There you go again
You are seriously placing Carragher in the same bracket as Hansen, Lawrenson, Smith, Virgil, Hyypia and even Mark Wright who was an absolutely brilliant defender prior to serious injury? Seriously?
If you will, please list for me all the the attributes you believe Carragher possessed that one would associate with a top defender, a great defender
Was he dominant in the air at both ends of the pitch, or even in his own box for that matter?
Was he constantly scanning and a supreme reader of the game, always taking up expert positons and knowing what was on left and right and ahead of him and frequently stepping into midfield to tackle forwards to stop attacks developing?
Did he have that acute awareness, never letting players run off the back of him, eyes in the back of his head always knowing where the opposition forwards were?
Did he possess great technique and agility, a good passer of the ball able to contribute to the teams forward momentum with pin point long diagonals or at least decent long diagonals into a good area so we could win the first or second ball and capable of playing the odd 50-60 yarder over the top of the opposition defence? And quickly able to readjust, spin turn and 'sort his feet out' quickly if ever caught slightly out of position?
Was he excellent in one v ones, able to take expert positions and body shape and comfortably defend one v one situations, forcing the forward wide and away from goal and holding them up, or standing them up forcing them where he wanted them to go before stepping in and taking it cleanly off them?
There are a lot more than this obviously, but the others all had at least 3 or 4 of these, Virgil has the lot and more, how many would you say Carra had?
He didn't play CB regularly until Rafa came, Houllier and Evans tried him there and he was a disaster and never played him there again, Houllier even preferring "Igor has revealed himself in the position of CB" to playing Carragher there. A lot of those CB appearances came after Rafa had wanted to move him on and the infamous refusal to play at RB for the manager who had shown faith and belief and coached him to enable him to play a position no-one else believed he could. After Rafa's departure he 'traded' on the ridiculous, astronomic over appraisal and cult status his time under Raf had seen him acquire and used it to cling on for dear life for as long as he possibly could, he should have been replaced by Kompany in 2009 and that makes him a legend? Give over with your wild over appraisal
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