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Wasn't De La Peña a flop at Barca?

 

Flawed Genius is how i'd describe him, had some ridiculous moments but also had games where he did nothing.

 

Guti was similar, but like De La Pena i loved watching them both in full flight.

 

Guti stayed at Madrid for years, right? De La Peña was better when he moved on iirc. Bit like Riquelme.

 

He did but mainly because he was a youth product.... he was always a very inconsistent player capable of ridiculous moments of magic like De La Pena.

 

Obviously there's no comparison with their career paths but in terms of how they played i found them to be similar.

 

:thup:

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Better than Ronaldo!?

 

No, obviously not, but at his absolute best he was a better all-rounder for me because he was not only a number 9 but also a number 10. He could never put in the consistency though and that was partly down to his general attitude. Like I said, if he applied himself the way Christiano Ronaldo does, we'd be talking about him in the same vein as he and indeed Ronaldo et al, rather than a great player at some point which is what he'll be remembered as.

 

The day we signed him though, and that performance in the friendly at home to Barca... I dreamed of him playing for us and he did. Even though he was well past it when he joined us, he stood out massively as an extremely talented player, one we've rarely seen in our colours.

 

:thup:

 

Kluivert was a sublime striker, and he showed flashes of it even for us when he was a shell  of the player he used to be. The goal he scored against Palace when he scored from a Bellamy cross with an inside heel flick for example. Pure magic.

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Aye, we've had worse signings than Kluivert, for sure. I'll remember him fondly if only for those two cup goals against Chelsea/Spurs. The first, in-particular, was a cracking header.

 

The argument is that we should have made Shearer third choice, but both he and Kluivert had injury (or 'injury', in Paddy's case) issues that year. And, obviously, re Bellamy, Souness was batshit insane.

 

Wish we'd hung onto Robson for just another year and made a smoother transition to a better manager. Instead of chaos then Souness.

 

I bet the course of our history would be very different had we let Sir Bobby see out another year.

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Guest Howaythetoon

I don't think Sir Bobby wanted Kluivert to be honest. I think he along with Butt and Carr was more of a FS signing. I know Bobby wanted the Portuguese and Greek full-backs, but I can't quite remember who he wanted up front. It wasn't Kluivert though.

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I don't think Sir Bobby wanted Kluivert to be honest. I think he along with Butt and Carr was more of a FS signing. I know Bobby wanted the Portuguese and Greek full-backs, but I can't quite remember who he wanted up front. It wasn't Kluivert though.

 

Miguel/Carr. :lol:

 

Speed/Butt. :(

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I don't think Sir Bobby wanted Kluivert to be honest. I think he along with Butt and Carr was more of a FS signing. I know Bobby wanted the Portuguese and Greek full-backs, but I can't quite remember who he wanted up front. It wasn't Kluivert though.

 

Nah, Carr was someone he'd wanted for a while. I've no idea about Butt but you're right about Kluivert. He wanted rid of Shearer and to replace him with Emile Mpenza.

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I don't think Sir Bobby wanted Kluivert to be honest. I think he along with Butt and Carr was more of a FS signing. I know Bobby wanted the Portuguese and Greek full-backs, but I can't quite remember who he wanted up front. It wasn't Kluivert though.

 

From what I remember SBR was getting ready to drop Shearer for Kluivert and that's what got him sacked. Then Souness got rid of both Kluivert and Bellamy because they posed a threat to Shearer.

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Kluivert was going downhill when he arrived here but at Ajax he was one of the most complete centre forwards I've seen. Marco van Basten is probably the other one who made scoring goals look like art.

Agreed - Van Basten was terrific, that goal against England in the Euros(or was it the WC?) and the fantastic strike against Russia in the 88 Final showed just what he could do. If he hadn't picked up that bad ankle injury(which eventually ended his career) he would have been one of the all time great CFs...absolute class.

Kluivert wasn't far behind him at his peak but went to seed badly and was a mere shadow of the player he had been when he arrived at SJP.

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nah, he was spent. Or at least had lost interest in being a professional.

 

Lost interest so much he managed a far better goals-to-minutes ratio than those around him that season. He was still an absolute class act when he came here but Souness wanted Big Al holding the ball up.

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nah, he was spent. Or at least had lost interest in being a professional.

 

Lost interest so much he managed a far better goals-to-minutes ratio than those around him that season. He was still an absolute class act when he came here but Souness wanted Big Al holding the ball up.

 

Well Shearer was on the sidelines for about three months that season and Bellamy had gone by January. But aye Paddy clearly wanted it badly even though he only managed about 6 goals in spite of all that.

 

This post isn't a defence of Graeme Souness, by the by. But then this is me posting after someone took a dig at Shearer, so you probably knew that. :pow:

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Back on the subject of LDJ, I find it hard to swallow that we'll probably never get to see a frontline of LDJ spreading the ball with HBA and Remy running beyond him :drool: I'd love to see that, just once...

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Guest tollemache

nah, he was spent. Or at least had lost interest in being a professional.

 

Lost interest so much he managed a far better goals-to-minutes ratio than those around him that season. He was still an absolute class act when he came here but Souness wanted Big Al holding the ball up.

 

He was still outrageously talented but he looked out of shape, would stroll through games (even if he did frequently produce some beautiful touches when the ball eventually found him) and was constantly spotted either in town or in his club in Barcelona. He knew he was probably the most talented player on the pitch in any given game and pitched his level of professional effort accordingly. So yes, I'd say he'd lost interest. He couldn't even be arsed to stay fit.

 

That his goals-per-game ratio was ok was testament to how awesome he naturally was, not to his attitude or effort, I'd say

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Back on the subject of LDJ, I find it hard to swallow that we'll probably never get to see a frontline of LDJ spreading the ball with HBA and Remy running beyond him :drool: I'd love to see that, just once...

 

Aye that would be class, LDJ is really the perfect striker for those two really.

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nah, he was spent. Or at least had lost interest in being a professional.

 

Lost interest so much he managed a far better goals-to-minutes ratio than those around him that season. He was still an absolute class act when he came here but Souness wanted Big Al holding the ball up.

 

Well Shearer was on the sidelines for about three months that season and Bellamy had gone by January. But aye Paddy clearly wanted it badly even though he only managed about 6 goals in spite of all that.

 

Shearer played 28 league games. Kluivert's tally of 13 in all competitions was respectable enough for his pitch time.

 

Why am I even bothering, though. I went to these games, you didn't. Kluivert had a lot of class left.

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nah, he was spent. Or at least had lost interest in being a professional.

 

Lost interest so much he managed a far better goals-to-minutes ratio than those around him that season. He was still an absolute class act when he came here but Souness wanted Big Al holding the ball up.

 

Well Shearer was on the sidelines for about three months that season and Bellamy had gone by January. But aye Paddy clearly wanted it badly even though he only managed about 6 goals in spite of all that.

 

Shearer played 28 league games. Kluivert's tally of 13 in all competitions was respectable enough for his pitch time.

 

Why am I even bothering, though. I went to these games, you didn't. Kluivert had a lot of class left.

 

I never said Kluivert didn't have a lot of class left, like. He clearly did. My argument was that he definitely couldn't give a shit by the time he was here.

 

The fact I didn't see all of the games is about as detrimental to my opinion as your agendas are to your opinions. We're both total shit, really.

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