Definitely mate. And the way he walked into that 2002 Brazil world cup winning team and took that CDM role as an unknown, not missing a second of any game is pretty testament to who he was as a player.
Just a shame that like most Arsenal legends his only blemish is European club success.
Was it Wenger’s or Gilberto’s decision as didn’t he leave on a free? He was starting to look a little leggy his last season here from what I remember.
Didn’t help that we lost him and Flamini the same summer, though.
I think we could have done more to persuade him to stay but we didn’t really replace him or Flamini and only bought in Sylvestre as a defensive replacement.
Gosh, and we lost Diarra that same season, who would’ve been the ideal replacement.
Arsenal managed that situation really poorly. First getting rid of Diarra because of Flamini/G.Silva. Flamini choose to leave because he felt he didn’t got opportunity in 2/3 seasons before that. Gilberto was hurt because how he was treated during that season (benched for Flamini). In stead of a proper signing we threw two youngsters in front of the lions (Denilson/Song). Add Hleb to that. 2008 summer derailed that team. Arsenal never really recovered from it either…
Kaka in his prime (ie Milan) absolutely never played as anything but a 10. He shouldn’t be in your list. If it’s top 10, 10s, then yeah he’s in there with Totti…
Thank you! Yeah obviously we had a slight debate in the other thread, but I’ve seen him control games in such a clever way, different to Pirlo who does it in a classic Italian way, he is more like a general, and I’d say tactically more astute than Pirlo.
His best performance is 2007 against ManUtd, he’s man of the match in the second leg for me.
Supremely intelligent player.
@SDGooner yeah Albertini definitely doesn’t get enough attention. He was in a team full of superstars who took all the limelight but he was just so… smooth? Again, seriously intelligent and his little feints and amazing passing, he could on his day be like an even better Pirlo, you’re right.
Having said that, wasn’t there a story in Wenger’s book about Diarra not being prepared to put in the hard graft? Or am I thinking of someone else 
I think Gilberto was knackered when he left. There’s a reason he went to Panathinaikos and not an Everton or a Villareal.
We replaced Flamini with Denilson. That was basically the entire problem. We could have got twice as much out of some random £13m midfielder.
Wouldn’t be surprised. For some players the bench is extra motivation and for others it’s fuck this shit. I ain’t doing shit until I play. With how his career went I think he was one for the 2nd category. Because he did have all the talent in the world.
Laudrup should clearly be number 1 if you’re including him. He had dribbling and close control that was superior to Zidane/Iniesta and playmaking on par with Xavi. Iniesta considers Laudrup to be the best ever, he’s David Silva’s idol, Guardiola said “The Ballon d’Or is worth nothing, because Michael Laudrup never won it”, Raul and Romario both said he was the best they ever played with. Beckenbaur also said Laudrup was the best player in the 90s, 4 time CL winner Ian Rush said he was the best player he ever played with
Also not only did he win La Liga in his first season at Real after winning it 4 times straight with Barce. He went from beating Real 5-0 in 93/94 to beating Barce 5-0 in 94/95
For me, I put Xavi as the firm greatest CM in my lifetime.
Yeah, you’re right tbh, putting Zidane over Laudrup is pure recency bias.
Going to edit this to not include Kaka, Zidane, Laudrup, Nedved, Riquelme since, although I think it’s really definitionally murky, we can all seem to agree that they are 10s and and Xavi, Gerrard, Lampard, Fàbregas, etc. are CMs.
We can do a list of attacking midfielders and 10s and argue tediously about who’s a false winger/wide midfielder and who’s a 10 there 
@Trion will love it
EDIT: I still find it hard to actually get my mind around not including Riquelme, Zidane, Laudrup, who are players who all played as creative 8s for at least a decent portion of their career, but oh well, haha, I guess the best rule with these kind of things is what we most associate people with, and it’s true those 3 we undoubtedly associate with being a 10. Sneijder now is the one I really have the doubt about if he should be included or not.
I’m glad you talked about Laudrup. Obviously haven’t watched him live (on TV), but from everything I saw later and heard about him (the stuff you’ve mentioned too) he was an absolute legend and highly probably one of THE best ever. Had it all, insane vision, playmaking ability, pace, power, acceleration, ability to beat a man (or men) with ease, briliant technique, great finisher also… Complete attacking package.
Sadly he’s not mentioned too often.
To go back to the topic, I think he’s a number 10 too and shouldn’t be mentioned in this topic specifically.
But another player I haven’t catched while he was active and I love to watch his clips… is Redondo. What a talent. If anyone can write something more about him I’d be very thankful.
Everyone who played as part of a 2 man midfield should be included. Everyone saying Zidane was a 10 are wrong, well at least partly. At Real Raul was the 10, at Juve Del Piero was. Laudrup and Zidane like KDB and Fabregas can play as an 8 or a 10.
Zidane needed a number 6 to do the water carrying for him. But so did Lampard, Xavi, Iniesta and Scholes.
Gerrard was played as a 10 at his peak also, behind Torres.
The problem with the discussion as a whole is we are to an extent comparing ball winners with creative players.
Lol. Raúl was paired with Morientes or Ronaldo with Zidane behind them at #10 or from the left side. At Juventus Davids, Conte, Deschamps and Tacchinardi were their centre midfield players with Zidane, again, either in front of them as #10 or from the left side. The facts are there…
Two striker systems might be a thing from the past but very rampant in those days. With Raúl and Del Piero as second strikers.
Lol he’s just making stuff up now. Del Piero was rarely played as a 10 for Juventus. That was Zidane and then Nedved, Del Piero always played just behind the striker as a second striker, on the wings and occasionally as a 10.
I remember Del Piero even saying he didn’t like playing as a 10.
Exactly
That’s why we can’t look beyond Vieira and Ballack 
FFS the 10 plays behind the 9, in a 4-4-2 - the 2 are 9 and 10. Fucking youngsters
Redondo was fantastic. He’s really ahead of his time in that he’s a primarily creative central midfielder before that kind of thing was common. Was good defensively too. When I was a kid he was the Madrid player that most impressed me after Laudrup. Older Madridistas remember him as a total club legend, even though he doesn’t seem to have that much caché globally–guess because of his weird relationship with Argentine national team?–if I’m being brutally honest both on what I saw of both of them at Madrid I’d rate Redondo > Seedorf, but of course Madrid is just a small part of Seedorf’s career.
He was a 2nd striker though, which is loosely or strictly translatable to a #10 depending on which definition you’re going by, and Zidane was indeed behind that. This stuff is all really semantical, and gets really fuzzy definitionally, which is why I tried with the definition of players who played centrally in a 3 or 4 with (usually) 2 strikers ahead of them.
Well that’s a hazard that’s impossible to avoid, how can you do a list of CMs without running into this problem, you’d have to make arbitrary decisions about what kind of CMs Pirlo, Kroos, Fàbregas, Redondo, etc. etc. are, and I’m not really interested in a list about ball winners haha, because I don’t like them as much as the other elite CMs who do more.
Again, it’s why I tried to give the initial definition, because people like Zidane and Laudrup and Riquelme did play occasionally as 8s and certainly as 10s which are not quite as high up definitionally as a 10 or interior 10 (false winger. wide attacking creative midfielder in 4-3-3) are nowadays. I only see that or exempting those players under the agreement that we all can agree that they are more 10s than Gerrard, Lampard, Fàbregas, etc. are as viable really…
Indeed, that’s literally what the 10 means, which was also why I wanted to include Laudrup, Zidane, Riquelme, etc., because mostly they weren’t this. Problem is these players often wore #10 and were certainly called 10s, so it’s kind of hard to deny people associating them with being 10s, which is why I got rid of them, but I also agree that definitionally it makes almost no sense to include some players and include others like Gerrard, and that it only makes sense in terms of who we arbitrarily associate with a 10 and who with a CM.
Loooooooool. If this is some sort of argument or explanation what it entails to be a number 10 I’m fucking done.
To make this clear. The number 7 and 11 are usually wingers. But if we talk about a 4-1-2-1-2 your 7 and 11 are your centre midfielders. Like Gattuso and Seedorf were a number 7 and 11 ?