For the record, my top 5 arsenal players from those I’ve actually seen play.
- Henry
- Bergkamp
- Fabregas
- RVP
- Ozil
Patrick Vieira was an unbelievable footballer, think he gets left out of the conversation of greatest Arsenal players far to often… I suppose when discussing people naturally look to more offensive players as the stats are easier to compare.
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One of the most over looked in Wengers first great side is Marc Overmars.
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Break away goal at OT in 1998 
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It’s become fashionable to downplay Beckham because of the spiceboy image but for his final 4 seasons at United he made an incredible amount of assists. His final ball was probably the best in the game in that era whether a cross or a long ball.
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I called him overrated when he was still at United on his peak. Like I said his right foot was golden, but overall he was overrated.
Hyperbole on my part but unlike the rest Henry was much more than goalscorer, he was a great playmaker and a match winner by himself alongside being a great goalscorer. You can’t say that about Vieiri, Batistuta and Sheva as good goalscorers as they were
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I’ve argued it before and I’ll argue it again. Beckham was not overrated. He always had his detractors and those who pointed out what his game lacked. Other than a few of the usual English media suspects (why shouldn’t the media hype up their best players anyway) no one ever really thought of him as world class. Because he wasn’t and everyone knew it.
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I think he became vastly overrated when he left united. Probably because the hype got bigger and his lnput was not as big at Madrid as at united.
His work rate at united and vision though was top draw for those few seasons.
I think Henry was a better striker and possibly better player but Bergkamp had a touch of class about him that very few players have.
He also stayed with us until the end of his career which Henry didn’t and was the first player we had bought that was genuine world class.
When I hear ex players like Henry, and others of that era, interviewed and they are asked “who is the best player they ever played with?” a lot of them answer with Bergkamp, so it’s clear he was appreciated by his fellow players both for club and country.
Bergkamp is certainly my favourite Arsenal player but I can understand why people would say that Henry was better but that’s only my personal opinion.
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Everyone except for those who voted for him for Balon Dor and FIFA World Player of the Year and Florentino Perez
Football awards are and always have been a joke.
I’d say Beckham was overrated if people are going to try and say he performed better than Pires in that period I previously specified.
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That in itself is most certainly an overrating of Beckham but I think it would be very removed from a consensus or general/majority view.
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You’re absolutely spot on, I think unfortunately for him people mostly remember him for trying to engineer moves away to Real Madrid and then the Man City links, for me though he’ll always be a club legend and rightly deserves that status, as he lead the team during one of the most successful periods we ever had.
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I agree.
When ever I saw him at Highbury he looked totally in control, especially when playing alongside Petit.
He was probably the best DM or box to box player in Europe at his peak for us, and France and like Adams before him, a great leader as well.
It’s hard to imagine all those great players like Bergkamp, Henry, Vieira, Campbell, Ljundberg, Pires, etc, not only all played for us, but all in the same team.
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Vieira is a club legend for what he accomplished on the pitch but the below is precisely the kind of stuff he used to come out with that meant a lot of Arsenal fans are a bit sour to him these days…
He also predicted we would finish 5th that coming season (we won the double) and didn’t end up finishing outside the top 4 for another 16 years so he probably should have been the one who kept his mouth shut and not his team mates.
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Beckham had better Premier League stats but it’s close tbf
Beckham 265 games, 62 goals, 80 assists - goal or assist every 1.82 games
Pires 198 games, 62 goals, 41 assists - goal or assist every 1.92 games
Ozil - 151 games, 30 goals, 51 goals - goal of assist ever 1.87 games
Fabregas 345, 50 goals, 111 assists - goal or assist every 2.41 games (Cescs are skewed off the past few seasons)
David Silva 260, 53 goals, 77 assists- goal or assist every 2 games
Bergkamp - had a PL goal or assist every 1.74 games
And Beckham’s number will be skewed too because he won’t have made as many assists in his earlier seasons.
That also doesn’t include his CL numbers, which will be better than Pires curtesy of them going further than us most years.
So are we still trying to argue Beckham wasn’t world class with that goal/assist rate? @shamrockgooner And that ignores the fact he played deeper than Ozil and had more defensive duties than either Ozil or Pires who were both given more freedom where as Beckham got a shoe thrown at his head if he didn’t track the runner.
I was talking about a specific three season period, I thought I’d been clear on that at least twice now. Unless I have misunderstood and those stats you presented cover a three season period.
But if you want to talk about mitigating factors like Beckham playing deeper than others or having more duties defensively, let’s talk about his stats being helped by being the first choice set piece taker on free kicks and corners, I’d wager he took more penalties than Pires too.
And purely out of interest, in a non argumentative way, why have you just given a decimal for Bergkamp and not full goal and assist stats like the other players?
Also I associate Vieira with our failures in Europe back then too.
Not because of any rational reason, I was a kid back then and the first year without him we get to the CL final, dominating his team in the process just put that idea in my head and that association hasn’t left.