Who will earn the No 7 shirt out of Eric Cantona, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Suarez and David Beckham?
Thursday 23 April 2020 17:45, UK
Over a third of way through 'The Greatest Squad', it is time to found out which player will be locked into the No 7 shirt in Thursday's Twitter poll...
With Peter Schmeichel, Gary Neville and Ashley Cole already locked in to 'The Greatest Squad', it was the question of who would join them next that needed to be answered.
Patrick Vieira romped home with 52 per cent of the votes, in what was deemed the 'group of death'. Vincent Kompany and Virgil van Dijk received 19 and 18 per cent respectively, leaving the Arsenal midfielder and leader, rather surprisingly, to walk away with the No 4 spot.
Rio Ferdinand has earned the highest per cent of votes in 'The Greatest Squad' to date, with 77 per cent opting for the Manchester United defender as their choice at No 5.
The No 6 proved much more difficult to decide, with two giants of the game Tony Adams and Jaap Stam leading the charge. Adams edged out Stam by three per cent, with his 40 per cent proving enough to make the No6 shirt his own.
Now, how do you separate Cristiano Ronaldo, Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Luis Suarez? It is no easy decision, but you can have your say below, or keep your eyes peeled for #TheGreatestSquad on @Super6.
Soccer Saturday pundits Charlie Nicholas and Phil Thompson give their thoughts on who would get their vote in this group...
Manchester United fans will be in dreamland, but we know Liverpool fans love a vote on Twitter. These are all magnificent No 7s, but they do not meet the greatest category of No 7, who was King Kenny Dalglish. He is a true No 7 in my mind. Out of these four, it is a tough call.
Ronaldo probably should get it because of his achievements, but I cannot bluff too much. I was not a fan of his style, but his stats in every country are breathtakingly good, while being a great free-kick improviser too. He has to be the one.
If I am fair in my breakdown of these four, Suarez was my favourite. Dalglish was the greatest seven and will always be that, but if Suarez had stayed at Liverpool for two or three more seasons, he might have overtaken him.
I watched Cantona a lot when he was at his best. The influence he had was undeniable. It sounds ridiculous that I do not have a comment to make on Beckham, but his record does the talking. He was not always my favourite player, but I have to go with Ronaldo and he would get my vote ahead of Cantona and Suarez.
It was very close between those three, but because of what he did at Manchester United and has since done, keeping up with Lionel Messi and hanging in there for a long time, it has to be him.
They are all great players. Beckham was special in his own right, but ability wise, Cantona made such a big difference to Manchester United, similarly with Suarez for Liverpool. He had a fantastic time at Liverpool and was a top-drawer footballer, but above all else, Ronaldo has been a phenomenon and was during his time in the Premier League.
To do what he has done since, like winning the European Championships with Portugal, he ticks so many boxes. His goal ratio, season after season, is just incredible. When he was first at United, there were a few - and maybe rightly so - who were moaning that he was doing too many tricks and diving too often and urged him to concentrate more on being a team player. That helped him in his development as a player,
He is still very much an individual you will get people saying, but with Manchester United at 18 years old, it was a good learning curve with good professionals, so he will have taken a lot of their advice, but he had great belief in what he could do. To score so many goals for Manchester United and then do the same season after season at Real Madrid, and going head-to-head with Messi, was just astonishing to see. He is still doing what he has done all his career and for his country as well.
