A post on a separate topic got me thinking, who do you think are the most overrated players in the prem?

For me it’s always the young English players. In past times; Wilshere and Barkley.

Nowadays, Declan Rice would be a clear number one for me. Add Stones, Pickford, Alli and Lingard.

Dean Henderson is coming up on the sidelines too. Not done enough yet to justify the hype.

Any foreign ones worth mentioning?

Vive le Roy!

Good call.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

I really rate Rice - he’s head and shoulders above anyone else at West Ham every time I watch them.

Don’t think anyone really rates Dele or Lingard anymore - Lingard in particular is one of the most ridiculed in the league, Dele looks like he took his foot off the gas and thought he’d made it.. his accomplishments up to 21/22 were incredible though.

Maguire probably a fair shout.

I’ve always thought Coutinho was very overrated, and Firmino gets a very easy ride given how few goals he scores.

Would also throw Giroud’s name into the mix - never scored enough goals at the top level.. Arsenal would’ve won the prem 15/16 with any competent goalscorer, but he went on a 15 game drought. Also failed to score a single goal in France’s World Cup win despite playing every game. A good footballer, clearly very talented, but never been a top level forward.

The 'golden generation' were promoted as being serious championship contenders and winners. The statistics show that sadly wasn't the case. Indeed, not doing as well as previous less lauded generations

I view, your comment that this is down to 'a variety of reasons' as an excuse for what was in reality an overestimation.

At the end of the day it comes down to the quality of players and the reality is that they were over hyped in comparison to their opposition.

I'm not for one minute suggesting that they weren't generally the best within the English system.

It wasn't the 'golden generation'...it was the 'hyped and commercialized generation'.

Edited by Stirlingsays (23 Sep 2020 11.50am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

That doesn’t make any sense - they were serious championship winners, just not at international level, which is probably 5% or less of a players career. Surely it makes more sense to judge them on the 95%, of which they all had distinguished careers.

The statistics very much support the fact that they were amongst the best players in the world at the time. We can go into specifics of why it didn’t work with England, but judging them as overrated based on underperformance in a tiny percentage of games across careers of huge success is illogical.

I think you are straying from what I said.

I'm saying that they didn't live up to their promotion. I think that's factual and not in serious contention. The hype for the 'golden generation' just didn't come true.

Now you seem to want to argue around ideas I haven't pushed and then call me illogical, which is a straw-man

Now if you want to get into the weeds over why this supposedly championship winning generation didn't deliver I'm willing to hear you out.

However, I put it to you that in comparison to their opposition they were overhyped.

You keep going on about awards. Are you saying that English players won more awards then other nations at that time? Or indeed were the most valuable compared to their international opposition?

Edited by Stirlingsays (23 Sep 2020 12.42pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)