On the face of it, of course Luke Shaw is the better player. Everybody says he's brilliant so it must be so. But the truth is, he's young and has loads of potential and was at a high level before he broke his leg. However, was he more effective at LB than Ryan Bertrand.? I think there's a pretty good argument to say that he wasn't. Will he become a better LB than Ryan Bertrand. Well he has time on his side. In terms of power and speed he's already superior. In terms of defensive positional sense and attacking precision [ie, effective crosses and link play] he's still way behind. Also, Bertie makes a pretty fine LCB in a back three, it appears. So we can add versatility to his virtues too.
I'm not sure how a player who over the last two seasons has hardly played can be "well ahead" of another who has moved into his England squad place. If you meant to say that Shaw is or will be the better player, then there is reason to understand that. Shaw struggled in his first season at United, while Bertrand had a blinder for Saints. Shaw then started last season well for united but only played a small part of the season (was it Sept he broke his leg?) while Bertrand came back from an injury to cement his place in our team and the England squad. As TSS says above, Shaw has time and potential on his side and I believe he will be the better player. He may be ahead of Ryan by October this season if he starts as well as last season, but to say he is ahead now, doesn't bear any fruit.
Agreed, a small part of me thinks that Shaw will never have the game intelligence of Bertrand. Luckily, he has(had) the physical attributes to make up for it. If his leg break takes some of his pace away...
Think Shaw when he was with us was pretty close to Bertrand. Bertrand gets up the field better and plays with a bit more intelligence/experience but Shaw had a bit of something special that would show up from time to time. I think Bertrand's performance fell off a bit last season. I think it was mainly due to injury and lack of match fitness. Towards the end he seemed to be back to where he was. In contrast, Shaw was starting to look quite good right before taking that terrible injury. So it's effectively 50/50 for me. If I were England manager I'd pick them both and see who impresses me more in training.
I love how I always get to come on to these threads after they've (d)evolved. Yay Ryan's signed a new deal, that's awesome, statement of intent from the board, we march on. ...but...Luke Shaw was better. Oh yeah and actually, maybe we wont be able to sell them quickly if they're on a 5yr. Because two years/two weeks ago we weren't all worried that our best players are always leaving. Thanks not606 for reminding us all that every silver lining has a grey cloud.
Oh dear NZ... If you look not too closely, my reference to long contracts was taking the piss. I even put "not" at the end and put a Sometimes it is obvious when someone is joking, even on the Internet
Maybe the fact Shaw hardly played speaks volumes. Bertrand barely did anything for England and was outshone by Rose, the two games Ryan played, friendly and group game he wasn't so good. I hardly think he cemented his place in the Eng team either as when someone better comes along he may struggle to get in the squad. Lets be fair, Ryan didn't play as well last season as his first, lets hope that was the Koeman effect. I'm not knocking him btw, just saying as I see it. For us, he is great as he fits our system, sum of the parts and all that. Just coz Shaw didn't play much doesn't make him worse. If Ronaldo gets injured for a long time does that make Long better than him...
I didn't say Shaw was worse. If you read what I said was that you can't say Shaw is ahead of Bertrand. That was the phrase you used, so this discussion is about that. I even said that I believe Shaw will be the better player. If you take Shaw's last season with us and then Bertrands first season (the two that ran one after the other), I don't think you can say, as you did, that Shaw is well ahead of Bertrand. That is my point. You of course can think that, but I don't agree. I suspect we both agree that Shaw has lots more to offer. My question really is this: do you really think "well ahead" is the right description, or could it be reasonable to suggest that's a bit stretched? I'll ignore the ridiculous Ronaldo/Long question at the end.
Some fair points Fats. Maybe not miles ahead but I do think he is ahead, yep. Shaw does have more to offer, I think Ryan is probably as close to his max as he can be whilst Shaw has a limit that far exceeds this. I think they were very similar the first season but at the start of last Shaw was playing afr ahead in terms of quality than that of Ryan as he continues throughout the season in Shaws absence at Utd. Just an opinion and I really like what Ryan does for Saints. He fits us and our system and us him, so I think he is the better option for us, but not the better player. And nothing wrong with my analogy either...
Fair enough Isaac. Pretty close. On the analogy, I don't think a Ronaldo/Long comparison sits alongside a Shaw/Bertrand analogy... at least I'd hope not
Oh, I know, I wasn't even quoting your post out of context, I read reply in the next post in which your "not" isn't even visible. So sometimes when you think its obvious its actually "not". Consider it a compliment and a bit of banter in the same vein. I put the smiley for a reason, that being that things are taken far too seriously at times.
If Ronaldo gets injured and scores no goals but Long plays all season and gets a dozen I'll argue that he's been better. Ronaldo would disagree but he cant back it up. What I'm saying is. Ronaldo used to be better. Till he plays again, he's not.
