and thats where I think you are rating wrong, you deduct waaaaaay too many "points" from defenders for their oftentimes avg offensive skills

Their priority is defence and they should be judged by that or the list is becoming very one sided (in favor of attacking/creative players)

Cesc for example while being a genius going forward is very avg defensively and needs a workhorse behind him to balance it out, Sagna is a beast defensively but very one dimensional going forward and therefore needs a proper winger to help him out.

The defensive weakness of Cesc doesnt really goes into your rating much while the offensive weakness of Sagna is the main point of his very low ranking. Do you see the problem?
You expect way too much from defenders(they have to be great at everything) while the attacking players can have a lot of weaknesses(riquelme for example has soooooooo many weaknesses) but still get ranked very high.

Regarding Scholes:

he's way lower than Huddlestone. .. Wat?

Can I just say that I agree with cashy in principle

BUT

the way Bjorn has constructed the list makes for more entertaining analysis. Attacking players are usually more diverse and provide better fodder for discussion and comparison.

I think rating it at this base is probably better than rating at the other way around

it's harder to find players with good offensive skills than players with good defensive skills imho

Yeah, I agree. I do think defenders generally get less credit than they deserve, but I also genuinely believe it requires more of a football talent to be the one of the best offensive midfielders in the world, than one of the best CBs.

Heading for bed soon so I'll take something of a shortcut and repost my introduction to the list.

First of all though I don't think I expect too much from them. Maybe too little even if we're talking central defenders. I'm happy as long as they're not bad and don't make bad mistakes! With fullbacks it's a little different though but more on that later. I remember Jonathan Wilson had some interesting articles on the growing importance of fullbacks and how important they've become to the attacking game.

But with central defenders, I just don't give them as much credit for what they do compared to positions that i think generally do more. Including contributing to the team defending as talked about in the first post of this thread.

Fabregas when he was one of two central midfielders did this pretty good for an example I thought.

And I think that's, if not more important then at least just as important as the defending the central defenders do. As long as it's not Silvestre bad. So if there is a midfielder doing that really well, as well as contributing a lot to the attack then he'll get a lot of credit.
On the other hand pure defensive midfielders in some ways are ranked like the central defenders in that their contributions also lean heavily towards one part of the game. Generally though they're a little higher since most will have some kind of other strength and the ordinary ones didn't make the list (Lorik Cana maybe a mistake).

Here is something from the introduction:

The central defenders defend. A lot of players in other positions also defend and do more on top of that!

Maybe that's too simple and then if we take Riquelme you could ask is his contribution to attack at a higher level than Samuel's contribution to defense? But then I think it just become a position by position ranking and if it's not that, yes it would easier, then you sort of have to compare and make a judgment on what's more valuable, what's more difficult. Requires more individual talent maybe.

And there I think for all his weak points Riquelme creates for and make team-mates better while Samuel relies heavily on the team defending (for him actually) or he doesn't bring much value at all. As good as he is at it, Samuel is just part of the collective effort that is defending as a team, while Riquelme certainly but attacking players generally add more individual quality I think in that they create.

Sagna being a fullback is different in that they're very much part of the attack on most teams so the majority of fullbacks on the list will be good attacking players. It's part of the job description. And if it isn't, lets take a very solid looking fullback defensively like Cuellar, and all they do is defend then they probably won't make the list for all the reasons above.

Sagna is probably the closest to that but if I thought he was bad going forward he wouldn't have made the list. I don't think he just defends. If that was the case he would have to be an extraordinary central defender to get on.
Like I say in the writeup he is always there as a passing option for 90 minutes and is skilled enough to never give the ball away, it's just that when I compare him to the really good attacking players, including a few other fullbacks, some underrated defensively I think, he just comes a little short, when up against people who create goals.

It's asking too much since it can be such a mind **** but I would also love seeing someone give putting the players so far in order a serious try?

For an example Cashy, do you think Sagna is the best player so far? I guess you do.

What do others think? Or like a top 10 or 20 of these players?

Will take a look at it

Sorry Bjorn,

Sagna
Pique
Elia
Marin
Samuel
Ramos
Lucio
Busquets
Gallas
Huntelaar

Sagna
Sagna
Sagna
Sagna
Sagna

--------- Huntelaar ----------
Elia ------- Marin ------ Ramos
----- Busquets - Pique -------
Samuel - Lucio - Gallas - Sagna

i just think this deep into it there is just sooo much fluctuation. ranking 1-50 would be hard enough, its probably slightly more stagnant than 150-200. but yeah im with cashy here, sagna is a baller even though hes a goon.

jep sagna is probably the best player so far

I dont think throwing all players(defenders, midfielders ec) in one pot is a good idea, It is tough enough to compare defender with defender because
a)It is more about defending as a team and and they therefore can rarely shine with their individiual class and often look better than they are in well organized defences and worse than they are in a bad defence
b)The quality of their opposition differs strongly(B. Alves for example I do rate very highly but we cannot be sure how good he looks in a good league where he has to play tough players on regular basis)
c) You need a huge samplesize to know how good they really are, nobody(not even you ) can watch enough games to get a proper view over all the classy defenders

The Impact of attacking players is more visual to us because they create goals by nice passes/shots or they dominate the midfield with nice dribbling/tackling/passing. Defenders are more in the background and most people dont even notice unless their performance is bad.
But that doesnt mean they have less of an impact!

Why are we in title race this year? We sold our arguably most important striker and only added a new CB. But the addition of Vermaelen and the rising of Song improved our squad tremendously. Even so Cesc is the shining point in most of our games THEIR contribution is a big reason why we are still in this thing!

So that brings us back to the orginal point comparison!
We can agree that Vermaelen and Cesc are both very important players who contribute a lot to our recent "success". Who is more important? Who contributes more? Who is the better player?(in this case most likely Cesc but you get my point)

defenders rarely get enough credit unless the offense sucks and their importance gets more obvious(like italy 06)

cliffnotes
I dont think a proper comparison is possible

lol wow so much talk without really saying much

still anxiously awaiting for rafa marquez and andres guardado!

Top ten of the players listed so far:
1. Lucho
2. Marouane Feillani.
3. Pepe
4. Raul Meireles
6. Sergio Ramos
7. Lucio
8. Pedro
9. Sagna
10.Bruno Alves


Bottom ten:
191. Walcott
192. Bojan
193. Lugano
194. Semak
195. Fanni
196. Podolski
197. Sigic
198. Veloso
199. Taiwo
200. Riquelme

I'm not saying it is right or wrong but I think Bjorn is comparing Scholes now (who Ferg generally uses to take the piss against the weaker sides) against Huddlestone now, instead of Scholes in his prime.

Well obviously. Scholes in his prime would be in top 10. I still think Scholes is a better footballer than Huddlestone.

Forgot about Busquet.
He is probably number 4.

Tony Meola in his prime

Not quite but here are some veterans in the highest average age entry of all:

138:Raul - Real Madrid and Ruud Van Nistelrooy - Hamburger SV

137: Konstantin Zyryanov - Zenit Saint Petersburg

136: Simon Rolfes - Bayer Leverkusen

135: Ze Roberto - Hamburger SV

Writeups as usual can go in all sorts of related directions not least the Zyryanov one which includes lots of stuff about current and former Russian Premier League stars.

Oh and I also quickly put together a new order of the lower ranked players a few days ago.

Didn't use too much time on it but it's a needed improvement at least. Link will be in every entry from now on.

http://serious-sports-addiction.blog...new-order.html

You really like Podolski it seems

I don't know where you got your stats, but Ze Roberto played in 29 league games last season for Bayern, 27 of them as a starter and 9 CL games, all of them as a starter.

Hm looks like I forgot to add this: I don't know who else will be included, but imo Rolfes is the best DM in the Bundesliga