to be fair, man utd sans DDG would be relegation fodder this season

Not necessarily saying I think goalkeepers are most/least valuable players but Schmeichel's distribution for United lead to a lot of goals on the break. Clearly not his defining quality but think an underrated aspect when evaluating keepers is their distribution.

Round 1 Pick 9: Frank Lampard


Premier League Career


West Ham (1995-2001)



Got booed, got called fat. Left.

'Arry thought he had a chance though:




Chelsea (2001-2014)



Bought for £11 million, it's a perfectly reasonable stance to have him as Chelsea's greatest player. While the issue of longevity VS impact per game basis will dominate discussion in this draft, the consistency shown for a large of number of seasons weighs heavily in Lampard's favour.

Doubts from many chelsea fans about his ability / potential weren't helped by a slow first season as Chelsea missed out on the top 4, finishing 6th. The following season, 02-03, was critical as little to no signings were made and the club's financial situation was NOT GOOD. Lampard was one of the better performers as Chelsea beat Liverpool to 4th, convincing Roman to buy out the club and clear the debts.

With plenty of players on their way in, it wasn't certain whether Frank would be upgraded. He wasn't and the 03-04 season was the first signs that he had potential to compete with the best midfielders in the game ending the league season with 10 goals. TSO came in the following year and the performances got even better, the goals were more frequent, an underrated creator of chances and excellent and clever distributor of the ball. His good positional play being more apparent later in his Chelsea career when asked to play different roles in the team. Only the legend of Ronaldinho prevented Frank from being crowned best player in the world in 2005. He's Chelsea's highest goalscorer with 211 goals in 648 games which only Ducksauce predicted as a likely outcome back in 2001.

As this is Premier League, Premier League stats count:

Chelsea games: 429
Chelsea goals: 147 (Penalty goals: 41, Deflected goals: a few)
Chelsea assists: 90
Chelsea champion: 3

He is only second to Alan Shearer in terms of goal involvement in the Premier League.

The period of 2003 and 2010/11 are his peak years and in that time, he was always one of the best players in the league. Consistency of performance is underrated and to perform that high level for so many years is a big achievement. And he scores a quite a few goals which is the only way teams can score points in football. The only way.

Youtubes of frank are annoying but plenty of compilations of goals, assists, passes etc to get visual interpretation of skillz.


Man City (2014 to Present)



Dickhead.

solid

Nice write up. Very consistent and underrated how injury free he was. I'm a big fan of players who don't rely on athleticism to compete at the highest level, as I think once this goes/they get a serious injury it can leave them half the player they were before, and Lampard is one of the best examples of someone who didn't need athleticism to make a huge impact on the field. Not sure many players have understood the fundamentals of playing in the PL as well as Lampard.

Great write up.

Round one's too early to take a GK but at least he took the right one.
Not a huge fan of the Rooney pick either but there are only a couple of strikers id have taken in preference.
RVN and Giggs are the two picks where I think there are both better players and better players in their position being overlooked.

Has PBAL been PM'd?

I'd always take an attacking player early first round for sure. I think the value of having someone like Ronaldo over someone you could pick up in late second round is much higher than the same with someone like Keane or a GK.

Indeed he has

**** write-up, didn't include the fact that I have filled in his ex.

Also, he's a ****.

NEXT.

Round 1 Pick 8: Patrick Vieira



Arsenal 1996-2005

279 games
29 goals

Man City 2010-2011

28 games
3 goals

-------

I think if you mention the phrase "dominant midfielder", Vieira and Keane tend to be the first two that spring to mind. The driving force behind one of the best Premier League teams in history, Vieira offered a rare mix of physical gifts and technical ability that has proved to be so hard to replace. As a genuine box to box player there was almost nothing he couldn't do, whether it be breaking up play, making incisive passes or getting on the end of flowing counterattacks (occasionally all in the same passage of play).

There have been few players in Premier League history capable of turning defence into attack so quickly and effectively, and was a huge reason why Arsenal were a consistent threat for major trophies during his time there.

Whilst he never won a player of the year award, he was named in the PFA team of the year 6 consecutive seasons from 98-04 on the way to three Premier League titles.

Lampard might not quite have the sparkle of other players, but he was just a workhorse of consistent high level productivity all round the pitch and scored tons of goals.

hey guys

about to pick - can't believe y'all did this to me

will start writeup, holding my nose

Giggs spew at 3, Schmeichel facemelter.

Bergkamp feels too high aswell although he was a great player to watch.

Since this draft is about making the best team, not a team full of players you necessarily like, I hope to be forgiven for this pick.

So, with that said. I select:

- One of the most dynamic central midfielders in league history.

- A player who, as his career progressed, showed he could play in an attacking midfield role as well as his natural deeper position.

- A player who broke into his side at a very young age and became their talismanic figure throughout the previous decade.

- A player who contributed massive amounts of scorepoints for his position.

- Though an actual premiership title has obviously slipped from his grasp a few times, he has won many individual awards including several PFA player of the months, and several inclusions in the PFA team of the year.

- I feel like CM is definitely the shallowest position, so I will go ahead and take, the one, the only:

SNIPED

also top 5 value, lolwtfbbq@bergkamp

I think Keane is being a bit underrated itt, and I think he's generally underrated by United fans due to him being an absolute mentalist as opposed to someone like Scholes who was one of Fergie's yes men.

Almost pulled trigger on Cesc but after finishing write up pretty happy with Lampard. Good pick

Superb piece of trolling @Pbal

Write up should also mention that he threw a slice of pizza at Fergie.

not once did i think pbal was taking philcollinsfan

lol@people on the other side of Baids on the GK debate. Massive lol at guivre.

**** **** **** **** sniped on cesc. If it's not an issue, let me PM Bertie as our board was wiped out recently

Fabregas is a solid pick, given that Scholes and Viera have gone. Seems wrong for him not to be the third CM to go tbh

Great pick on Cesc, strongly considered taking him.