Most influential player in Premier League history

[Maguire]

Ridiculous to say Cantona - loads more deserving players from Utd alone.

[Bandini]

This topic is on a par with Messi setting Champions League "history" as the first player EVER to score 5 goals in the top-flight European competition...until it was pointed out that no less than TEN players had done it in the European Cup...Europe's top-flight competition.

Must keep reminding myself that football was only invented when Sky got hold of it.

This is a facking stupid argument these days. We've got 20 years to look at and for good or bad the premier league represented a break from the past.

That doesn't mean that football before then should be ignored but it is as convenient a dividing point in the history of English football as the war was, and growing up I'd hear plenty of references to the post-war era as a convenient reference point.

[handbags_harris]

Ali Dia.

[Friday's Legacy]

Source: @Now__Football



Lovely story if true.

[GSY-Royal]

Celestine Babayaro.

[Wimb]

Ridiculous to say Cantona - loads more deserving players from Utd alone.

Giggs/Neville/Scholes etc may have the longevity but Cantona was the catalyst for a period of United dominance that continues today. He helped build up United's fanbase both here and abroad which has given them the financial muscle to see off the big spenders and challenge year after year.

Ask 100 people for a famous 90's Premiership footballer and I'd bet at least half would say Cantona.

It's possible to argue that United could have coped without Giggs etc but consider that Cantona was banned for 8 months and in that time his team lost out to Blackburn for the title and then fell far behind a rampant Newcastle.

When he came back they won the title, then won it again and again.