[Mikus LFC]

To be fair it was close last night:

Messi: 686 points
Van Dijk: 679 points
Ronaldo: 476 points

And interestingly, Van Dijk received more first choice votes than anyone last night:

Van Dijk: 69
Messi: 61
Ronaldo: 17

Should have been first past the post voting system 🙂

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[Mikus LFC]

The point I’ve sought to make in all this is that whilst Messi continues to perform at an incredible level and keeps racking up the goals and assists, he and Ronaldo have been recognised continually, year after year for the past decade or so. This year a defender performed at the highest level he could, showing incredible leadership along with it, as well as some incredible stats. Even the other day he banged both our goals in. What more can the guy do?? The authorities had the opportunity to officially recognise such incredible defensive and leadership qualities. But it didn’t. It went with Messi…again, probably because he’s more well known and Van Dijk has only just recently established himself. These things take time.

But it all just felt a bit like an establishment rewarding one of their own again.

On the flip side, had Van Dijk won, it could have put him too much on a perch and so more in focus and so more pressure. So I can very much live without him winning.

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[Mikus LFC]

Nine, just to be clear, I’m not bitter about it. Messi is obviously still a phenomenal player. But I just think in such situations people tend to conform with conventional wisdom and don’t always look at the bigger picture.

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[Mikus LFC]

Steveo, Ronaldo arguably had it more difficult in his early days at Madrid where the team was not yet built for him and he had to establish himself amongst all the other egos, yet he improved his scoring stats immediately.

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[Mikus LFC]

Ed, yes it’s true Ronaldo was obviously still improving but if you look at his immediate stats before and after joining Madrid I think you can still make a reasonable comparison. He was a big big player in both those teams.

As for the CL games with Messi scoring against English teams, we are talking about a cup here which is a different mentality to a league game and generally both teams have to go for it more so the games I think will be that bit more open.

I admit trying to make a fair comparison in these things is difficult, I’m sure we’ll generally agree with that. But I’d argue the Ronaldo comparison is probably the best we’re going to get and we do see an improvement and a very quick one at that.

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[Mikus LFC]

Ed, one of the few examples we can even attempt to look at in terms of comparison is Ronaldo at Man Utd and then Madrid. If you compare his last few seasons at Utd, and his first few at Madrid, I think there is a marked improvement.

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[Mikus LFC]

Ed, that link admits that a lot of those La Liga players went to bigger teams in the premier league so that is not a like for like comparison. The article, written in 2015, then uses Leicester as an argument that it wasn’t just these players coming to big clubs – yet Leicester won the premier league the season after – which followed their spirited relegation battle. And Swansea, the other example, were one of the better sides at that point in the league whereas Rayo finished 15th in La Liga in 2012-13 regarding the Michu comparison. This context is not given in the article.

As for Suarez and Bale going the other way – they both had to contend with Messi and Ronaldo which both of those teams were pretty much built around and had huge influence over. Whereas before, they were both the main men in their respective teams.

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[Mikus LFC]

Steveo, La Liga is not the strongest league in the world in terms of defences. Not saying Messi always had it easy but just a bit of context needed I think. Contrast Van Dijk’s record in a strong and very physical league and the fact he went over 60 games without being dribbled past. Had that ever happened before?

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[Mikus LFC]

Banjo, genuinely wasn’t trying to sound bitter regarding the voting system but such a system does show its drawbacks for the reasons I gave.

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[Mikus LFC]

Ed, perhaps I got a bit over giddy in saying the best in decades but I do think the *level* he has been at and the *attributes* he currently has are matched by very, very few. Also the influence he has had has been incredible. The Ballon D’Or should be judged purely on the last 12 months and I think it unfair to overlook him for Messi, who is everybody’s first thought but nobody thinks deeper after that and the actual season he had. Funny thing is, I’d argue Messi won on previous years reputations and Van Dijk didn’t because he is reasonably new on the block – and that is unfair I think in light of what the award should be based on. That’s really the point I sought to make last night.

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[Mikus LFC]

Don’t agree with the voting system. There should just be a small panel of older former and distinguished footballers who can give a better judgement overall. The current system is too big and just allows people to vote for their mates or favourites or they just succumb to following conventional/fashionable opinion being like sheep and following the crowd.

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[Mikus LFC]

Boring if so Sean – he’s been recognised enough I think now. Van Dijk not only the best defender in the world at the moment, but one of the best there’s been for a long time. He would walk into any side.

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[Mikus LFC]

I understand the attacking mentality Nine, but Van Dijk, defender or not, is a superstar now. He’s that good. And he’s really worked for it on his footballing journey to the top. Be nice for it to be recognised.

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[Mikus LFC]

The most important signing we’ve made in 30 years Nil. I really hope he gets the Ballon D’Or tonight – he ain’t any old defender – he is, quite literally, a superstar.

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[Mikus LFC]

Mav, that’s sort of why I don’t think Solksjaer will get chopped just yet. He is blooding the youth and getting something out of them and so developing them somewhat. And I just don’t think another manager is going to get that much more out of this group. If he is still there in January though, be curious how much they give him to spend.

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[Mikus LFC]

I think Saturday just proved how immense Van Dijk is to this team. He is the lynchpin in it. We need him kept wrapped in cotton wool after every game.

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[Mikus LFC]

I think Solksjaer is treading water at the moment – ie just about keeping his head above the water. They don’t look like a team that have completely downed tools – I think it’s more that Solksjaer has become increasingly cautious as time has gone on in his approach probably because he just doesn’t feel he has the players to do enough damage at the attacking end of the pitch (and the the momentum when he first came in is obviously long gone). It’s somewhat analogous to a team during a match that gets progressively deeper as they desperately try and hold on to what they have.

But whilst a new manager may lift things again, I think it would only be an incremental improvement. Unless they can bring in some serious quality in January, top 4 looks way off regardless of who came in now. So what do the board do? They’ve effectively put themselves in this paused state whilst they decide on who their next manager is. But obviously if things get worse they’ll be forced to make a change.

It all goes to show what a disastrous decision it was to not fully support Mourinho whilst also giving him a new contract. The consequences of such a legacy take time to disperse which is what we’re currently seeing.

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[Mikus LFC]

Yeh Nil, it would be good to see Shaqiri come back in at some point. We keep finding a way to win which is great, but it would be good to have another insurance option.

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[Mikus LFC]

Agreed Adlab – we the consumer are ultimately feeding the beast that is modern football because fans will still follow their clubs no matter what and are therefore there to be milked by the broadcasters as Murdoch realised years ago in the advent of Sky. And then in came BT. And now in comes Amazon. And fans will keep paying. And as I said last week with regards to Silva and it meaning Everton will have spent £20 million on failed management fees in just one year, fans just accept it because they’ll do anything to try and be successful. And that then influences the club boards. So for me it comes from the bottom, not the top. And if we take Silva at Everton – did they pay a lot to get Silva out of Watford because they’d done a lot of due diligence and research on him or did they get him because they feared somebody else would? People act out of fear in many decisions and it isn’t always rational. That’s the root cause. Everybody else employed in football be it managers, broadcasters, players, etc are merely opportunists.

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[Mikus LFC]

Not sure what happened, but back now thanks Nil.

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