, it felt like the great Manchester City players were still on their way somewhere they hadn’t yet reached, and were consequently hard to judge, they’ve now had a full era (perhaps complete, perhaps not) as a dominant Premier League side. It’s also possible to look at the players of the freak Leicester season and see how good the individuals really are. Liverpool have put together a couple of seasons the likes of which we’ve hardly seen before. The Ferguson years are completely and utterly in the past, and look all the more remarkable for it.
Saying all that, most of my main ‘opinions’ are still the
same. In a sporting sense, talking about greatness only makes sense if you know
what you personally mean by greatness and you can, to some extent, explain that. I have a
specific thing in mind here, and the best way to understand it is seeing where I
put Alan Shearer and Steven Gerrard.
There are lots of helpful tools for weighing up how great a
footballer was – how many goals/assists/clean sheets (and, these days, tackles
made, yards run, etc etc). How many times they were Player of the Year or in
the Team of the Year. What their peers and managers say about them. How many
league titles they won. How their highlight reel looks. How many times they
stirred partisan or neutral emotions.
Nevertheless, greatness in club football is, for me, something harder to pin down, something that
takes on elements of all of the above but still contains something different ---
some sense of the relationship of the player to their team, and what hole would
have been left in that team by their not being there, the extent to which they
are the truly the fabric of the team (in a wholly positive way), and how much
the team soars or falls apart without that story … and then, at what level of
the league, and for how long …
Other sports are easier to judge – With cricket, averages and totals,
in the right context, do tell a large part of the story. With an athlete, you’ll
look at times and Olympic/World medals and get a large part of the picture. A
runner can be truly great for, literally, 20 seconds of action (eg if they win
two 100m Olympic golds, they will be considered a great, even if they won few other races in between). That is not true of club league football. One or two great
seasons are only worth so much. You play and play, you don't build to peaks, you maintain and adapt and keep going.
And, this other very important thing. Sometimes a player is too
much. There are 11 people in a team, far more in the squad - you cannot put too many of those people in the shadows with your presence. If your playing your way is stopping too many other people playing their way, that's a problem. Big personality, or indeed effective but inflexible, players toe a delicate line, whatever
their good intentions.
And another important thing, which I don’t think gets
factored in enough in football. Flaws are flaws, not “part of what makes him
great”. Someone who gets sent off a lot, thus leaving his team with fewer
players and missing games, that’s a flaw. Sometimes who kicks a fan and so misses
a season, that’s a flaw. Someone who tries to injure another player and gets
themselves injured in the process, that’s a flaw. That makes them a less great
footballer.
Bearing all of the above in mind, there’s a fresh
horror at #3 – intrinsic to the second most successful team of the Premier
League, I think we have to reluctantly accept JT’s more significant to the
second half of the Premier League than anyone else. Rio Ferdinand was, at his
best, a better defender, but Terry was just so important to Chelsea for so long
… I've moved him up a lot since I first made the list. I can't quite believe I've done it, but there we go.
Also, while I may often be guilty of recency bias, in this case, I've tried to deploy the opposite. The period of the Premier League I love and know best is probably 1998 to 2012ish - I watched a lot before that, and still watch plenty now, but those were the years when I just watched every bit of everything I could, played Fantasy Football, knew every player in every squad etc. So, I've tried my best to be fair to the more recent players, who I often care a little less about.
What else? It’s only for the Premier League, nothing else.
No cups, no internationals. And it’s not about “The best footballer”. That was George Weah. Or Paul Warhurst. Think
about it in terms of “How different would it have been if they hadn’t played”
being the most important question.
Something I noticed while looking up stats and contenders, players don't seem to be having quite the long Premier League careers they used to - now Gareth Barry has retired, there's Milner, who might break all appearance records, but I'd be surprised if that many others in the current lot get up to 400 Premier League games, so it might be a while before the top of the list changes a great deal again.
I don’t know more about football than 1000s and 1000s of
other people, but I am quite good at looking at a wider picture and setting parameters.
That is why this is THE ONLY LIST YOU SHOULD TRUST! Till the next one ….
- Ryan Giggs
- Thierry Henry
- John Terry
- Frank Lampard
- Eric Cantona
- Sergio Aguero
- Alan Shearer
- Wayne Rooney
- Paul Scholes
- Cristiano Ronaldo
- Peter Schmeichel
- Vincent Kompany
- David Silva
- Rio Ferdinand
- Patrick Vieira
- Eden Hazard
- Ashley Cole
- David Beckham
- Matt Le Tissier
- Didier Drogba
- Roy Keane
- James Milner
- Dennis Bergkamp
- Cesc Fabregas
- Dennis Irwin
- Sol Campbell
- Nemanja Vidic
- Steven Gerrard
- Kevin de Bruyne
- Michael Carrick
- Ricardo Carvalho
- Robert Pires
- Tony Adams
- Yaya Toure
- Gary Speed
- Raheem Sterling
- Fernandinho
- Virgil van Dijk
- Andy Cole
- Gareth Barry
- Harry Kane
- Claude Makelele
- Gianfranco Zola
- Gary Pallister
- Edwin Van der Sar
- David Seaman
- Robin Van Persie
- Gareth Bale
- Willian
- N'Golo Kante
- Gary Neville
- Mo Salah
- Patrice Evra
- Petr Cech
- Ruud van Nistelrooy
- Robbie Fowler
- Xabi Alonso
- Michael Owen
- Robbie Keane
- Jordan Henderson
- Teddy Sheringham
- Jamie Carragher
- Jermain Defoe
- David De Gea
- Lee Dixon
- Steve Bruce
- Ian Wright
- Sadio Mane
- Dwight Yorke
- Jamie Vardy
- Steve McManaman
- Cesar Azpilicueta
- Les Ferdinand
- Pablo Zabaleta
- Bernardo Silva
- Branislav Ivanovic
- Joe Cole
- Leighton Baines
- Peter Crouch
- Scott Parker
- Damien Duff
- Carlos Tevez
- Sylvain Distin
- Fernando Torres
- Brad Friedel
- Martin Keown
- David Ginola
- Michael Essien
- Sami Hyppia
- Riyad Mahrez
- Jaap Stam
- Nigel Winterburn
- Emile Heskey
- Darren Fletcher
- Christian Eriksen
- Kyle Walker
- James Ward-Prowse
- Antonio Valencia
- Juan Mata
- Mark Noble
- Arjen Robben
- Aaron Ramsey
- Romelu Lukaku
- Nicolas Anelka
- Luis Suarez
- Ashley Young
- Paul Ince
- Gary McAllister
- Phil Neville
- William Gallas
- Gael Clichy
- Nolberto Solano
- Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink
- Kevin Davies
- Craig Bellamy
- David James
- Mark Schwarzer
- Lee Bowyer
- Shay Given
- Gylfi Siggurdson
- Paul Merson
- Dimitar Berbatov
- Jonny Evans
- Olivier Giroud
- Tim Howard
- Mark Hughes
- Rob Lee
- David Batty
- Marcos Alonso
- Gary Cahill
- Jan Vertonghen
- Roberto Firmino
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