A Bryan Robson, Nobby Styles, type of player of his day, RIP Ray (Butch) Wilkins.
RIP Butch.
Black armbands on Saturday against the Dramas.
Let's hope it is a minutes silence and not some idiot starting the clapping.As he’s ex-QPR, I’d expect a minutes silence as well.
Let's hope it is a minutes silence and not some idiot starting the clapping.
I'd disagree with that. The player I'd liken Wilkins to the most in recent times is Michael Carrick. Maybe Jordan Henderson to an extent. But of his time you didn't get too many like him in English football, at least among those qualified to play for the national side. Robson - for all his brilliance domestically - wouldn't have been able to transfer those skills to Europe in the way Butch did. Robson was a box-to-box midfielder, brave as a lion but lacking in technical prowess for most of his career. You can't do that so much once you leave the English football comfort zone.
Wilkins valued possession in a way very few English players have in my time watching football. For me, one of the greatest faults of English football is the manner in which our 'creative' players panic in the final third and look for the final ball too soon, even before it's on. Every now and then it comes off and we laud those players, completely ignoring the dozens of times that possession or a promising position is coughed up unnecessarily. I'm thinking of you there, Steven Gerrard, among others.
I wish that Wilkins had been the template for English midfielders to have come from the 1970s and 1980s. Because he could pass a ball with the best of them. He just didn't see the need to prove it every single time he got the ball. You see an element of that - all be it at a much higher standard - in the Barcelona sides of recent years. Iniesta can do anything on the ball. His brilliance stems from him knowing when to do it. Wilkins got that. Most in England don't.
More importantly Ray Wilkins seemed like a good man. And 61 is too young an age to go. RIP, Butch.
I'd disagree with that. The player I'd liken Wilkins to the most in recent times is Michael Carrick. Maybe Jordan Henderson to an extent. But of his time you didn't get too many like him in English football, at least among those qualified to play for the national side. Robson - for all his brilliance domestically - wouldn't have been able to transfer those skills to Europe in the way Butch did. Robson was a box-to-box midfielder, brave as a lion but lacking in technical prowess for most of his career. You can't do that so much once you leave the English football comfort zone.
Wilkins valued possession in a way very few English players have in my time watching football. For me, one of the greatest faults of English football is the manner in which our 'creative' players panic in the final third and look for the final ball too soon, even before it's on. Every now and then it comes off and we laud those players, completely ignoring the dozens of times that possession or a promising position is coughed up unnecessarily. I'm thinking of you there, Steven Gerrard, among others.
I wish that Wilkins had been the template for English midfielders to have come from the 1970s and 1980s. Because he could pass a ball with the best of them. He just didn't see the need to prove it every single time he got the ball. You see an element of that - all be it at a much higher standard - in the Barcelona sides of recent years. Iniesta can do anything on the ball. His brilliance stems from him knowing when to do it. Wilkins got that. Most in England don't.
More importantly Ray Wilkins seemed like a good man. And 61 is too young an age to go. RIP, Butch.
This is not the thread to discuss the merits of certain players, I have taken on board your comments.