Article in FFT ... pretty fair for me .... what do others think? Full article here https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/ranked-15-best-african-players-premier-league-history?page=0,2 Order: 15 Tony Yeboah 14 Lauren 13 Lucas Radebe 12 Kolo Toure 11 John Obi Mikel 10 Yakubu 9 Sadio Mane 8 Jay-Jay Okocha 7 Nwankwo Kanu 6 Emmanuel Adebayor 5 Mo Salah 4 Riyad Mahrez 3 Michael essien 2 Yaya Toure 1 Didier Drogba
Yeboah should be higher...what a player There's a few in there that were a bit meh...like Obi Mikel Salah shouldn't be that high up
I’d have Kolo Toure above Mahrez and Salah, he was one of the best CBs the Prem has had and won titles with two different sides. I’d also have Adebayor and Yakubu above Salah, they played in the Prem for years and banged in goals for numerous clubs, no doubt Salah can be top 5 in time but it’s a bit premature to have him there after one season.
I agree with list in terms of the people on it (except Mikel, who was mediocre as ****), and the top 4 looks about right in terms of its order. But yeah, Okocha and Kanu above Mane...... Also Yakubu above Kolo Toure?
TBF Kanu has won a lot more then Mane - including winning African Footballer of the Year twice. Mane has been good for a couple of seasons but has won nothing and isn't even the best African footballer at his club.
Thats like saying Robert Huth was one of the best defenders in the PL because he won 2 titles. ****ing spacko **** Anderson has 4 PL medals, and he was a total gimp.
That's debatable. Keita may end up being better, too early to tell, and Salah was a goal scoring machine last year. Salah is certainly a better goalscorer than Mane. Mane does so much more work though. Much better than, say Salah, at retrieving the ball and has a fantastic work rate. Salah switches off in games sometimes, Mane never switches off. I'd argue that it would be hard to say Salah is definitely a better player than Mane. He just plays higher up the field and so gets more goals. If you were talking about Keita, it's too early to say if he's better than Mane or not.
With those two its debateable sure, but both Mane and Salah would rank higher than Kanu, wouldn't you say?
I highlighted Kanu's individual awards - you have to admit that he has to be at least half decent to win best footballer of an entire continent twice. In the case of Mane, he hasn't done enough to rate higher yet - could do in the future. As for Robert Huth, he was one of the best defenders in the PL for our title winning season - his every other PL season, it wouldn't be rude to say that he wasn't.
