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If you could pick just one...

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Cam said:
Would love to see what Jimmy Greaves could do in this team. Shame he got all Spursy, but the man had a scoring record that few can match.

Dixon and Osgood would be good shouts too.
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He still raised his son and Grandson up as Blues.

Once a Blue always a Blue I guess

 
My old man would have Charlie Cooke, but since I picked him its Jimmy Greaves or Ossie.

 
What a terrific question especially with so many great players to choose from.....Lawton, Bentley, Osgood, Hollins, Harris, Zola, Webb, Harris, Cooke, Greaves, Dixon, Tambling et al......but as much as Cooke is my favourite of all time I will have to go with Tambling a great statesman for the club and game...with Zola and Osgood coming a close second

 
byatt said:
At first i immediately thought Dan Petrescu at right-back, but then it dawned on me about the lack of firepower we've got at the moment, and started to consider the likes of Hernan Crespo at his very best, Hasselbaink for obvious reasons, Mark Stein who i think would score a hatful of goals nowadays, but with the players we have at disposal, and the variety of goals he used to score, i think Kerry Dixon would be the best choice to fit into this new look side.
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I loved King Kerry then and still do, but as an all round forward who could do everything Drogba was way in front of him. The only centre-forward we have ever had in our history who was, in his prime, the best in the world.

Drogba.

 
I hope Chopper Harris isn't reading this thread. I admit he stuck in a few hard tackles but he was a really skillful player and a great passer of the ball.

My choice of player though would be Peter Bonetti if we didn't have Petr Cech. I was lucky to see him in his prime and he was incredible. His nickname "The Cat" was well deserved as he literally leapt through the air to make yet another great save. All other goalkeepers paled in comparison until Cech imo.

However, since we have Cech I would go for Osgood. Reasons as stated above. By the way how many of the current squad are two footed players? Stuns me how some professional footballers are so one footed. Drogba was great but his touch often let him down. Yep the KIng for me (Charlie Cooke and Zola close joint third).

 
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shedhead said:
I hope Chopper Harris isn't reading this thread. I admit he stuck in a few hard tackles but he was a really skillful player and a great passer of the ball.
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I agree, Ron was a very under-rated footballer, but played for England at every level except full international. His footballing ability was always overshadowed by his hard-man reputation, which was a shame although inevitable.

Mind you, he was one hard f*cker in the tackle! :wink:

 
Hard question tbh.

I'd love to see Kerry in the side due to the fact that he was an absolute handful, big, strong and pacey. I agree with just that he was not in the same league as Drogba but over the last decade I've oftentimes found myself thinking "I wonder how Kerry would have done in this side, surrounded by 9 world class outfield players?".

Personally I think Kerry would have done the business. Natural goalscorer, he would have found a way to contribute to the team with his all round play too.

 
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i've always thought it would have been interesting to see alan hudson play with modern equipment and on modern pitches. he, including a few other players (george best for example), was light years ahead of the other players in england technically.

 
Tambling for sure

Imagine Bellamy pace and tevez strength, and shot like shearer in both feet, and balance of nasties

I am not kidding, he could easily play in 422 as a striker, 433 as wide striker (bit like hulk) or in a 4231

He had all the assets and big heart and decent attitude

Not much video of him apart from villa away in 1966 when he got 5 on match of the day... It's on YouTube

Gambling for me no question

 
George Best, Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke, Alan Hudson and many more brilliantly gifted players from that era played on pitches that were little better than mud baths for most of a season, and got hacked down relentlessly by hard-men defenders. Can you imagine those players plying their trade now, on perfect pitches and hardly any tackling allowed? They'd be priceless.

I'd love to see the likes of Ronaldo and Messi playing under those kind of conditions, they'd run off home crying after five minutes.

 
BlueBeard said:
George Best, Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke, Alan Hudson and many more brilliantly gifted players from that era played on pitches that were little better than mud baths for most of a season, and got hacked down relentlessly by hard-men defenders. Can you imagine those players plying their trade now, on perfect pitches and hardly any tackling allowed? They'd be priceless.

I'd love to see the likes of Ronaldo and Messi playing under those kind of conditions, they'd run off home crying after five minutes.
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My point exactly.

 
BlueBeard said:
George Best, Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke, Alan Hudson and many more brilliantly gifted players from that era played on pitches that were little better than mud baths for most of a season, and got hacked down relentlessly by hard-men defenders. Can you imagine those players plying their trade now, on perfect pitches and hardly any tackling allowed? They'd be priceless.

I'd love to see the likes of Ronaldo and Messi playing under those kind of conditions, they'd run off home crying after five minutes.
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But they wouldn't be able to last 90 minutes and wouldn't be able to cope with the speed of todays game.

 
BlueBeard said:
Sorry, but that's just bo**ocks
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Well they wouldn't. They wasn't on the diets or fitness regimes that players are on today. In the same way that today's players never grew up on sh*t pitches and getting kicked.

If Ronaldo and Messi grew up on sh*t pitches and getting kicked they would still have been good players because they would have known no different. Likewise if Best, Osgood, Hudson & Cooke had today's facilities they would have been good players. But you can't compare players from such different eras because football is completely different to what it was then.

 
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Zola would be the obvious choice but then I think we have enough currently in the "No 10" dept, even if they will never be quite as great as the little genius.

What we are still lacking is a tricky winger who can beat defenders and put in an accurate cross 9 times out of ten. That's why I would choose wee Pat Nevin as we haven't had a player anywhere near as good at doing what he did since the day he left.

 
If its the current squad, Id go for a striker - and therefore it would have to be King Kerry.

He'd get 30 goals a season with the current squad feeding him.

 
My idol when I first started going was Butch Wilkins. The day he signed for Utd was one of the saddest of my life, but I didn't begrudge him, we got good money, and we had been relegated, through no fault of his, as he carried the team most of the time. Utd ruined him IMO, but I also lay some of the blame at his door. He took on too much responsibility for the team, curtailing his own attacking instincts, and he started to lack ambition as a player, choosing to play safe rather than express himself fully. He still remained a class act but he could have been so much more. Still, 90 odd caps for England ain't bad.

If we could have him in his Chelsea guise, I don't think we'd hear too much bitching about our midfield.

 
TomW said:
Well they wouldn't. They wasn't on the diets or fitness regimes that players are on today.
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No, they weren't on the diets or fitness regimes that todays players are on - but they didn't need to be. Most players in those days had a steak dinner before a game, and their training was more stamina oriented than anything else. Players like Johnny Hollins and Alan Hudson ran non-stop for 90 minutes on pitches that resembled the Somme, their stamina would put that of todays players to shame.

And though they may not have been physically stronger than todays players, they were tougher.

Many's the time I watched Alan Hudson chase back 60 yards to collect the ball, beat his man, stop to light up a Woodbine, dribble round a couple of opposition midfielders, take a long slurp of Guinness, pass the ball to Ossie, then shag a dolly bird on the touchline - those were the days!

 
Davey Baby said:
My idol when I first started going was Butch Wilkins. The day he signed for Utd was one of the saddest of my life, but I didn't begrudge him, we got good money, and we had been relegated, through no fault of his, as he carried the team most of the time. Utd ruined him IMO, but I also lay some of the blame at his door. He took on too much responsibility for the team, curtailing his own attacking instincts, and he started to lack ambition as a player, choosing to play safe rather than express himself fully. He still remained a class act but he could have been so much more. Still, 90 odd caps for England ain't bad.

If we could have him in his Chelsea guise, I don't think we'd hear too much bitching about our midfield.
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You've taken the words right out of my old mans mouth, Butch was at Chelsea before my time but my Dad says the exact same thing. At Chelsea he was a great midfielder who loved a shot and an attacking pass. The "crab" nickname that he got at United was not a reflection of the flair that he had in his Chelsea career.

In fact it winds my Dad up rotten when he hears people refer to Ray as a sideways passer.

 
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