Manchester United
During his first season at Manchester United, van Nistelrooy played in 32 games and netted 23 goals and scored in a record eight consecutive FA Premier League games. He scored 10 Champions League goals and was named the PFA Players' Player of the Year.


During the following year, the 2002-2003 season, van Nistelrooy scored 25 Premier League goals and 14 goals in European competition while leading Manchester United to the Premier League title. He also broke the record for scoring goals in European competitions for Manchester United in this season.

Van Nistelrooy started off the 2003-2004 season in spectacular fashion, scoring twice in his first two league games. He also managed to score his 100th and 101st goals for the club against Everton at Goodison Park on 7 February 2004, as United earned a 4-3 Premiership victory.

Van Nistelrooy was selected to play for the Netherlands at Euro 2004. Prior to the team's opening match against Germany, van Nistelrooy stoked up his country's already intense rivalry with the Germans by saying that emotions would be intensified by lingering bitterness over World War II. His comments were severely criticised by the German media. During the match, he scored an acrobatic volley, one of the goals of the tournament, to silence his critics and take Holland to the next round. He shared the goal-scoring lead in the group phase with England teenage sensation Wayne Rooney, who he now plays alongside at Manchester United, and was one of only two players in the tournament to score goals in all three of their team's group matches (the other was Czech Milan Baros).

Van Nistelrooy missed a large part of the 2004/2005 season through injury, but was still the top goalscorer in the Champions League with 10 goals. He is currently the third most prolific scorer in European Cup/UEFA Champions League together with Eusébio, with 47 goals, only behind Alfredo di Stefano and all-time leader Raúl.At the start of the 2005/2006 season,

van Nistelrooy returned to form, scoring in United's first four Premiership games. He has also maintained his place in the Netherland's starting lineup despite pressure from Bayern Munich striker Roy Makaay. As of March 12, 2006, he had already netted 19 goals in the FA Premier League, making him the highest goalscorer, together with Arsenal player Thierry Henry also with 19 goals. Though the dutch man had a 9 game lead.


He has now struck up a great striking relationship with Wayne Rooney, both in great form in the 05/06 season. The pair struck up the deadliest Premiership partnership by netting more than any other two players combined. Although as of late December, the manager Alex Ferguson has been testing a new attacking partnership of Louis Saha alongside Van Nistelrooy's with Wayne Rooney in a withdrawn role, mainly due to the lack of players in midfield.

As of the 26th of February 2006, Ruud van nistelrooy was dropped from Manchester United's league cup final, and replaced by Louis Saha who scored the second goal in a 4-0 win over Wigan. This caused lots of controversy but the player declined claims that he has had a rift with manager sir Alex Ferguson.


PFA Players' Player of the Year2002              Succeeded by: Thierry Henry

apart from champions league scoring record which henry is just a few goals behind Van nistelrooy please tell me what he has done better than thierry henry.

Ruud is a great striker, but Henry is better

Nightrider I thank you for your point.
Igwe is too much. The arguments in this topic is embarrassing.
And it reminds me of two people looking through the same tunnel
One sees light at the end of the tunnel while the other sees nothing.

nightrider:

how can wright be abetter goal scorer than henry, when henry has surpassed his record.
Even wright said he's afraid henry is going to double his record.

Please look how many games it took them to reach the figure.

Ian Wright reached the same target in less games, he was a natural born scorer unlike Henry.

From a true Manchester United fan:

Henry is a phenomenal player. End of story.

The problem is, most Arsenal fans for some reason hate van Nistelrooy. They call him a poacher, a landord, and say he isn't a striker.
van Nistelrooy is one of the best strikers the Premiership has ever seen. His consistency since he came to the Premiership has been remarkable (apart from last season due to injury). The only one who's been more consistent is Henry. If only Henry is ahead of this fellow, then he isn't bad at all.

To Gunners who are saying that Henry has caught up with Ruud despite being injured this season, statistics don't lie. Ruud has only started one game more than Henry. 23 vs. 22. Maybe SAF should bench Ruud a bit more so Henry can catch up with van The Man.

Stop beefing Ruud and give the guy his due.

To my fellow Red Devils, come on people. We all know Henry rocks. That's why we hate him so much.

Looking at the stats in Wikipedia, I get some interesting results:

Henry's striking career started when he came to Arsenal in 1999, right?

As at March 12, 2006, Henry had scored 205+38 (club, country) = 241 goals in 394 appearances. (All appearances date from 1999 when he became a striker)
This gives him a phenomenal 0.61 goals per game. That's better than a goal every other game.

His assists are equally impressive. 54 in 229 league games.



Looking at van Nistelrooy, similar statistics for him are not available but counting from 1993 to present (he played in a youth club from 1993 - 1997), he scored 209 goals in 253 league matches. This gives him 0.59 goals per game. Fantastic, yes, but not as good as Henry's.

Do these statistics tell the truth though? van Nistelrooy's incredible Champions League form is not taken into account here, and it could be argued that his time as a youth should not be taken into account. However his less prolific FA/Carling Cup form has not been included here either.

Can anyone provide us with comprehensive van Nistelrooy information to match Henry's incredible statistics?

New info from Soccernet's database!
It's only from 2001 though, and no assist information was recorded in 2001.

Nonetheless here the information is:
This is club information only!

RvN

Year Games Goals Assists
2001 39 36 0
2002 52 44 4
2003 43 30 1
2004 27 16 0
2005 34 26 4

152 goals in 215 games with 9 assists

Henry
Year Games Goals Assists
2001 37 32 0
2002 55 32 23
2003 51 39 9
2004 42 30 15
2005 30 22 2

155 goals in 215 games with 49 assists

[s]I believe statistics don't lie .
Henry is obviously a better striker and all-round player. They score approximately the same number of goals, but TH helps his team (note this means club!) out more.[/s]

Draw your conclusions

ordinarily, i'll pick Henry ahead of Ruud but there are some other issues we have to consider,

one-on-one with keeper, Ruud
headers,, Ruud
passing, Henry
dribbling, Henry

@ thekrafter

the stats does not show much difference but you didnt put substitute appearances into cognisance. those 215 games, did they start or what

All I can say is that Ruud Van Nist na AWOOOF man. Most of his goals na Awooof! Its just like 'hey, the balls about going into the net, make i chuck leg or head to add to ma stats'. Only a few of his goals are actually worked out. Henry, is just an all round striker. He's got everything. Ruud's just in the right place at the right time.

comechop:

All I can say is that Ruud Van Nist na AWOOOF man. Most of his goals na Awooof! Its just like 'hey, the balls about going into the net, make i chuck leg or head to add to ma stats'. Only a few of his goals are actually worked out. Henry, is just an all round striker. He's got everything[b]. Ruud's just in the right place at the right time.[/b]

That is all a striker needs.

Gary Lineker was famous for this.

During a game you will never hear his name, the only time you'll hear his name is when he is putting the ball in the net.

If you woke Lineker from a deep sleep he would know where the net is.

rich olly:

@ thekrafter

the stats does not show much difference but you didnt put substitute appearances into cognisance. those 215 games, did they start or what

Starts AND substitutions are included.

@ thekrafter

Thanks for setting the records straight really. It's only natural for fans of either club to beef de other striker in question. But de fact remains- What's de job of a striker? To put de ball into the back of de net,QED. Who cares if he uses his head, left leg, k-leg,crotch et al? RVN will outscore Henry any day, take it or leave it gunners (i think mosta y'all will leave it sha ). On the other hand, Henry can and will outcreate RVN when it comes to scoring chances. That Henry is currently ahead on goals in the EPL is because RVN has been on the bench. Game for game till the end of the season, RVN will score more goals than "DE KING".

P.S- When Henry leaves Highbury end of the season, and tries to catch up with Etoo in La Liga, gunners will know that too much premium was placed on good ol 'vavavoooom'!!

Red Devils Rule!!

@ Darqly,
U are the most constructive dude on this thread. It sucks when people say a striker only scores awoof goals. What is the job of a striker? Great strikers of this world as a whole are opportunists. A striker's role is to capitalise on mistakes from the defenders and goalkeepers. Paolo Rossi,Gary Linekar,Kempes, Carerca, ,Inzaghi and host of others were all opportunists.
The ability of a striker to read and judge where the ball will fall for him is POSITIONING. Van Nistelrooy creates goals out of nothing. He is the only striker that has been able to maximise the advantages of the new OFFSIDE rule. He is better in the ART of goal scoring than any other striker in the premiership. I dont care if Henry creates,assists and defend. Ruud is a striker and he does what he is expected to do.
@Thekrafter,
Ur research is a bit hollow and very obsolete. Ruud's goal ratio is the best in the world by miles. Although he has played less matches than Henry but u cannot match Ruud's goal sense with any other striker in the premiership. It took Henry like 9 appearances to score his debut goal for Arsenal. Ruud scored on his very 1st day of wearing the red shirt.
I doubt if u r a Man Utd fan cos all United fans all over the world know this as a fact. I dunno where u got ur doctored research from but the factfiles are in
http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=15858
http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=13501

I want u to compare these 2 goal ratios and tell us who is the best at tucking the ball away.
Dont get me wrong. The 2 of em are world-class strikers and they are very different plus they are very difficult to compare.
Arsenal plays slick and continental style of football while Man Utd has a mixture of traditional english football mixed with continental and foreign styles.
Put Henry in the Man Utd team in place of Ruud and i doubt if he wld score 10 goals in a season. Why? He is not an out and out striker.
Put Ruud in Arsenal in place of Henry and he wld not be effective cos he is not the type that can play deep like Henry.
Overall,Henry is a better team player but no striker can compare to ruud's impeccable goal ratio and conversion rate. He is absolutely phenomenal!!!!!!!!!!!!

@dargly

How funny is your post?

I initially thought you were going to comment as an outsider (because of the way you started your post).
But then as I read on, I realised I was reading nothing more than another biased comment from a Man Utd. fan.

Truth is as fans, we only include those points and statistics that strengthen our arguments. I do believe Ruud Van Nistelrooy is a top class striker. And there was a time when he was really prolific.

But Henry is a far, far better all-round player and has always been.
In all the teams he's played in, he has never been used as the top striker. At Arsenal, Since Wenger came to the club, we[b] don't[/b] normally play with a top striker(out and out) and I bet y'all can confirm that. There's just no provision for a top Striker in the game-plan. This is quite unlike Man Utd.

And I don't buy your argument that Henry is leading the scoring charts because Ruud is on the bench.
How many games has Ruud been on the bench for?
You have conveniently forgotten that Henry was sidelined by injury at the beginning of the season and missed a lot of games.
Like I've already mentioned, there are statistics that will conveniently bolster everybody's arguments but if we are to by the original intention of the author of the thread(who happens to be me BTW), Henry is a better footballer than Ruud Van Nistelrooy and will forever be remembered ahead of Ruud, by all football fans except Man Utd.'s.

I dont know why people keep compare the incomparable, Thiery Henry is far better than Nistelrooy, that guy Nistelrooy sure knows that quite alright. No wonder he can decide to stay in Man Utd where he can be bench for Saha. Save for injury you cant bench Henry, a half fit Henry on the field of play is enough to snatch a victory with his deadly pass, mesmerizing runs, and of course banana freekicks. What is more, Henry is a complete striker on and off the field, take time out to study his antics in the field of play, you will know that guy is a complete gentleballer sorry I mean genlteman, cool and calculating. Let us call a spade a spade, Henry is a better striker and a complete footballer than Nistelrooy anyday, anytime, any game, any competition.

@ Twinstaiye,
Ur views are myopic.
Most players in Arsenal wont sit on the bench because the entire squad is not large. How many good players can Arsenal boast of? 11-15 players i guess.
If Henry goes to Man Utd, Chelsea or even Real Madrid, he wld warm the bench conveniently. Dont base arguments on bench-sitting. Cudiccini will start ahead of Lehmann if he were to be in Arsenal and yet the goalkeeper has been on the bench in Chelsea since the arrival of Cech. Different team with different set of playersand different formats that suits the crop of players they have got.

Let us try and reason more objectively.

Jackal:

@ Darqly,
U are the most constructive dude on this thread. It sucks when people say a striker only scores awoof goals. What is the job of a striker? Great strikers of this world as a whole are opportunists. A striker's role is to capitalise on mistakes from the defenders and goalkeepers. Paolo Rossi,Gary Linekar,Kempes, Carerca, ,Inzaghi and host of others were all opportunists.
The ability of a striker to read and judge where the ball will fall for him is POSITIONING. Van Nistelrooy creates goals out of nothing. He is the only striker that has been able to maximise the advantages of the new OFFSIDE rule. He is better in the ART of goal scoring than any other striker in the premiership. I don't care if Henry creates,assists and defend. Ruud is a striker and he does what he is expected to do.
@Thekrafter,
your research is a bit hollow and very obsolete. Ruud's goal ratio is the best in the world by miles. Although he has played less matches than Henry but u cannot match Ruud's goal sense with any other striker in the premiership. It took Henry like 9 appearances to score his debut goal for Arsenal. Ruud scored on his very 1st day of wearing the red shirt.
I doubt if you're a Man Utd fan because all United fans all over the world know this as a fact. I don't know where u got your doctored research from but the factfiles are in
http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=15858
http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=13501

I want u to compare these 2 goal ratios and tell us who is the best at tucking the ball away.
Dont get me wrong. The 2 of em are world-class strikers and they are very different plus they are very difficult to compare.
Arsenal plays slick and continental style of football while Man Utd has a mixture of traditional english football mixed with continental and foreign styles.
Put Henry in the Man Utd team in place of Ruud and i doubt if he would score 10 goals in a season. Why? He is not an out and out striker.
Put Ruud in Arsenal in place of Henry and he would not be effective because he is not the type that can play deep like Henry.
Overall,Henry is a better team player but no striker can compare to ruud's impeccable goal ratio and conversion rate. He is absolutely phenomenal!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a true Devil but I won't MISuse stats to my advantage.

Henry only started his striking career on coming to Arsenal. Also it's best to compare them in similar leagues. You can't take a Nigerian striker that scores 50 goals per season and say he's better than RvN. From the source you gave, since they came to the Premiership:

RvN: 132(10) - 93 goals - 0.655

TH: 213(16) - 156 goals - 0.681

These are Premiership goals ONLY

They ARE close, but TH is marginally better IN THE PREMIERSHIP. His more impressive assists record blows RvN away.

Factoring in other club results (FA, League Cup, Champions League), RvN shoots TH down like a dirty dog. This is because of his simply phenomenal Champions League form.

Premiership FA Cup League Cup Other Goals/Game
RvN 132 (10) 93 11 (3) 14 5 (1) 2 47 (2) 39 0.73
TH 213 (16) 156 15 (6) 6 3 (0) 2 71 (5) 41 0.623


Draw conclusions and discuss

Jackal, are you trying to start another argument on here?

Who would be benching Henry at the Clubs you mentioned?

The over-hyped Wayne Rooney or is it the "World's greatest" Drogba or a fading Ronaldo?

And don't give me that crap about Cudiccini being better than Lehman.
I hate it when y'all go spouting some stereotpye bullshit.

Lehman won the league in his first season in England without losing a single game. Name one keeper in the history of football that has managed to achieve this feat?
In that same seaon, Lehman Conceded the fewest goals in the league.
Jens Lehman won the Champions' League trophy with B. Dortmund

So what have you based your comments on?

If you want others to be objective with their arguments, then you should be objective too.

@Everyone

Jackal:

@ Twinstaiye,
your views are myopic.
Most players in Arsenal wont sit on the bench because the entire squad is not large. How many good players can Arsenal boast of? 11-15 players i guess.
If Henry goes to Man Utd, Chelsea or even Real Madrid, he would warm the bench conveniently. Dont base arguments on bench-sitting. Cudiccini will start ahead of Lehmann if he were to be in Arsenal and yet the goalkeeper has been on the bench in Chelsea since the arrival of Cech. Different team with different set of playersand different formats that suits the crop of players they have got.
Let us try and reason more objectively.

Oga, i doff my hat and i agree with virtually all your comments but Henry will not warm the bench in Chelsea, i think i need him in Kings Road and we will soon tap him.

Looking at this from another angle, i will mention one tall guy who i believe is better than the two though he is not prolific but who has what we call a football BRAIN more than them, who has the best club record than any player in the premiership(i hope i'm correct). His name is

KING
KING
KANU.

Did you say King Kanu, I am game. I love that guy with all heart in me. But I must confess, Kanu is a better passer of ball, a tactician, a reader of the game, a leggy forward, a striker who can take on a defender, a gifted player, a deadly finisher as well as midfielder and of course a footballer who has nearly got all the laurels of the game. That is by the way anyway.
Now to the topic, something that pique me about Man Utd fans is that they dont believe anything about Arsenal is better than their own. For God sake Henry is far better than Nistelrooy, this to me, need no comparison. But for the fact that, Man Utd is a rich club which has money to buy crop of players someone will be telling me Arsenal does not have good players than 15. We shall see what becomes of Man Utd as soon as that finest coach Sir Alex Fergusson leave the club.

What i was saying is, Henry enjoys more matches in arsenal because arsenal possess a small squad of players. For instance,when Wenger bought Fabregas,he never planned to over-use him like he did because the players available for selection are very few. There's no player(if fit) in Man Utd or even Liverpool squad that will not play at Arsenal every matchday. I cannot say that about Chelsea cos the whole squad has just 3 strikers( Drogba,Crespo and Gudjohnsen).

Barca, AC Milan,Man Utd and Real Madrid and the likes have a considerable large squad with more than enough quality strikers. A manager has to resort to squad rotation to keep everyone happy. If Henry shld move to Barcelona tomorrow, Wld he play all the league games even if he is fit for the whole season? My answer is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.  Henry wont be a big fish in a club as quality-laden as Barcelona who has players like etoo,messi,guily,dinho and larsson. He will warm the bench more often than he does at arsenal.

@pie1ect,
I dont know of Arsenal where u see Henry as a demi-god and he enjoys Wenger's VIP treatment but If Henry were to be in Man Utd or Chelsea,Fergie/Jose wld bench him for Guisseppe Rossi/Carlton Cole.  These managers dont give a rat abt the status u enjoy from fans or countrymen unlike Wenger. I was happy u mentioned Rooney. Even Henry admires him so i see no reason why Rooney cannot bench Henry. The players are both good. They have the same work rate and almost equal techniques with few variances.
Only a stupid fellow will say Rooney is over-hyped. This boy is 20 and he carries the country/club's responsibility in spite of the number of quality players England has right now. U shld see the faces of English fans whenever Rooney gets injured in recent times. Everyone holds their breath praying the worst should not happen.
U cannot even beat ur chest and say Henry is the key to France's success at the world cup. He was at the last world cup and last euro championship and his contribution was nothing to write home about.
When u argue,try and broaden ur scope and look a bit far beyond ur nose!
No player is bigger than that club.

@Jackal

Can you be any more biased in your posts?

I would normally post my reply to your commets, but seeing as you consider Rossi and Carlton Cole to be better than Henry, I think it would be better to leave you in your fantasy world.

Thanx for acknowledging the fact that Fergie is the finest.
U have already answered the question urself.
Ferguson cannot go now cos there is no AVAILABLE manager that can wear his shoes for now.  The likely candidates are Capello,Ottmar Hitzfield(Ex-Bayern Munich Manager) and Guus Hiddink and most of em are still tied to one contract or the other.

Who cares if Arsenal is poor and cannot buy good players. What happened to the money made from Vieira? The whole excuse is the new stadium, ain't it?
Let Wenger enrich his team with quality buys and let there be competition that will always give every player to fight for his position. Henry will play all the 38 league games in a season because there's no one else to claim his spot in Arsenal. I doubt if he wld play half of that in Barcelona or AC Milan.
Fact: Players dont always sit on the bench because they r not good. Squad size sometimes influence the number of games u can play whether u r FIT or not FIT.

@pie1ect,
Must Henry be better than Rossi before Rossi can replace him in a match?
Pls be objective.
What we r saying here is ROTATION in big clubs.
In a club where u have 6 good strikers, can henry start all the 38 games in a season? I want ya to answer that.
Even Raul,Ronaldo,Sheva and Inzaghi sits on the bench so the f--k is Henry?

As much as i am a Gunner,i will only say the TRUTH and nuthing but the truth.

Ruud and Henry are both exceptional players. They r both world-class and very difficult to compare cos they play different roles in different teams that play different strategy.

I admire ruud a lot cos he has an uncanny ability to create goals out of nowhere even when his team is not playing well. Henry on the other hand must play real good for his team to win. Everyone else looks up to him to always deliver. In fact, Arsenal struggles when Henry does not play well or absent.

In the business of goal-scoring, Ruud is a master-class and Ronaldo(real madrid) mentioned him as the best and the most consistent centre forward in the world.
His positioning is 10/10 and he is very good in the air and he is a defender's worst nightmare.

However, Henry(on his day) can single-handedly run chaos on the pitch with mesmerizing runs,dribbles, assists and so many other thigs. He has a free role to roam and play virtually anywhere to lift his team. He is a better player overall but lacks the finishing prowess ruud has got.

Put both of them in the same team and they will give 50-60 goals in a season.
Ruud is special and Henry is important.
Ruud a better goalscorer and Henry a better player.
End of Discussion.

@ Reyes4eva
U r the best Gunner to have joined this thread.
May God bless u for ur wisdom and understanding of the modern football.

I hope others will learn from mr reyes.
His small contribution here is awesome.
Keep it up son. For u, i am a gunner against Juve(both legs)
I hope nightrider and pie1ect(fake gunners) learn from this

@pie1ect

How funny is your post?

I initially thought you were going to comment as an outsider (because of the way you started your post).
But then as I read on, I realised I was reading nothing more than another biased comment from a Man Utd. fan.

That am a Red Dev doesn't mean I can't be objective, I can and will give credit where it is due. U're miffed only because I let in on the fact that am pro Man Utd!

@Jackal
Hometruth there!! Henry gets to play week in week out cos he's alone. It's not so much about quality when it comes to Henry playing all the games, there's no one to give him a good run for his "Goals". If Wenger does increase his squad, Henry won't be first choice all de time and it wont be because he's any worse.

@Reyes4eva
I rest my case then. Different roles, different strategies hence different players!

People should read the original post before arguing and make sure their argument is on topic.

I have just looked back at the first post and the argument is about the "Best Footballer" not striker in this case I have to Vote for Henry.

But for those who think Henry can do no wrong, big lie!!

Wenger gives Henry too much chance sometimes, there are games when he should have been substituted in the past but wenger no go gree.

Some games Henry can be as lazy as anything and then he will be frowning at Reyes!

Na Henry kill Reyes confidence, if Reyes make simple mistake or no pass to Henry come see the evil eye Henry go take look am!

reyes don answer d question,henry is a beta footballer but interms of scoring goals ruud is d best

@Everyone


Thanks for showing repentance now. We are waiting for Pie1ect now.

@Viera
Thanks for your the  last- two-statements, it was statements made in heaven. True talk

Wetin una dey wait for me for?

Why is everyone suckng up to Reyes4eva?

- Simply because he paid respect to Ruud Van Nistelrooy.

You want me to admit that Ruud is a very good footballer but your over-bloated egos can not allow you to admit that Henry is a specialist at what he does.

Na una change the topic, nor be me. In my very first post, I said and I quote "Watch and Enjoy the masters at work" (masters being the operative word here) - which should suggest to anybody that I admire both players.

Anyway, Y'all that are waiting for me to pronounce Ruud Van Nistelrooy as the Numero uno, I'm sorry to dissapoint you but Henry is my Pick, any day any time.