He was. A brilliant player. Like clockwork. Very easy to build a defence around a guy like that.
He did well to keep David May out of that CL winning side.
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Vidic was rated well above Ferdinand during their peaks iirc. They were a good duo in the Carvalho-Terry mould though
That midfield was unbelievable, beckham -Scholes - Keane - Giggs
Ferguson had 4 reliable strikers back then as well.
Reliable???
They were unbelievable.
Sheringham was cute as a shithouse rat
Cole and Yorke were just unbelievable. I still havenât seen a centre forward as good with his back to goal as Yorke.
Solskjaer was just fucking lethal
I dunno about that. I rated vidic over Rio but the majority would be the other way round Iâd imagine.
Was henning berg much good?
A good team, not a great team⌠were easily taken apart by Madrid the following year and Munich the year after - both in the second round. You need luck to win anything and utd got a lot of it in the treble year⌠they were very lucky v Munich but that team had a great knack for pulling out late goals / wins.
And was there any other reason for cantona retiring ?
Berg was old then.
Reliable in terms of goals that they scored, they were very good.
None were individually really world class at the time is my point.
Winning when you should have lost, Consistently, is what makes a great team.
City for example have great players but arenât a great team. They very rarely win games that arenât comfortable for them
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Yorke was. Absolutely.
The ammunition from midfield then
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That midfield was the making of the team, no doubt, mate.
In fairness to Beckham, even after that, he was some man to cross a ball into the box.
A dream for a forward. Early, flat ball, begging to be buried
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Fully agree.
Van Nistelrooy thrived off it.
They went unbeaten in all competitions after losing to Middlesborough a week before Christmas.
They beat 5 PL teams to win the FA Cup Middlesborough, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle.
Bayern should have beaten them in the CL Final alright.
Vidic won player of the year in the Premier League twice which is fairly extraordinary for a defender. He was very highly rated at the time, above Ferdinand
Who would be comparable to Beckham in the modern era? I had in my head in some ways he wasted on the wing as he didnât have much pace. Didnât he thrive for Madrid and Milan in the middle of the park?
Beckham is from a different era. Theres noone like him now. He played flat ball from deep. Neville and him were brilliant together. He worked like a fucking dog up and down the right. Inverted wingers are fashionable now, so theyâve to take a touch back to get the cross.
No totally out of the blue. He wasnât great in his last year and was never great in Europe. The epitome of a talisman. His run in the 96 season was unreal though. Got about 6 winners in a row in the run in.