On a recent edition of Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football, former striker Daniel Sturridge suggested that young forwards today would rather play on the wing than through the centre.
“When I was seven or eight, I was looking at R9 [Ronaldo], Nicolas Anelka, Pele, [Diego] Maradona, Marco van Basten, all these old school centre-forwards. I think the kids today are looking at [Cristiano] Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Mohamed Salah, Neymar, the wingers, those are the guys I think the younger generation are looking to and being like ‘they’re our inspiration’,” Sturridge said.
He does have a point. If you’re a wide forward, you’re expected to score, but not as much as a number nine. You still get all the glory and perks of being a prolific goal-getter, all you have to do is a little tracking back.
That’s the modern day winger for you, anyway. Sadio Mane and Son Heung-min have been two of the best to master the art of the wide forward in recent years. Before their time, Robert Pires was a trendsetter and trailblazer when it came to contributing goals from the wing.
But who was the best player of the three? Let’s break it down.
There was just something mesmeric about the way that Pires could dribble. He wasn’t the quickest, but he had enough of a burst and an underrated physicality that meant he could just glide his way past his defender and into space.
Arsenal’s former number seven kept hold of possession the way that an idealistic modern day box-to-box midfielder would – baiting opponents into biting at a ball that was actually on a leash at all times.
Pires was able to slow the game down and play at his own pace, whereas Mane and Son thrive in fast-pace and frantic situations. It’s not a knock on them. Except in this category. Where it is a knock on them, actually.
The duel threat of Pires is he wasn’t just good at coming inside to score goals, but he was an expert creator too.
Sure, playing with Thierry Henry is bound to boost your assist totals – you could give him the ball on the halfway line and he’d managed to put it in the back of the net in five seconds flat – but Pires was selfless in a flashy way that made being the sidekick at times look cool. The 15 assists he did register on Arsenal’s way to the 2001/02 title are among the highest tallies recorded in the Premier League era.
An underrated part of Mane’s game was his creativity and ability to make chances for others, so that’s worth a shoutout here, but Pires clinches the category.
Had Pires played in the modern day, he would have regularly contributed double figures of goals. Alas, he was but a pioneer of scoring from wide areas rather than the one to perfect it.
There isn’t a lot to split Mane and Son, but it’s the South Korean who just about edges it for us. Both of them won a Golden Boot, but the current Tottenham captain is notorious for finding the net from all sorts of ranges with either foot and has even won the Puskas Award.
Over the last ten years, only Lionel Messi has out-performed his expected goals total than Son. That’s nerd speak to say the greatest player of all time is the only finisher in the world more clinical.
It’s really a disservice to Mane that we strip back everything he was amazing at and say his outstanding attribute was his quickness. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles, I’m afraid.
It’s still an important aspect for a winger, after all. Mane would put the frighteners on opposition players and fans the way few others could.
Give him space to run into and he’ll gladly gallop into it. Shut up shop and he’ll still find a way to bend and break you. If there were games where his shot wasn’t falling or his passing was out of touch, Mane would at least be able to rely on his pace to carve out an opportunity.
The legacy. The impact. The adulation. The charisma. The trophies. The whole package.
Pires is the winner. The greatest among three greats. The best of a brilliant bunch.
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