Robbie Keane

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Originally Posted by brine3

Robbie Keane is the Irish Pippo Inazaghi. A goal poacher with an incredible instinct for goal. But not a great team player and tactically rather poor. But he has certainly been in the top 20 Irish players of all time. I would say he is one of the greatest strikers we have ever had, for sure. Difficult to compare Stapleton and Robbie Keane, seeing as they played in completely different eras. A player like Robbie Keane would have been kicked off the field in 1980s British football. Quinn was also a great Irish forward, but had a different role (holding up the ball), so also difficult to compare.

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How do you compare any set of players from different positions though? Their greatness or ability is surely measured by how they demonstrated an aptitude to perform in the role they were assigned in the era in which they played. You also have to gauge how crucial or significant their contribution to the team was, and you can't doubt the significance of Robbie's goals and general play to the Irish cause over the past decade and a half. As Serb says, we'd be nowhere without his contribution.

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Originally Posted by brine3

Top 5? Let's see... Irish players who I rate better than Robbie Keane, in alphabetical order to avoid arguments :)

Liam Brady
Shay Brennan
Damien Duff
Tony Dunne
Steve Finnan (criminally underused in a green shirt)
John Giles
Shay Given
Ray Houghton
Charlie Hurley
Denis Irwin
Paul McGrath
Roy Keane
Kevin Moran
Ronnie Whelan

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Very good player and I wish we had one of his ilk at rb about now but...

you're having a laugh.

54 goals should automatically put any Irish international into the top 5 of all time, if not higher. It is so far ahead of the competition (other strikers) its in a different league. It is such a huge contribution to Irish success since the 90's, it eclipses the conrtibutions of most of the players on brines list. To argue otherwise is foolish in my opinion. To be clear, i dont think we should take club form/achievements into account for these types of lists unless specified.

I remember when Robbie first burst onto the scene Niall Quinn excitedly commented how Keane would easily pass his goal scoring record for Ireland which at the time was around 21 goals. Robbie now has easily passed that record and because of this he has to be accepted as our best striker of all time. In terms of assists and the ability to change a game, it would be hard to look past Quinn. As for Stapleton, having met him, all I can say is he is a grumpy and unfriendly individual who I don't respect.

Do tell?

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Originally Posted by Sullivinho

Very good player and I wish we had one of his ilk at rb about now but...

you're having a laugh.

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Well you only disagree with 1 of the 14 I picked ahead of Robbie Keane so I'll take it we are in good agreement.

Steve Finnan was probably our best player in Japan/Korea. Says a lot about Mick's judgement that Finnan wasn't a starter going into the tournament...

And of course Finnan has bags of Champions League experience, including a winner's medal.

Should have had about 30 more caps than he got.

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Originally Posted by SkStu

54 goals should automatically put any Irish international into the top 5 of all time, if not higher.

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Well to get into the Top 5 Ireland players of all time you'd have to be ahead of at least Paul McGrath, John Giles, Liam Brady, Roy Keane and Denis Irwin. And then there's Shay Given, I'm sure he saved at least 54 certain goals in his time.

I'm consistent though, I once argued with an Iranian that Mehdi Mahdavikia was the greatest Iranian player of all time and not Ali Daei, in spite of his 109 goals.

I don't want to go into great detail, but suffice to say, John Byrne was an absolute gentleman and signed autographs and chatted away with a group of Irish schoolboys while Stapleton was what I mentioned above. While he was a class footballer, I find it hard to be objective about him since.

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Originally Posted by brine3

Well you only disagree with 1 of the 14 I picked ahead of Robbie Keane so I'll take it we are in good agreement.

Steve Finnan was probably our best player in Japan/Korea. Says a lot about Mick's judgement that Finnan wasn't a starter going into the tournament...

And of course Finnan has bags of Champions League experience, including a winner's medal.

Should have had about 30 more caps than he got.

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No it doesn't say much about Mick's judgement - if you simply look at Wikipedia, you see that, at the beginning of qualifying, Finnan had only a handful of Premier League appearances at a newly-promoted Fulham, whereas his competition for the right-back position, Stephen Carr and Gary Kelly, both had years of experience in top-half Premier League clubs, which would have naturally put them ahead of him in the pecking order at that time and, as both helped guide Ireland through the successful campaign, it would also have been natural for Mick to have chosen them as the main two for the right-back position in the squad, had Carr not been injured. That Finnan really emerged as Mr Dependable during the tournament when needed was great, but the fact that Mick preferred Carr and Kelly (both fine full-backs) over him before the Finals was no damning error of judgement on his part, just a sign that we were blessed with depth in that position.

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Originally Posted by brine3

And of course Finnan has bags of Champions League experience, including a winner's medal.

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"He won the Champions' League" as a token of praise died when Djimi Traore won it.

Also, I'd be fairly sure there's at least three players on your list you've never seen play.

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Originally Posted by gastric

I don't want to go into great detail, but suffice to say, John Byrne was an absolute gentleman and signed autographs and chatted away with a group of Irish schoolboys while Stapleton was what I mentioned above. While he was a class footballer, I find it hard to be objective about him since.

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Fair enough.

Just like me and that French player. I can't reconcile any praise for him with what he done that cold November night in Paris.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

"He won the Champions' League" as a token of praise died when Djimi Traore won it.

Also, I'd be fairly sure there's at least three players on your list you've never seen play.

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Maybe on its own, winning a CL medal as a token of praise is suspect but just because Traore won one, doesn't diminish its place in Finnan's career.

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No it doesn't say much about Mick's judgement - if you simply look at Wikipedia, you see that, at the beginning of qualifying, Finnan had only a handful of Premier League appearances at a newly-promoted Fulham, whereas his competition for the right-back position, Stephen Carr and Gary Kelly, both had years of experience in top-half Premier League clubs, which would have naturally put them ahead of him in the pecking order at that time and, as both helped guide Ireland through the successful campaign, it would also have been natural for Mick to have chosen them as the main two for the right-back position in the squad, had Carr not been injured.

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Handful of apps for a newly promoted team? Finnan was named in the 2001-2002 PFA Team of the Year.

Carr had been injured nearly all season.

Kelly started at right-back, fair enough. But even so, the writing was on the wall in qualification already. Against Holland Kelly was run absolutely ragged and got himself sent off. Finnan came on and got the assist for the winning goal.

But what is most grating is that Mick picked an unfit Jason McAteer at right-half against Cameroon and it was a total disaster. I think it says a lot about Mick's stubborn loyalty that he'd rather pick an unfit McAteer (who had been dropped at Blackburn) over a fit Finnan, who had just been named as the best right back in the Premier League and was in the form of his life. Thankfully he made the change against Cameroon, but only after we had gone 1-0 down. Lucky for Mick it worked out in the group.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Also, I'd be fairly sure there's at least three players on your list you've never seen play.

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I didn't realise when people say Robbie Keane is in the "Top 5 Irish players of all time" that they are only referring to players they have seen themselves. Obviously that would explain a thing or two...

Shay Brennan and Tony Dunne have nearly 900 appearances for Man Utd between them, two league titles and a European Cup. In the modern era these guys would have 100 caps each for Ireland, but in those days, as we know, Irish players were rarely released by their clubs and had to play matches in Dublin only a couple of hours after getting off the boat from Liverpool.

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Originally Posted by geysir

Maybe on its own, winning a CL medal as a token of praise is suspect but just because Traore won one, doesn't diminish its place in Finnan's career.

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I didn't say it did. Finnan absolutely had a very good career, and was a very good player for us. But brine3's comments weren't much more than "He has a winner's medal" (He has since expanded in fairness)

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Originally Posted by brine3

Shay Brennan and Tony Dunne have nearly 900 appearances for Man Utd between them, two league titles and a European Cup. In the modern era these guys would have 100 caps each for Ireland

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Would they? I'm not so sure. Let's transport them from their era to the modern day without the benefits of modern coaching (because that's the comparison you're making). It's a different game now. Fitness and tactics have improved hugely since the 60s. Would they even get in the squad now? What level would they be playing at - lower Premiership? Second flight?

Legends in their own time, surely. I'm not sure if that translates to top ten Irish players ever.

I don't like taking players from one era and putting them in an other. But there's no discernible reason why any player who excelled in any particular era wouldn't have excelled in another.

At the end of the day, they are the best of the best, generally at any given time.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Let's transport them from their era to the modern day without the benefits of modern coaching (because that's the comparison you're making). It's a different game now. Fitness and tactics have improved hugely since the 60s. Would they even get in the squad now? What level would they be playing at - lower Premiership? Second flight?

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I don't see that as the comparison he's making. Presumably they were as fit as they could be / needed to be for the game at that time. Why wouldn't they be as fit as they could be / needed to be for the game at this time?

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Originally Posted by brine3

Handful of apps for a newly promoted team? Finnan was named in the 2001-2002 PFA Team of the Year.

Carr had been injured nearly all season.

Kelly started at right-back, fair enough. But even so, the writing was on the wall in qualification already. Against Holland Kelly was run absolutely ragged and got himself sent off. Finnan came on and got the assist for the winning goal.

But what is most grating is that Mick picked an unfit Jason McAteer at right-half against Cameroon and it was a total disaster. I think it says a lot about Mick's stubborn loyalty that he'd rather pick an unfit McAteer (who had been dropped at Blackburn) over a fit Finnan, who had just been named as the best right back in the Premier League and was in the form of his life. Thankfully he made the change against Cameroon, but only after we had gone 1-0 down. Lucky for Mick it worked out in the group.

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McAteer had moved to Sunderland long before the World Cup started. He played regularly for his new club from the previous October

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Originally Posted by osarusan

I don't see that as the comparison he's making. Presumably they were as fit as they could be / needed to be for the game at that time. Why wouldn't they be as fit as they could be / needed to be for the game at this time?

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I don't doubt there's no inherent reason they wouldn't have improved with modern training (I'm assuming modern training makes a big difference, and I think that's a fair assumption). But does it stand to reason that they were better than Keane on the basis of the player they could have been? I don't think that's necessarily fair.

I don't think it stands to reason to regard a player from another generation as a top 10 legend based on stats and other peoples' opinion, it doesn't have much value.

In 2055, no doubt Brine5 will be listing Robbie Keane as a top 5 Irish legend based on his stats and positive opinions about his worth to the Irish team

If we judge it on the 10/15 greatest players to come out of Ireland, then I would feel that Robbie is not in that list - some seriously great players we have produced. Each and every one of them really great players that should include the likes of Carey, Hurley and Cantwell as well as modern players from the past 30-40 years.

However, if we judge it on a player's contribution to the green shirt, Robbie easily walks into the top 5 in my opinion. He has scored 54 goals for a middle tier country. Yes some of them were against minnows and many were in friendlies, but he has been an ever present in our team for 15 years and a great example to young players in this country on how to conduct themselves. The likes of Gibson could take a leaf out of Robbie's book. You could compare Ronnie Whelan to Robbie for the purpose of this argument. Ronnie was arguably the best midfielder in Britain for a period of a few years and easily world class. On paper, he is one of our greats for what he achieved at Liverpool. However, in a green shirt, I seem to recall him often being poor or ineffective - in the same way Hoddle was wasted with England, Ronnie was probably wasted by us.

I'm not sure if some people are biased against Robbie because he is from Dublin - there is the Dub/country thing that goes on from a small element of our support, or others begrudge him being recognised as one of our greats because aside from fleeting moments and periods in his career, he never became the consistently world class player that he threatened to be when he was 18/19. Some maybe feel that he has made the easy decisions in his club career too often, like going to LA Galaxy.

However, regardless of what you think of Robbie as a man or as a player, he deserves to be recognised as a true Irish great.

I agree, it's difficult to compare eras, so that's why people shouldn't go around claiming that so and so is in the "Top 5 Irish players of all time", no matter who it is.

Robbie Keane Top 5 in the last 20 years? Most probably.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

"He won the Champions' League" as a token of praise died when Djimi Traore won it.

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http://wherearetheynow1.files.wordpr.../david-may.jpg

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Originally Posted by Bungle

I'm not sure if some people are biased against Robbie because he is from Dublin - there is the Dub/country thing that goes on from a small element of our support, or others begrudge him being recognised as one of our greats because aside from fleeting moments and periods in his career, he never became the consistently world class player that he threatened to be when he was 18/19. Some maybe feel that he has made the easy decisions in his club career too often, like going to LA Galaxy.

However, regardless of what you think of Robbie as a man or as a player, he deserves to be recognised as a true Irish great.

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I usedn't have a great deal of time for him due to his tremendous arm-waving abilities and propensity to get caught offside - just found it very frustrating to see and was maybe a sign of immaturity in spite of his obvious ability - but his record and contribution to our cause has most certainly won over my wholehearted respect since. Why would people from outside of Dublin dislike him? Most of our Ireland-born players are from Dublin. That's always been the case, and it makes sense in terms of the Irish population balance, but it's not as if the rest of the country shuns the team as a result.

Of course there's also a FAI Dublin conspiracy to ensure that most of our players are Dublin born, even today they are still jumping the queue, Hendrick over Meyler .... need I go on?

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Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

I usedn't have a great deal of time for him due to his tremendous arm-waving abilities and propensity to get caught offside - just found it very frustrating to see and was maybe a sign of immaturity in spite of his obvious ability - but his record and contribution to our cause has most certainly won over my wholehearted respect since. Why would people from outside of Dublin dislike him? Most of our Ireland-born players are from Dublin. That's always been the case, and it makes sense in terms of the Irish population balance, but it's not as if the rest of the country shuns the team as a result.

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Alot of valid points there. In response to the Dublin thing, I do think that there is an anti-Dublin bias among a small section of our support. It is probably historical and a reaction to the fact that in the past alot of very good players from the country never got the same chances that lads in Dublin got. That kind of feeling shines through in Roy Keane's book.

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Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

David May

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Steve Finnan made over 50 European appearances for Liverpool.

Robbie stuck around longer than a certain distant namesake. That's all we need to know.

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Originally Posted by Bungle

Alot of valid points there. In response to the Dublin thing, I do think that there is an anti-Dublin bias among a small section of our support. It is probably historical and a reaction to the fact that in the past alot of very good players from the country never got the same chances that lads in Dublin got. That kind of feeling shines through in Roy Keane's book.

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Didn't Stephen Ireland mention perceived preferential treatment for Dublin lads too? Maybe just a Cork thing...

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Originally Posted by brine3

Steve Finnan made over 50 European appearances for Liverpool.

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Tongue ever so slightly in cheek, there. :)

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Originally Posted by ArdeeBhoy

Robbie stuck around longer than a certain distant namesake. That's all we need to know.

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Roy's international career spanned 14 years. Robbie's has spanned 15, although Robbie's cap-count may give him a significant edge in the commitment department.

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Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

Didn't Stephen Ireland mention perceived preferential treatment for Dublin lads too? Maybe just a Cork thing...

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Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you....

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Originally Posted by Bungle

Alot of valid points there. In response to the Dublin thing, I do think that there is an anti-Dublin bias among a small section of our support. It is probably historical and a reaction to the fact that in the past alot of very good players from the country never got the same chances that lads in Dublin got. That kind of feeling shines through in Roy Keane's book.

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I'm the first to jump on the Dubs and outside in terms of genuineness and honesty and stuff, and I do think there is a bias by some of those outside of Dublin towards Dublin players. I'm sure its more to do with robbie seen as a bit of a kncaker from tallaght, as opposed to Brian from nice clontarf.

Cork people are just a bit strange, tribal and clannish. Us against them siege mentality. Its a pseudo-superiority complex stemming from second city syndrome.

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Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

Roy's international career spanned 14 years. Robbie's has spanned 15, although Robbie's cap-count may give him a significant edge in the commitment department.

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I was being facetious.

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

I'm the first to jump on the Dubs and outside in terms of genuineness and honesty and stuff, and I do think there is a bias by some of those outside of Dublin towards Dublin players. I'm sure its more to do with robbie seen as a bit of a kncaker from tallaght, as opposed to Brian from nice clontarf.

Cork people are just a bit strange, tribal and clannish. Us against them siege mentality. Its a pseudo-superiority complex stemming from second city syndrome.

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O'driscoll is a great rugby player and a great man, but i do think that you're right Paul, there is a bit of a class undercurrent with some people in how they perceive Robbie, though sometimes he doesn't help himself as a few posters noted with his theatrics.

Was Robbie given a chance at Inter? I dont remember those days.

How many times would Brian O'Driscoll have to wave his arms to be removed from the list of great Irish rugby players?

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

How many times would Brian O'Driscoll have to wave his arms to be removed from the list of great Irish rugby players?

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A bit of an unfair comparison really, O'Driscoll is very articulate and embodies all of the attributes that people respect in a world class rugby player. Robbie on the other hand, while is our best striker ever, is not the most articulate, has a tendency to whinge when decisions go against him and could be deemed a journey man who chases money.

None of which holds any relevance to his ability or performance. Which is the point I was making.

It's not worth it anymore Charlie... if a bit of arm waving and old fashioned culchie begrudgery is what takes him from great to very good then let them have at it. Bizarre that this still being argued....

Quick question for the Keano-skeptics: How many Irish players have scored in competition against Russia, Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Yugoslavia?