₦airaland Forum

~Sauron~:
A world class player is a player that will walk into any team in the world without questions.
Players like Messi, Ronaldo, Kaka, Xavi, Iniesta etc.

Your definition is way over the top, if we have to go by your definition of what a AC player is, then players like Lampard, Gerrard, Sneidjer
Anelka are not wcp, because they cannot walk into Barca first 11 , how you don't see anything wrong with that definition defies logic

~Sauron~:
Are you sure Song can walk into Stoke FC or Chelsea? Never mind Barca or Inter Milan.

Jokes apart only four players in the world are better than Song in that position- Essien,Lass, Yaya, Mascherano. he is in my book, a world class player

~Sauron~:
World Class?
There's no player on your list that can boast of a world class status!!
Song? Fellaini? Agbonlahor? Diaby? Take am easy now.

Shay Given is close but he needs to replicate his form for another 2-3 seasons.

Your eyes don dey see double, where did you see Fellaini in my post

what's your definition of a world class player

~Sauron~:
How can Valencia be a better player @ Wigan?
Don't be deceived by relativity. The fact that he was Wigan's best player is giving you a mirage.
Now that he's surrounded by better players, it appears he is not calling the shots like he normally does at Wigan.

Valencia has improved massively. His runs, his football brain and his positional sense.
He lacked all those @ Wigan where he just pushes the ball to the bye line or unleashes a shot like a twunt.
Valencia looks the real deal these days.

If I receive a pound for every time you have complained about Valencia's seemingly never ending deficiencies, I will be richer than

Duke of Westminster by now.

How could he possibly have improved when you once labelled him as the worst United player this season, if you wanna deny it, there is always a proof,

so go ahead

kay_pumpin:
To talk about improved player(s) this season is to talk about players who never had it last season.By this defination names like Song,Dunne,Shay Given,Bellamy et shouldn't even come up.Song started his resurgence last season,Dunne has always been good for Man City(his occasional blunders aside),Given has always been top-notch and Bellamy's case has always been that of injury.

I disagree with you, It depends on ones interpretation of the title and in what context, in this context, I'm talking about players that have gone

from decent to literally world class

kay_pumpin:
I am lovin Assou Ekoto,Carlton Cole,Joe Hart,Fellini and Etherington this season.
Valencia was a better player at Wigan.If we are to go by logic,do we say Berbatov is now shyte cos he's scored lesser goals in Man U jersey as against what he had in WHL?Plus if you bring even Rory Delap to oldtrafford today,he will be known more for better things that his long throw so Valencia scoring more goals in red devils jersey is no big acheivement.

God bless you on the bolded part

~Sauron~:
Gael Clichy is shyte.
There are no 2 ways about his talent.
3 appearances for France at the age of 24?

How do you expect him to get more international caps, if he has competitions like Evra and Abidal, try and be reasonable

Your competition will largely determine how many caps you are able to cop for your country

for example, Jimmy Hasselbank despite his exploit in the EPL could only manage 23 caps for Netherlands, he had qualities like Bergkamp,

KLuivert to compete with.

chic2pimp:
The reason he is underrated is cuz we don't really expect too much of brazilian GK
I think Brazil's back three is possibly the strongest of all national teams.
Ceasar, Juan(top 4 defender in serie a) & Lucio

You left out Maicon

Buffon and casillas have had a below par/ordinary season by their standards, you guys should watch out for the Mexican wonder kid

"Guillermo Ochoa" he is the next Oliver Kahn

~Sauron~:
Nah, he was rubbish @ Citeh but his combo with Cuellar/Collins for Aston Villa has been nothing short of breathtaking.
He is the best defender in the EPL by a country mile this season.

I agree with you on that one, tot I was the only one that made the share that opinion

~Sauron~:
@ Topic,

Antonio Valencia has also improved massively.

Nucca phuleaseeeeeeee, He was a better player at Wigan

~Sauron~:
I wouldn't go that far with Given.
He doesn't come out of his line to deal with aerial threats and that is a HUGE weakness.
Given is a bloody excellent shot stopper but i think Inter's goalie Julio Cesar is the best in the world.

Based on this season's performance, Given has single handedly won games for man city, his current contribution to city is similar to

Casillas's contribution to madrid over the years, let's give credit to whom it's due

ritchboy:
Its a shame Given had to move to Man City before many people recognized his talent. How on earth can he be considered to be the most improved player in the league? Shocking!!

@topic
Alex Song, definitely.

Shay went from being decent (was in the same ranks as the likes of Jaaskelainen ,Friedel), to being arguably the best keeper in the world

I can see where tayo ast is coming from

~Sauron~:
This list is rubbish without Richard Dunne.
He makes Terry, Vermaelen and Carragher look like shyte and for £5 million? What a buy he's been for Martin O'Neill.

Richard has always been underrated, he has been quality right from his man city days

~Sauron~:
2006/7? Clichy was shyte.
He made only 1 assist in 35 appearances for Arsenal and his defence conceded 35 whooping goals.

2007/8 season was his best season so far for Arsenal but it will always be remembered for his goof against Birmingham.
His lack of positional acumen robbed Arsenal when they drew 2-2 and their season went belly up from that incident.

[flash=425,400]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UQgVPWrwfQ&hl=en_GB&fs=1&[/flash]

You had to base your assessment of Clichy on 1 mistake, Roberto Carlos made a defensive error against denmark in 98, does that mean his performance

that season/tournament was below par as well

~Sauron~:
Stoichkov is not better than Cristiano Ronaldo, let alone David Beckham
Beckham scored 30 freekicks for Man Utd. . . . .He scored 2 for Preston North End making 30 goals from Freekicks in England alone @ club level.
That is discounting the ones scored for the National Team and the ones scored in Spain(La Liga) and USA(LA Galaxy).
Apart from Mihaljovic and Juninho, there's no better freekick specialist than Beckham in the history of football.

Go and do your research on a certain "Zico" before you make your conclusion

tayo_ast:
my pick.

sm might wanna say he doesn't play Champs league futbol. but wu's come close 2 ds guy?? V. Valdes??

Yer, I think it's a close call between given and Bellamy, both players have been central to Man city's push for the fourth place finish

~Sauron~:
Beckham should be ahead of Rivaldo, Koeman and Stoichkov!!!

Do you factor in free kick conversion rate or your opinion is solely based on quality of free kicks, whatever the case maybe

Stoichov shits on beckham 7 days a week, 365 days a year

Who is your most improved player(s) this season

Here are my nominees

Shay Given- (Man city) Arguably the best goal keeper in the world

Craig Bellamy-(Man City) I'm almost tempted to vote him as the most improved player, he has been nothing short of outstanding

Alex Song-(Arsenal) he has grown and developed into one of EPL's best dmf

Abou Diaby-(Arsenal) Enuff said

Ivanovic-(chelsea) Bosingwa's absence has hardly been felt thanks to the wonder kid

Gabriel Agbonlahor (Aston Villa) statistics speaks volume, 10 Epl goals and 2 asst in 25 games so far this season, impressive, for a supposedly dud player

~Sauron~:
Name one season Clichy has been fantastic in defence and in attack.

2006/7, 2007/8 and better part of last season, NO

dayokanu:
Beckhma wont make top 5

Mihajlovic, Koeman, Stoichkov,Rivaldo, Juninho and Ronaldinho are all better

Cosign,but no list is complete without the greatest set piece specialist of all time, Zico

~Sauron~:
Evra is 100 times better than Clichy.
Gael Clichy is Theo Walcott in defence. He just runs into blind alleys with no positional discipline.

Zhirkov is also better than Clichy.
Try another name. At this moment, Insua is better than Clichy.

Aba suara, I think you are being too unfair on the poor lad, he has been fantastic both defensively and offensively in previous seasons

His qualities can not be overlooked simply because he is having a bad season

This is bad news, I'm very confident Zhirhov will do a great job in ashley's absence

I can't wait for next month, when JT and Bridge finally meet for the friendly against Egypt

I foresee broken jaws and bleeding noses , should be interesting

~Sauron~:
Missing players all over the pitch cannot be compared to missing the best defensive partnership in the whole of Europe.
The defence is the most important part in a team.
We are talking about the best centre-halves in this league for the past 3 seasons NOT a useless Diaby or an epileptic Bosingwa.

When Arsenal did not miss their players, they have been perennial losers.
Same are Chelsea and Liverpool. United won the league title last season because of their defence so it's only logical to think their absence has undermined the team one way or the other.

, best defensive unit in europe what, Jesus wept

epileptic bosingwa hehe, you deserve a gospel a$$ whooping for that statement, name a better right back in the league

better than Bose if he wasn't injured

~Sauron~:
Exclude Man Utd from that list, abeg.
Ours can be excused. Vidic and Rio have only played together FOUR TIMES this season and we are in MATCHDAY 26 in the league.
Take Terry/Carvalho out for 10 weeks and letz see the results. Take Gallas/Vermaelen out of Arsenal for 14 weeks and they will be 9th.

United have also won the last 3 league titles in a bounce. Winning the 4th is unprecedented in this part of the world.
That United are a single point below Chelsea - that should be hungry for the title is a testament to SAF's managerial nous.
Letz see how things shape up in the coming weeks. 12 games to go and it's another squeaky bum time.

Gerrard and Torres have been injury plagued this season, Arsenal missed some of their key players to injury and AFCON . . . Van Persie, Diaby , Song

Chelsea lost Ashley cole, Carvalho, Bosingwa, so how is man utd's case excusable, abegi

FBS:
That is not the issue here.
When we win. . .you guys come and talk positive - normal
when we lose. . .negative - normal
But to say we don't deserve to win the EPL because we lost a match?
Did we stumble to the top of the table?
Burnley beat MU - did you see them cry?
Wolves just spanked Spurs - hello!
Hull beat Citeh. . .that is part of the game.

Now one toad is here telling me touches are more important than goals?
I've never heard such rubbish in my life.

To be fair the top four has been below par this season, but all i'm saying is, we are too inconsistent to be a champion

we should be taking atleast a draw from games against Villa, man city, wigan, and to think we have only managed to get 1 point out

of a possible 6 from chelsea-everton fixture this season is inexcusable

FBS:
It's just a game and folks here are acting like they have FIFA/CAF/UEFA coaching badges. I tire o. . .

You don't have to be a coach to be a critic,
so what if it's just a game, people have the right to express their opinions however they like

tayo_ast:
we didn't play badly in d Villa defeat.

We made 2 mistakes & we were punished.

We had chances but couldn't turn them 2 victory.

Today's can be likened  2 d Wigan defeat

more like 2 nursery school defending

Since the Villa game, I have maintained my stance that we do not deserve to win the EPL this season, if you are going to lose a game

atleast play well, it's a case of injury upon insult, when you play badly and lose simultaneously

nateevs:
This dude is a flipping bad loser. . .
All sorts of comments becos we dropped 3 pts. . .
Na wa oooo. .

In a nutshell, dude is a bad loser because he is voicing his opinion and saying it like it is ,

he better make we talk our own too sometimes

~Sauron~:
This is what irks me to the bone.
Anelka was the EPL's highest goal scorer last season.
If Carlotti plays him as a centre-forward, he will score goals. He can score goals.

Movement is the KEY.  Players like Anelka don't give possession away like twunts (Drogba)
When your opponents don't have the ball, they can't do much.
How many goals did you score while Drogba was eating corn in Africa?

I couldn't have said it better, spot on

~Sauron~:
How can you slate Captain Fantastico like that?
Ibime, take your time o.

captain fantastico co, captain shitty ni, JT has been overrated for the past 3 seasons

Carvalho has been the anchor man in that defence all along but then again, truth is bitter like they say

You want to be a champion, you play like a champion, our inconsistency this season is unforgivable

This team cannot win the league this season, anyone that thinks otherwise is deluded

Rubbish, I hope Man utd or Arsenal win the league ,