MrSharky said:
What a crock of sh!t.. :roll: If anything, Ruud is twice the player he was at Man U, because:-
A - he has added other dimensions to his game and is no longer known as a "tap-in specialist"
B - In Spain team's play real football, and as a result, Ruud's movement and intelligence has indeed multiplied.
C - He was 1 goal away from the Golden Boot - in his first season, despite playing in front of a midfield which was impotent for half the season. He never came close to the Golden Boot at Old Trafford.
:lol:
Every Man Utd fan (and anybody who watched a fair bit of him) knows that Ruud in his first three seasons was significantly better than he was in his final two. He was faster, he worked harder, he was more athletic, he dropped deep and set more up for his team-mates, he moved all over the place. He was
known as a tap-in specialist, but in
reality he was much more. It was a reputation that normally people who barely watched him play gave him. But after his injury that reputation became fact, as he basically just stood up the top and fed off the scraps. The best in the world at doing that, but half the player he was in the first three seasons. Anybody who disputes this doesn't know what he's talking about, simple as that. It was why it was basically a 50/50 split between the Ruud and Henry camps in the earlier years, but later it was obvious that Henry had passed him as the best in the Premier League.
Now maybe I'm wrong because I didn't see a huge amount of him playing for Real, but what I did see still looked more like the latter Ruud than what he was when we first signed him. Perhaps he was a little hungrier than in the final two Utd seasons, but he didn't have the speed and workrate of the first three.
Oh, and for your third point, Ruud scored 33 goals in 43 matches for Real this season (if wikipedia has it right). In his first two seasons at Utd he scored 36 in 45 and 44 in 50. I can't remember how close he got to the Golden Boot in those seasons, but if he didn't win it it was only because someone else had put higher totals.
MrSharky said:
Obviously you are one of those that think EPL defences are better, but what you fail to realise is that Spanish teams offer far more attacking potency than a hoof from the back. I would like to see the EPL's best defender - John Terry - in a league characterised by pacy forwards (Robinho, Villa, Eto'o, Forlan, Navas etc.) rather than "target man" forwards (Crouch, Bent, Viduka, Berbatov etc.). Then we'd see how great he is....
Firstly, Rio Ferdinand is the EPL's best defender, as shown by being superior than Terry in almost every international they've played together.
Secondly, Forlan did oh so well in the EPL, didn't he? ;-) He was considered a joke. Then goes to La Liga and wins the Golden Boot in his first season. See, we can turn things like that around to suit whatever point you like. I'm not saying that one lot of defences are better than others. It's just that some players suit different style of play and struggle in another (look at Shevchenko), while some players can go to any league and shine. Ruud was always going to score goals no matter where he went. Henry isn't as certain, and is also not the player he was (although if he does shine you'll probably say he magically became twice the player), but I think he'll succeed with the move.
And I don't dispute that if you go back about five years then both the La Liga and Serie A were probably superior to the EPL. But the gap has obviously closed over the last three or so. And with the finances in England getting even further ahead of the other two, and for the first time some of the top young latino talent choosing to go to England, the signs are there that it could soon be the #1 (if it's not already).
Oh, a last point. Berbatov is not a classic target man. He's more of a slightly less skilled, less moody version of Ibrahimovic. Regularly drops deep, passes the ball around beautifully and sets up other people. Closer to a Totti or Villa (although not as fast) than he is to the likes of Crouch and Viduka. But if you think he's a classic target man then you must have seen as much of him as you did of the 'pure tap-in merchant' that was Ruud in his first few seasons.
