Only seen Clough play a few games he was good and I'm sure some of the older posters will help you out there. Skp IMO was the best,he gave me personally more pleasure watching the lads than any other footballer. I have been watching for over fifty years.ive seen them come and go but skp was the best.
Got to agree Vince, SKP s movement off the ball was far superior to Cloughie, I saw Clough a lot when I was a kid, he would moan on at other players if he didn't get a pass when in the penalty area, but when he got the ball in the box it usually ended up in the net, Kevin's all round play was better, he could score from distance, like the Chelsea volley, but did rely a lot on Quinny.
My Uncle Bill saw both play a lot and reckons it was SKP. More instinctive player than Clough, who never wasted a shot, but sometimes got caught out for taking his time.
Kevin was by far the better all-round player, as Vince and Cumbria have said. But if I was 1-0 down five minutes before the end of a cup final, I'd go for the proven single purpose man. It's horses for courses, isn't it?
Watched both, probably Cloughie more than SKP. Cloughie was the typical "Goalmoucher" - lazy, argumentative sod, but if the ball came anywhere near him it generally ended up in the net. Sir Kev was a much more constructive player overall, in my humble opinion.
I think Cloughie did more than just score goals he led the line and brought players into the game a lot more than SKP imo.
Never saw Clough play, but he did have an excellent scoring record.. In the 45 years or so I have watched Sunderland regularly SKP is the best I have seen.
It depends on the era, the quality of the teams etc. To many variable to ever get a like for like comparison. Or in other words, I was not old enough to see clough
Nor was i, and i also agree its not eaay compairing players with such a time gap. Here's a bit closer one. Which is the better Ronaldo?
Christiano, although old buck teeth did it on the international stage for Brazil, whereas CR has largely been ****e for Portugal.
Back to the original question and say that imo SKP was not an all rounder, when Peter Reid tried to improve his game the rot set in. He was never anything than a superb finisher, probably better than Cloughie, but he could not lead the line to save his life, like many, many others we have tried to force into this role.
I saw most of Cloughie's home games for Sunderland, only 11 year old so I wasn't allowed to go to away games , and I saw most of Kevin Phillips games , and I agree Phillips was the better of the two, Cloughie was a master goal poacher in the mould of Jimmy Greaves and would have went on to break Greaves' record had he not been injured. Philips could knock them in from anywhere and I would love to see him back at the club in some sort of coaching capacity.
Very interesting. After reading it several times my conclusion is....i'm non the wiser. So may have to call this a draw of the higgest calibre. Ps. Thanks for comments, obviously i saw SKP many times, but Clough was way before me, so i rely on the history books and your own views.
Would have loved to see Raich Carter, Charlie Buchan, Len Shackleton in their pomp. We have a canny team up in the clouds x
