1 minute ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Gol compared them to Messi and Ronaldo, i was merely shooting down his point.

We have potential with CHO, we need an improvement now to work alongside him. Can't compete with just potential. 

Yeah I agree with you there. We need a more established/proven winger as well as Pulisic. I think Pepe would be perfect, hopefully we can get this ban delayed and put in a bid before he gets snapped up by someone else.

9 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Messi and Ronaldo are the two greatest to have ever done it. 

Messi is up there. But Ronaldo is nothing more than a great goalscorer. Can think of at least 10 people instantly who are better than Ronaldo

18 hours ago, Sparkz said:

I literally can't understand why there appears to be so much negativity towards this signing, IMO this is exactly the type of signing we should be making on a regular basis

We've signed a 20 year old who has bags of potential in an area where we need reinforcements, at 20 he will only get better. Not only that but he's good enough right now to make an impact in the first 11

I see people moaning about his goal output, which is unfair when you take into account his age, there's not many teenagers in football who are hitting 15-20 goals a season. He's also played under 4 different managers in the last few seasons who all have different tactical setups and it's also unfair to use the fact he's been dropped from the first 11, Jadon Sancho is a big talent and Reus is currently better. Pulisic wasn't willing to sign a new contract so why would Dortmund spend time nurturing him when he wasn't going to stick around? They quite rightly decided to nurture Sancho instead

Pulisic can play through the middle or on either wing, he's intelligent, hardworking, has pace, great dribbling ability and very good technical ability. He's also someone who has a mature head on his shoulders and doesn't come across of a troublemaker. He has some areas he needs to improve but so does every young player.

The stick that this kid is getting before he's even kicked a ball is ridiculous

Him, Hudson-Odoi and RLC could potentially grow into a great attacking threesome for us

This ?

4 minutes ago, ENygma said:

Messi is up there. But Ronaldo is nothing more than a great goalscorer. Can think of at least 10 people instantly who are better than Ronaldo

Go on...

7 minutes ago, ENygma said:

Messi is up there. But Ronaldo is nothing more than a great goalscorer.

They are both near the end of their careers now, and Messi is undoubtedly a better player. But if it was 2003 and we had a chance of having either player at Chelsea for their whole career, i would have Ronaldo. It would not matter which team you picked around him, he would just keep scoring. Messi needs to be part of a capable team to really shine and show his absolute best.

20 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Go on...

Non-Defenders: Maradonna, Cruyff, Garrincha, Zidane, Original Ronaldo, Matthaus, Muller, George Best, Di Stefano,

Defenders (Hard to compare I know): Beckenbaur, Maldini, Baresi, Could maybe add a couple others in there too.

 

I understand lists are subjective, and to be fair even I was second guessing some of those names up there but the disgusting trait that is recency bias thrown out the window, you can make a case for all these players being greater. 

19 minutes ago, coco said:

They are both near the end of their careers now, and Messi is undoubtedly a better player. But if it was 2003 and we had a chance of having either player at Chelsea for their whole career, i would have Ronaldo. It would not matter which team you picked around him, he would just keep scoring. Messi needs to be part of a capable team to really shine and show his absolute best.

Dont know about that tbh, Ronaldo was outshone this season by a 36 year old in Serie A. In fact, Im pretty sure he was outscored by several people in Serie A this year when Juventus are by far the best side. 

1 hour ago, DannyVblue said:

It's silly comparing Pulisic to the 2 greatest players of all time in Messi and Ronaldo. 

You said you'd rather Brandt and T Hazard, but what were their stats like up to the age of 20? Nothing of note at all. T Hazard was on loan in Belgium for a bit and his first season in the Bundesliga as a 21-22 year old he only scored 1 goal in about 30 apps. Brandts stats as a 19-20 year old were nothing to shout about either.  

If you compare Pulisic to Brandt/T Hazard up to 20 years of age there is no comparison. Pulisic's current stats compare to Willian, but you're not taking into account the fact that he's only 20 and is likely to improve over the next 2-6 years - just like T Hazard and Brandt have. We're buying someone with a lot of potential, even though £60 million is a lot of money.

 

 

This was the point I tried to make the other day.  I posted the age-20 season stats for all 3 and it was very, very similar.  And I didn’t even make a fuss that Hazard’s numbers were from the Belgian league, which is obviously a lower level than the Bundesliga.

Right now Hazard is a better player, sure.  I don’t think Brandt is clearly better than Pulisic, but he’s probably a little better right now.  But like you said here, and I’ve said a few times previously, Pulisic is 20 right now - Brandt is 3 years older and Hazard 6.  Different stages of their careers.

56 minutes ago, ENygma said:

Messi is up there. But Ronaldo is nothing more than a great goalscorer. Can think of at least 10 people instantly who are better than Ronaldo

You can't really count out Ronaldo from any list. He is one of the all time greats. Look at what he has won and the amounts of goals he's scored. The trophies and numbers are insane. 

I know many people don't like Ronaldo because he seems a bit of a selfish c**t who cries a lot but if you are objective you can't overlook him. 

I just realized we are in Christian Pulisic - topic talking about Messi, Ronaldo and GOAT. What chance does young Christian really have... 

1 minute ago, evissy said:

You can't really count out Ronaldo from any list. He is one of the all time greats. Look at what he has won and the amounts of goals he's scored. The trophies and numbers are insane. 

I know many people don't like Ronaldo because he seems a bit of a selfish c**t who cries a lot but if you are objective you can't overlook him. 

Oh I do really like him, and hes definitely one of the GOAT players. But people are guilty of recency bias, and calling him the greatest player bar none is quite frankly stupid. 

31 minutes ago, ENygma said:

Oh I do really like him, and hes definitely one of the GOAT players. But people are guilty of recency bias, and calling him the greatest player bar none is quite frankly stupid. 

I think people are often more sentimental than recency bias. The people that say Pele is undoubtedly one of the best and likely never saw him play (not saying i have).

Messi and Ronaldo have set the bar so high by having literally everything in their locker. We'll probably appreciate them more when they retire and we're left with Neymar, Hazard and Mbappe, who i'm sure we all agree are at least a level below those.

I think people generally have more an affiliation with players they watched growing up, at least I do anyway.

i would take prime R9 and Zidane over messi and Cronaldo all day! 

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I think people are often more sentimental than recency bias. The people that say Pele is undoubtedly one of the best and likely never saw him play (not saying i have).

Messi and Ronaldo have set the bar so high by having literally everything in their locker. We'll probably appreciate them more when they retire and we're left with Neymar, Hazard and Mbappe, who i'm sure we all agree are at least a level below those.

I feel Pele is most certainly overrated tbh. Probably the most overrated player in history. 

Though I do agree that Messi and Ronaldo (at least a few years ago) were definitely a level or 2 above the likes of Hazard and Neymar. Mbappe still has time, but I can't see him reaching the heights they did, especially for number of years that they did it for. 

7 minutes ago, ENygma said:

I feel Pele is most certainly overrated tbh. Probably the most overrated player in history. 

Though I do agree that Messi and Ronaldo (at least a few years ago) were definitely a level or 2 above the likes of Hazard and Neymar. Mbappe still has time, but I can't see him reaching the heights they did, especially for number of years that they did it for. 

Pele invented most things you can think of when seeing how an attacking player moves with the ball, there is a good reason why he's still considered the best of all time by many new generations, he had no weakness as a player he was very durable, very skilled and could do it all so make no mistake, people that still rate Pele, Maradona and other legends do it for a very valid reason.

2 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Pele invented most things you can think of when seeing how an attacking player moves with the ball, there is a good reason why he's still considered the best of all time by many new generations, he had no weakness as a player he was very durable, very skilled and could do it all so make no mistake, people that still rate Pele, Maradona and other legends do it for a very valid reason.

Most people seem to rate Pele up high just because he stole credit from other people and is just one of those names you just say. 

Most people in Brazil seem to say that Garrincha is their greatest ever player and Pele was just lucky to be in the same team as him. 

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I think people are often more sentimental than recency bias. The people that say Pele is undoubtedly one of the best and likely never saw him play (not saying i have).

Messi and Ronaldo have set the bar so high by having literally everything in their locker. We'll probably appreciate them more when they retire and we're left with Neymar, Hazard and Mbappe, who i'm sure we all agree are at least a level below those.

I think in the era of the internet you can get a good gauge of a players (past and present) quality just by reading reviews and even as much as people like to mock the games FIFA always give a good representation of a player quality and FM even more so.

There's been players we've signed that I've known a lot about despite never having seen them play a full 90 minutes prior to arrival (Kante the main example) in large due to the above things. 

Just now, ENygma said:

Most people seem to rate Pele up high just because he stole credit from other people and is just one of those names you just say. 

Most people in Brazil seem to say that Garrincha is their greatest ever player and Pele was just lucky to be in the same team as him. 

Well I don't know about that, from what I've experienced I would say it's tough to say that most people in Brazil rate Garrincha more than Pele, also in general that argument of who someone played with is a tricky one, I can say that for example Messi had this huge luck to play at the exact time of the golden Spanish generation in Barcelona, or that Ronaldo was lucky to play with maybe the best Manchester United generation as well and so on...
But to come back to Pele, many from Italy and Argentina rate Maradona more, even so Maradona himself that never actually liked Pele that much at all said a few times that he could have been better than him. 

I thought for many years that Maradona is the best player ever, but then I actually researched about Pele and I changed my opinion after seeing so many that pointed out interesting facts about Pele and what kind of a freak he was of his time...But even so it's hard to rank players because if we look at a player that is at his best, that period for some might have been only 1 year, but others have been on the same level for more than 5 years, so that's also an argument for many, the logevity of a player at the top level...there you can put Cristiano Ronaldo for example, since he has been for so long playing such amazing high level football.

Anyway, the luck thing is tricky, but when it comes to Pele I don't think he was lucky in the sense of having good teammates, I see it as that he could develop this amazing talent because he was there in Brazil at the time when they had the most talented player pool and he just rised up as a result of what their culture was at the time, he wouldn't have been the same had he been from another country IMO.

5 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Well I don't know about that, from what I've experienced I would say it's tough to say that most people in Brazil rate Garrincha more than Pele, also in general that argument of who someone played with is a tricky one, I can say that for example Messi had this huge luck to play at the exact time of the golden Spanish generation in Barcelona, or that Ronaldo was lucky to play with maybe the best Manchester United generation as well and so on...
But to come back to Pele, many from Italy and Argentina rate Maradona more, even so Maradona himself that never actually liked Pele that much at all said a few times that he could have been better than him. 

I thought for many years that Maradona is the best player ever, but then I actually researched about Pele and I changed my opinion after seeing so many that pointed out interesting facts about Pele and what kind of a freak he was of his time...But even so it's hard to rank players because if we look at a player that is at his best, that period for some might have been only 1 year, but others have been on the same level for more than 5 years, so that's also an argument for many, the logevity of a player at the top level...there you can put Cristiano Ronaldo for example, since he has been for so long playing such amazing high level football.

Anyway, the luck thing is tricky, but when it comes to Pele I don't think he was lucky in the sense of having good teammates, I see it as that he could develop this amazing talent because he was there in Brazil at the time when they had the most talented player pool and he just rised up as a result of what their culture was at the time, he wouldn't have been the same had he been from another country IMO.

Might be a fun read for you: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1099349-top-5-things-pele-does-not-want-you-to-know#slide5

 

9 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Might be a fun read for you: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1099349-top-5-things-pele-does-not-want-you-to-know#slide5

 

classic you, classic bleacherrepport  no sense.

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

classic you, classic bleacherrepport  no sense.

Care to elaborate on any of the points in the article? 

2 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Well I don't know about that, from what I've experienced I would say it's tough to say that most people in Brazil rate Garrincha more than Pele, also in general that argument of who someone played with is a tricky one, I can say that for example Messi had this huge luck to play at the exact time of the golden Spanish generation in Barcelona, or that Ronaldo was lucky to play with maybe the best Manchester United generation as well and so on...
But to come back to Pele, many from Italy and Argentina rate Maradona more, even so Maradona himself that never actually liked Pele that much at all said a few times that he could have been better than him. 

I thought for many years that Maradona is the best player ever, but then I actually researched about Pele and I changed my opinion after seeing so many that pointed out interesting facts about Pele and what kind of a freak he was of his time...But even so it's hard to rank players because if we look at a player that is at his best, that period for some might have been only 1 year, but others have been on the same level for more than 5 years, so that's also an argument for many, the logevity of a player at the top level...there you can put Cristiano Ronaldo for example, since he has been for so long playing such amazing high level football.

Anyway, the luck thing is tricky, but when it comes to Pele I don't think he was lucky in the sense of having good teammates, I see it as that he could develop this amazing talent because he was there in Brazil at the time when they had the most talented player pool and he just rised up as a result of what their culture was at the time, he wouldn't have been the same had he been from another country IMO.

I do agree that its hard to quantify exactly how good someone is. But just looking at some basic facts that lead people to believe Pele is the "greatest ever"

1) His so called 1000 goals.. Majority were in friendlies against farmers and plumbers and in a weaker league, his official tally is far less. 

2) his 3 world cups..

1958 - he was pretty good in it and a youngster, so ill give you that

1962 - played 2 games and was injured the rest, Garrincha single handedly did a Maradona and carried the team to the trophy

1966 - Pele didnt win, wasn't even close to being the best player of the tournament

1970 - Not top scorer, not the best player and pretty much thought all round to be the greatest football team to ever be on a pitch. 

 

Anyway, I feel we are getting way off topic here, so should probably move on

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Care to elaborate on any of the points in the article? 

Part from the fact that you need to read what I said first where I already unknowingly debunked half of that beachrepport...sure.

1. He played with great players - only one problem, he was their best player, ever since he was 17 years old. Like I already said and it went over you head, Messi also played with the best Spanish generation in football history, Ronaldo played with probably the best Manchester United generation in football history as well, doesn't stop their legacy anyway.

2. Pele was the most fouled player of his generation, he started the World Cup with a goal and an assist, but then in the second game against Czechoslovakia they basically injured him on purpose, who's to say that he wouldn't have been the main star in that Brazilian team if he hadn't been the main target to get rid off by other teams, if Brazil won without him, they would have won with him either way, that also, doesn't stop his legacy.

3. Pele being "outperformed" means nothing, Maradona, Messi, Ronaldo, Cruyff all got "outperformed" in the World Cup, and that doesn't damage their legacy as a player.

4. Pele played 14 World Cup games, scored 12 goals, was fouled and injured in order to be stopped, that also doesn't damage his legacy, at all.

5. I don't really care how many goals he actually scored, at the time he was playing, he invented and re-invented the number 10 role, the dribbles, the way the game is played and was playing at the time when there was no red card as a rule - and still nobody could stop him, he played in Brazil that was stronger than most leagues in Europe, where Brazilians on the bench used to be starting in European teams, he won against AC Milan and other great historical team any given game he could play against them.

So to recap;
He played in a great football league for most of his career where he was obviously the biggest name, he could only be stopped by buchers from Europe but even so he was strong as a bull and had no real weakness as a player since he had perfect vision and technique and no real weak foot since he could score with both equally, he could fire free kicks and had a decent header as well, all proven against the best teams at the time period. Sure Brazil was strong but he was still known to be their best player, by the rest of the players and he proved it.

Maybe the real argument is that people till this day rate him as one of the most iconic players that invented several dribbles and influenced the game so much that even after 50 freaking years he's still talked about, for example Wilt Chamberlain or Michael Jordan that is known to be the best basketball player is still talked about today, just like Pele is in the world of football and that fact is maybe enough to prove that none of those names are overrated.

Feel free to search about Pele on youtube and see for yourself, never too late to expand your horison. 

Edited June 5, 20197 yr by Gol15

59 minutes ago, ENygma said:

I do agree that its hard to quantify exactly how good someone is. But just looking at some basic facts that lead people to believe Pele is the "greatest ever"

1) His so called 1000 goals.. Majority were in friendlies against farmers and plumbers and in a weaker league, his official tally is far less. 

2) his 3 world cups..

1958 - he was pretty good in it and a youngster, so ill give you that

1962 - played 2 games and was injured the rest, Garrincha single handedly did a Maradona and carried the team to the trophy

1966 - Pele didnt win, wasn't even close to being the best player of the tournament

1970 - Not top scorer, not the best player and pretty much thought all round to be the greatest football team to ever be on a pitch. 

 

Anyway, I feel we are getting way off topic here, so should probably move on

I don't agree, but by that standard Messi is far below and far behind the greats of this game by a big margin, which is fine by me. 

Anyway here's another take on that rant:

 

That bleacher report thing is dreadful bollocks ha ha, how they even claim to be "sports writers" is beyond me. It's based on absolutely nothing other than moronic supposition and made up nonsense.