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Saints Greatest XI - Nominations For Best CBs.


St Landrew

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In this thread you vote for 2 players as a pairing, though they needn't have played together, and I will be counting them as individuals, in any case. It doesn't matter whether you nominate one player for LCB and one for RCB; just nominate your 2 favourites. Although you may like to say in which position you prefer them. However, I'll know in which position to put them; for example, in the A team so far:

 

----------------Shilton-------------------

 

----?-----RCB-----------LCB------Bridge

 

and the B team:

 

----------------Niemi--------------------

 

----?-----RCB-----------LCB------Dennis

 

As before, these players are the very best, in terms of quality. Not for their personality or how they look, or play to the crowd. These players are not necessarily Cult Heroes, but they are the players who will be the biggest assets to a winning team. They will be the best players, in your opinion, to have ever played for SFC.

 

As you can see in the examples above, the Goalkeeper and LB positions have been decided. Now get nominating the best ever 2 Saints CBs.

Edited by St Landrew
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This is really bad for me. In the last thread, certain people nominated Franny Benali over clearly better LBs, and I'm the same with Michael Svensson. For me, Killer is the best thing that has been about Saints in years. If it was all about attitude, this guy would get into any Saints team. He's a superb CB, but there are 2 better defenders in front of him, IMO. One of them is Mark Wright, and the other is Dave Watson. In a sense, I hope Killer makes it into the A or B teams without my nomination. If he doesn't he'll be on my substitute's bench for sure.

 

Saints have been rich in quality CBs down through the years, and so, from my era, my apologies also go to Jimmy Gabriel, John McGrath, Jim Steele, Mel Blyth, Chris Nicholl, Razor Ruddock, Richard Hall, and Claus Lundekvam. All would grace a Saints side, but my nominations are in bold.

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Probably the hardest position to pick, some great players over the years, McGrath, Walker, Watson, Nichol, Claus, Killer, but im going to go for Mark Wright and Jimmy Gabriel both class operators

 

You would also need to put Tony Knapp into that list as well.

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This is really bad for me. In the last thread, certain people nominated Franny Benali over clearly better LBs, and I'm the same with Michael Svensson. For me, Killer is the best thing that has been about Saints in years. If it was all about attitude, this guy would get into any Saints team. He's a superb CB, but there are 2 better defenders in front of him, IMO. One of them is Mark Wright, and the other is Dave Watson. In a sense, I hope Killer makes it into the A or B teams without my nomination. If he doesn't he'll be on my substitute's bench for sure.

 

Saints have been rich in quality CBs down through the years, and so, from my era, my apologies also go to Jimmy Gabriel, John McGrath, Jim Steele, Mel Blyth, Chris Nicholl, Razor Ruddock, Richard Hall, and Claus Lundekvam. All would grace a Saints side, but my nominations are in bold.

 

Hehehe! St Landrew, I know you have been so patient in explaining time and again the credentials we are looking for (i.e. quality over popularity/commitment etc) and now you find yourself in the same dilemma :-)

 

I will go for Dave Watson and Jimmy Steele and I genuinely do not know whether the latter is because of his quality of whether it's because, by christ do you love a committed defender like that in your team.

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Think this one could be a shoo-in; before opening the thread my thoughts were Dave Watson and Mark Wright and seems several of the above have named the same pair.

 

Honorable mentions to John McGrath/Jim Steele/Chris Nichol/Killer but none come close to the top two.

 

I also disagree that this is a position we are massively strong in; considering we are picking two names there was more competition for the single LB slot!

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This is really bad for me. In the last thread, certain people nominated Franny Benali over clearly better LBs, and I'm the same with Michael Svensson. For me, Killer is the best thing that has been about Saints in years. If it was all about attitude, this guy would get into any Saints team. He's a superb CB, but there are 2 better defenders in front of him, IMO. One of them is Mark Wright, and the other is Dave Watson. In a sense, I hope Killer makes it into the A or B teams without my nomination. If he doesn't he'll be on my substitute's bench for sure.

 

Saints have been rich in quality CBs down through the years, and so, from my era, my apologies also go to Jimmy Gabriel, John McGrath, Jim Steele, Mel Blyth, Chris Nicholl, Razor Ruddock, Richard Hall, and Claus Lundekvam. All would grace a Saints side, but my nominations are in bold.

 

I agree with you but Dave Watson did not play many games did he so I did not nominate him.

 

Whats more I also agree with your longer list perhaps we have seen lots of games together without knowing

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Chris Nicholl and Mark Wright - the best two CBs I have seen in a Saints shirt but also two players whose style of play complemented each other. Michael Svensson is very close behind and I rate Malcolm Waldron (one of the first ever winners of the player of the season) very highly as well.

 

If I were picking two teams, those are the four CBs I'd choose. But there again, I voted for Steve Mills for left back and he's not made the top two.

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Mark Wright and Killer...really rate Watson, but tbf Nichol was much better for Saints than Big Dave. McGrath was brutal but had no skill, Knapp was a liability, Steele was very average at the top level and Docker was a cult hero at best.

 

Agboola was kinda great for a couple of seasons and Santa made all his partners look stars.

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Did Cliff Huxford ever play CB for us? Left half, I think...

 

If you count Sweepers as CBs then Reuben Agboola did well.

 

Yes you're right that Cliff Huxford played left half in the days before we had centre backs - Knapp of course was centre half (and I might add I helped to chair him off at Leyton Orient the night we won promotion - I was 15!).

 

But I would like to include him as he substituted at centre half on occasions, did very well and was a fantastic tackler, (and also deputised in goal a few times!).

 

My point about this greatest team is that there were exceptionally good players before the 1970s - which is before many people on here are likely to have seen Saints. We didn't even talk about centre backs before then either.

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Mark Wright and Killer...really rate Watson, but tbf Nichol was much better for Saints than Big Dave. McGrath was brutal but had no skill, Knapp was a liability, Steele was very average at the top level and Docker was a cult hero at best.

 

Agboola was kinda great for a couple of seasons and Santa made all his partners look stars.

 

Tony 'liability' Knapp led Saints to their first ever promotion to the top flight and Jim 'very average' Steele was critical in winning the FAC Cup!

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Mel Blyth and Mark Wright - both class footballers. I remember seeing Mel walking back from training at the Dell to catch the train to London with no bags just a pair of white boots hanging on his shoulder.

 

McGrath and Watson for the strongman roles.

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Mark Wright (16 caps whilst here) & Dave Watson (18 caps whilst here).

 

After that, Killer as a third choice, then probably Nicholl, Ruddock & Lundekvam.

 

Would loved to have seen how Hall would have panned out if (a) he hadn't have fccukced off, and (b) he hadn't gotten injured.

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