If you look at Van Persie’s career, two seasons really stand out - his last at Arsenal and his first at United.
Bar that it was all fairly meh.
Van Nistelrooy was one of the best strikers in Europe consistently during his prime years. Van Nistelrooy also played in a much more quality laden era of footballers. His contemporaries were Ronaldo, Shevchenko, Vieri, Crespo, Henry, Trezeguet, Inzaghi etc.
For Van Persie, his contemporaries were the likes of Drogba, Villa, Torres, Eto’o - they weren’t at the same level as the generation before.
Van Nisterooy, Crespo, Trezaguet and Inzaghi were all outstanding penalty box strikers and are probably underrated in the grand scheme of things. The kind of players you don’t really appreciate as a teenager playing football as they weren’t flashy but all had cool blooded finisher instincts and nous.
Shevkenko at his peak was serious too but had a bit more about him. He could play the channels and had a bit more variety to his game than just a fox in the box like Ruud and Inzaghi
Christian Vieri was another quality striker from that era too. An absolute bull
And that is what I want to do here. Compare players from slightly different eras or who’s peaks were 5 years or so apart as opposed to Christians v Messi or Cian a Lynch v Tony Kelly etc
After Ronaldo, Vieri is my favourite striker of all time I think.
An absolute battering ram but he had such a lovely touch about, those little dinked finishes he would do as he would outmuscle defenders out of the way.
That goal he scored for Inter against Parma where he shrugged off Thuram and then bent it in the top corner past Buffon on the half turn was one of the best goals I’ve seen in Serie A. He holds the record for most headed goals in Serie A I think. Once he lost interest and got fat he declined rapidly but he was a goal machine in his prime.
You can do the same with teams obviously as long as the eras are not too far apart-…
similarly, the argument above could be which player would fit/ change team x’s fortunes today.