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Mase wrote:I still think a young Ali B would have been the greatest ever for us. We only got a glimpse of what he could do right at the end of his career.

He was some player wasn't he ?
I had an argument with a Liverpool fan friend of mine the other day comparing Silva and Gerrard and he said Silva was nowhere near......we are no longer friends. Slippy was not fit to lace his boots. Admittedly he had some great games, but really ?
Better than Silva....I think not !!!!
According to my mum the first words I ever spoke were Fwanny Wee so he will always be my favourite but the best...Silva, and absolute genius in my opinion and he is genius in game after game after game !!!
The nice thing is over the next four or five years we may be saying the same for several of our other players....and I have to say as a city fan that I am very very excited about the style of football we are playing we will score 6 or more in a few games this season I think.

Joey Barton made him the player he is. Thanks joey

I do have great memories of the Colin Bell times and he was the king. Comparing him to current players is so so difficult as the game has changed a lot and for anyone to surpass Colin will be hard for me to agree with.

In terms of pure skill I would say Silva is the better player but there have been many players with more dazzling technical skill than Bell. Obviously Kinkladze might lead that category but as an all round player I am still not sure Bell is beaten yet. He was probably the best all round midfield player I have seen. Great passing ability, read the game so well and seemingly always making the right decisions. Maybe Silva would win in this category.

An excellent finisher and the timing of his movement into goalscoring positions was top class. Silva is actually quite similar except that he isn't an excellent finisher. Unbelievable engine that got him in good defensive positions as well as attacking and I cannot remember any times when you could criticise him for dawdling back to help ( doing a Yaya) as he just kept going back and forward.

Not a great dribbler I guess but he did have the ability to drive forward,with or without the ball, from deep positions which opposition teams couldn't handle. Just a fantastic team player. Silva is too but for me just doesn't have the same all round qualities and value to the team.

But isn't he just great to watch.

Sparklehorse wrote:

Mase wrote:I still think a young Ali B would have been the greatest ever for us. We only got a glimpse of what he could do right at the end of his career.

He was some player wasn't he ?
I had an argument with a Liverpool fan friend of mine the other day comparing Silva and Gerrard and he said Silva was nowhere near......we are no longer friends. Slippy was not fit to lace his boots. Admittedly he had some great games, but really ?
Better than Silva....I think not !!!!
According to my mum the first words I ever spoke were Fwanny Wee so he will always be my favourite but the best...Silva, and absolute genius in my opinion and he is genius in game after game after game !!!
The nice thing is over the next four or five years we may be saying the same for several of our other players....and I have to say as a city fan that I am very very excited about the style of football we are playing we will score 6 or more in a few games this season I think.

lol, my mum always said my first words were Colin Bell :) Silva pips the lot of them for me though and he is so overlooked when it comes to awards and plaudits that it drives me to distraction but I have a feeling KDB is going to be extra special too, he looks like he could be the secret love child of Bell and Cruyff!

Piccsnumberoneblue wrote:I think in terms of greatness you have to include achievements and driving the club to success. And so that probably excludes the likes of Tueart, Corrigan, certainly Ali B, Goater and Kinkladze, much as we loved them. Throw international caps into the ring plus medals and awards in that sphere and you really are looking at Silva and Yaya. As a staunch Colin Bell fan it takes something for me to say that Silva probably pips him. A privilege to watch him over the last few seasons.

You can never exclude Shaun Goater

It's a mute point anyway given we are replacing silva with courtinio Hahahahahaha

Hutch's Shoulder wrote:I think this is a much better thread than the one in the summer asking if we should sell him as he unbalanced our team :-)

Good fishing..........

I think that point still stands.

He's undoubtedly a great player, whether he's the greatest City have ever had I'll leave that to our older members who have a bigger field to compare.

But the point made back at the end of last season was driven by the fact that for much of the last 4 or 5 seasons, we have been playing square pegs in round holes in midfield and getting away with it due to the outrageous quality we have between Silva, Toure, Nasri, all of whom arguably compete for a single slot based on their natural ability. It was also based on the fact, that Silva was rarely as effective as he could be due to the way he was deployed.

The question I posed regarding Silva, was that if we weren't actually going to let him do what he was best at, because we had to keep fitting players like him into a rigid system which left the likes of Silva and Nasri stuck out on the wing, then we would be better off cashing in on him, if we were only ever going to see him at 60/70% of his ability stuck out on the wing. I stand by that as a valid point.

But perhaps unexpectedly, Pellegrini has emphatically answered that question with this summer's signings, which should allow Silva the space to do exactly what that earlier thread was asking, to play him where he could cause the most damage either up alongside, or just behind a striker. Long may it continue.

Never one of City's greats, but I'd love to see what Robinho could do in this City team without having the carry the hopes we had at the time on his shoulders. His were definitely not big enough and thankfully Tevez was happy to take over at the time, but for sheer raw talent Rob has got to be up there. The guy made Ireland look quality!

Saw a headline today, BBC or Sky, I forgot, but was like:

City show interest in Coutinho as Silva's longterm replacement.

I laughed.

I've been watching City since the end of the 70s. Yaya is the most influential player I have ever seen. I'm not sure we would have won either title without him. Scoring goals away at Newcastle and in both the cup finals we won. Merlin is cathching him up though and is brilliant to watch. It's laughable that neither player has been Prem player of the year.

South Stand Balti wrote:I've been watching City since the end of the 70s. Yaya is the most influential player I have ever seen. I'm not sure we would have won either title without him. Scoring goals away at Newcastle and in both the cup finals we won. Merlin is cathching him up though and is brilliant to watch. It's laughable that neither player has been Prem player of the year.

Yeah. Yaya has to be the best all round player we have ever had in my 30 years of following city.

South Stand Balti wrote:I've been watching City since the end of the 70s. Yaya is the most influential player I have ever seen. I'm not sure we would have won either title without him. Scoring goals away at Newcastle and in both the cup finals we won. Merlin is cathching him up though and is brilliant to watch. It's laughable that neither player has been Prem player of the year.

Yes yaya has scored some important goals in latter stages of title winning seasons, but without Dave we would never have been in that potential winning position in the first place.
When silva doesn't play we miss him the most of all.

I do have great memories of the Colin Bell times and he was the king. Comparing him to current players is so so difficult as the game has changed a lot and for anyone to surpass Colin will be hard for me to agree with.

In terms of pure skill I would say Silva is the better player but there have been many players with more dazzling technical skill than Bell. Obviously Kinkladze might lead that category but as an all round player I am still not sure Bell is beaten yet. He was probably the best all round midfield player I have seen. Great passing ability, read the game so well and seemingly always making the right decisions. Maybe Silva would win in this category.

An excellent finisher and the timing of his movement into goalscoring positions was top class. Silva is actually quite similar except that he isn't an excellent finisher. Unbelievable engine that got him in good defensive positions as well as attacking and I cannot remember any times when you could criticise him for dawdling back to help ( doing a Yaya) as he just kept going back and forward.

Not a great dribbler I guess but he did have the ability to drive forward,with or without the ball, from deep positions which opposition teams couldn't handle. Just a fantastic team player. Silva is too but for me just doesn't have the same all round qualities and value to the team.

But isn't he just great to watch.

Very interesting article, Doug. I'd be surprised if anyone has seen more City players at close quarters than yourself over the years. Personally I feel our triumvirate of Slva, Ya Ya and Aguero surpass anything Colin could do for the simple reason they are the best in the world and Colin wasn't always the best in England. I agree its difficult to compare over time and I probably saw as much of Colin as anyone, including his debut and many of the big games.Good as he was, lifting the ball over Bobby Moores head v West Ham in our return to the first div, running the rags ragged at Old Trafford in the 3-1 championship victory, constantly tearing Spurs to pieces for years, I don't remember bursting out laughing with incredulity and awe like I have with these three. Colin, and City could be a bit dour at times, and remember we got beat a lot, particularly away from home. You know one of my themes is how some players always seem to escape censure and Colin had that quality, except when he played for England when he was often muted and crablike and attracted a lot of criticism. Of our big three, to my mind Dave is third behind the other two, but still in my mind third best ever City player. Of our old big four, Franny is the one who would easily get a game today, but only if he gave up the fags!

Mase wrote:Never one of City's greats, but I'd love to see what Robinho could do in this City team without having the carry the hopes we had at the time on his shoulders. His were definitely not big enough and thankfully Tevez was happy to take over at the time, but for sheer raw talent Rob has got to be up there. The guy made Ireland look quality!

Robinho was the only one good enough to play with Stevie!

I'm forever disappointed that Stevie and Dave never wore the same coloured shirt on a pitch.

This probably won't sound as I mean it to, but for my money silva is our best player when the team is firing on all cylinders but yaya was the one who was most likely to drag us up a notch when we needed it.

I'm by no means saying silva is a fair weather player, more like he's the better team player. He wouldn't look out of place at Barcelona controlling a game in the middle and getting far more praise than he does here for some reason. The only thing missing is that ability to grab the game by the scruff when we are desperate for a goal.

The other two that had that ability are tevez and Aguero. Aguero is the superior player on their best day, but tevez was far more robust and again did more with less to drag the team over the line.

I'm just lucky to have seen this calibre of player at my club to be honest and can't really split these 4.

Robinho gets special mention as the most exciting for me. God how I wish he'd worked harder and been a city legend.

Just voted City Player of The Season - for the first time!

https://www.mancity.com/news/first-team ... 6051208767

johnny crossan wrote:Just voted City Player of The Season - for the first time!

https://www.mancity.com/news/first-team ... 6051208767

Thanks for saving me the click. Watch the video to find out? Really, club's marketing stooges?

johnny crossan wrote:Just voted City Player of The Season - for the first time!

https://www.mancity.com/news/first-team ... 6051208767

" for the first time! " ridiculous, isn't it!

We complain about the PFA awards and yet it's taken us this long to honour arguably our greatest ever with this award.

Foreverinbluedreams wrote:

johnny crossan wrote:Just voted City Player of The Season - for the first time!

https://www.mancity.com/news/first-team ... 6051208767

" for the first time! " ridiculous, isn't it!

We complain about the PFA awards and yet it's taken us this long to honour arguably our greatest ever with this award.

It does seem a bit odd, yes. People in general like goal scorers I guess. Very glad Big Dave got it though.

johnny crossan wrote:Just voted City Player of The Season - for the first time!

https://www.mancity.com/news/first-team ... 6051208767

Great news.

i agree with South Stand Balti, Yaya has been the most influential of the current crop. Bell is the best I've seen, but Peter Doherty is probably the best that has played for us (although the Second World War took his best years away from him).