25 Mar 2013

LFC legend blasts: €27m superstar 'can't defend'. Better than Agger...?

Liverpool legend Steve Nicol has laid into Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos, accusing the Spaniard of being defensively deficient, and blaming him for Finland's goal against Spain in Saturday's world cup qualifier.

Discussing Ramos - who cost Madrid €27m as a 19-year old - on ESPN last night, Nicol barked:

"Sergio Ramos? The guy can’t defend! The goal Spain lost at the weekend was his fault again.

"His pal Pique couldn’t get out to close the ball, and he let the centre forward run past him and score.

"He’s always going to be an Achilles heel for them"


Earlier in the same game, Ramos marked his 100th Spain cap with a goal, but Nicol is arguably right with his assertion that Ramos was at fault for Finland's equalizer.

Ramos is definitely an impressive athlete, and to gain 100 international caps by the age of 26 is a fantastic achievement, but is he one of the world's great defenders? Barcelona star Pedro seems to think so, as he told Marca in February:

"Sergio Ramos is very strong, quick; he's good with the ball and is one of the best centre-backs in the world"

Barcelona midfielder Sergio Busquets is another huge fan of Ramos, and over the weekend he enthused:

“He [Ramos] is a great player and I would sign him [for Barcelona] if I could."

This is not the first time Nicol has slated Ramos, or indeed Pique. Last year, after Barcelona beat Milan in the Champions League quarter-finals, Nicol pinpointed Pique, as a weak link in the Catalan club's defence. He observed:

"In the AC Milan-Barcelona game, I saw one of the supposed best central defenders in the world, Pique, going up against Ibrahimovic. As a defender, you can't get square, and let him go onto his good foot. Alex Ferguson knew what he was doing when he let Pique go".

Pique and Ramos may have their issues defensively, but you can't argue with the success they've had with club and country.

A more interesting thing to take out of the Spain-Finland game is the fact that Victor Valdes started the game ahead of Pepe Reina. With Iker Casillas out injured, you'd think that Reina would be in with a great chance of making the first XI, but clearly, Del Bosque just doesn't fancy him.

What does Reina have to do to get a chance with Spain? Surely this latest snub means that he's never going to be in with a chance of becoming Spain's number one goalkeeper? Valdes is sure to start the next qualifier against France too, which would (IMO) be the final nail in the coffin of Reina's international career.

Back to Ramos: Is he a better defender than Daniel Agger, who is regularly linked with a move to Barcelona? If you had to choose between the two - or indeed between Agger and Pique - who would you take?





NOTE: Please stick to the Comment Policy (Click to read)


27 comments:

  1. pepes not going to get a chance unless he returns to spain and what as agger got to do with itdid nicol mention them both in the interview or is that a question you put on the end jaimie to make the post have something to do with lfc

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  2. I thought it was a good goal. He is good defender nether the less. I wouldn't mind him joining us. Unfortunatly we can't afford to buy him or pay his wage's.

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  3. In regards to Ramos and Pique they both have the handiest job in footballing history, with the players they have in front of them both club wise and nationally the amount of defending they are subject too is absolutely limited when you are conceeding a goal to Finland when you have had the majority of the possession and their attackers have to run themselves ragged just to get a touch of the ball shows the competency of the defense.
    Wouldn't fancy either Ramos or Pique uf you were stuck in the trenches and looking for a defender to stick their neck on the line for me.
    In regards to Pepe, we couldn't say his form would be deserving as of late of the Spanish No.1 jersey even though I would certainly rate him higher than Valdes usually, if he continues the way he has played for the last few games maybe he could force his way into the side and could be a great motivational tool to keep him on his toes, but you must also note he was injured and didn't feature in the last two of Liverpools games.

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  4. Nicol is right, Ramos is dodgy at centre back. He was always a good right back where his mistakes weren't as costly but in the centre of defence he gets found out way too often. It was the same against United in the CL match at old toilet, every time the ball went near him I cringed.... kind of like Martin Skrtel.

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  5. whats this got to do with Liverpool ?

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  6. Pique any day of the week. Agger IMO is overrated. Ramos does have weaknesses but you cannot argue he is a world class player and so is Pique.


    Both players would walk into most football teams in the world.


    They can't be that bad can they Nicol?

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  7. Valdes is in a successful team so he and Casillas are pretty much 1st choice. Although Casillas is the "golden boy".

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  8. i said this earlier but my post got deleted lol;-)

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  9. i.ve posted that comment 3 times now and 3 times its been deleted what makes you so special;-)

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  10. the comments policy is turning into a joke and its not the word filter as i posted the same as someone posted later

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  11. you cant be critical of any defenders when you conceed 3 goals to a power club like the saints....never mind rogers should be able to get us a new team with 20m....dream on campers

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  12. Okay Jaimie, I know Nicol is entitled to his opinion, and he is often right with his negative opinions...but does he have EVER have ANYTHING positive to say? "this guy can't defend", "this guy is overrated", "this guy is to blame for the loss" and on and on and on...it drives me nuts.

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  13. id take both over agger, ramos was better at right back and piqua is a more complete centre back than agger, good in the air and can tackle.
    nicol just a bitter outspoken man

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  14. 1. Pique

    2. Ramos

    3. Agger

    These are 3 atypical centre-halves. First of all, each of them are unusually comfortable on the ball and capable of passing it out from the back. Pique is a good defender, his biggest weakness being his fitness.

    Ramos is a great athlete and footballer, but he does have lapses of concentration. He is a hot head, which is ironic since he looks like Val Kilmer (Iceman). When he is at his best though, I'd say he is the best of the three. He seems like a player with which you have to take the rough with the smooth, which isn't great for a defender. Arguably better as a full-back because of this.

    Agger is less capable physically than the other two, and has had injury problems too (they seem to have subsided for now). He is poor at marking on set pieces.
    As for Ferguson knowing exactly what he was doing letting Pique go, I don't think he deserves that much credit since he effectively picked Jonny Evans over Pique.

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  15. Stop sniping. Stop bitching about the site/articles. If you can't do that, it's not my problem.

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  16. reina doesn t warrant is place in liverpool team never mind spain he has been crap for the last 3 seasons and if we can the 6 mill we paid back we would be very lucky

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  17. LOL, mature response!

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  18. Agger any day of the week.

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  19. Ramos is probably better offensively, but I think Agger is better defensively

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  20. jaimie you are joking right ,everytime you do not agree with somebodys opinion its sniping and bitching,well m8 take a look at yourself 1st,i do like your site but whats the point in having a comments policy if they are just getting deleted because you do not like them,to be fair most of the time you are reasonable,but sometimes you just go off the deep end ,and i thought it was women who suffured from pmt

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  21. there was nothing wrong with at least half the comments you deleted as other posters said the same thing later and are still live ,i prefered your tom cruise avitor but you could not handle the truth

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  22. Says something when Masch was better at CB than Pique, last season. I think Pique is overrated or at least benefits heavily playing in the systems he does for club and country. Two teams that have become some of the best teams of all time, not because of superb defending units a la Italy or Milan where impacts of the likes of Canna & Nesta on Italy and Baresi/Costacurta/Maldini at Milan was hugely important, but because of Spain & Barca's superb use of possession which stems from the midfield mostly, the defenders do defend competently but they don't defend to a great world class level (but the counter argument is they don't have to either, fair enough). Yep, he has been successful for both club and country, but both of these have dominated possession to a ridiculous level, thus he doesn't have to defend to the same extent as a defender in a more orthodox system, let alone defending like a Baresi, a Nesta, a Maldini,a Blanc, a Thuram or a Cannavaro. They are what you call world class defenders, not someone who doesn't have to defend much and when he does defend, he isn't all that great. So no, I don't think his team's success reflects conclusively on his ability to defend to a great level and goes to show team success isn't always a reliable measure of a individual's ability. Has been better this season but in terms of his type, I rate Thiago Silva more.

    Ramos is a solid defender but his aggressiveness and recklessness rears it ugly head too much. A few seasons ago, he broke Hierro's red card record at Real and Hierro was at that club for much longer. If he got that more under control, he would be more reliable.

    For now, I'd take either over Agger. Yes, they play in better teams but Agger needs to be doing much better than he has done this season.

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  23. Ferguson had Vidic and Ferdinand at their peak, so quite rightly Pique wasn't going to get games at that time. Couple that with his home club wanting him back, Ferguson had to right let him go. Like it or not, Ferdinand and Vidic partnership, at its peak, has been one of the best CB partnerships on both domestic and European level since 2000. Evans wasn't a regular on the first team scene when Pique was let go. He & Pique were behind the likes of Brown and O'Shea. Apparently, Ferguson would have kept Shawcross if he knew earlier that Pique was going to go. So who knows, might have been Shawcross that would have got the heads up instead and even then, Evans was doing well at Sunderland. I read somewhere a while back that Evans was a regular part of Man United's clean sheet record in 2008/09 and that was his breakthrough season and played with pain killer injections for his ankle. So I think Ferguson knows what he is doing, whether we like to admit it or not. People like to sensationalize about certain players in certain ways and its not always correct. Evans and De Gea get a lot of stick but I just see them as incorrect scapegoats. Their problem is the central midfield and midfield in general, they don't have a consistently good enough partner for Carrick, as they (midfield) keep on letting the opposition get at the defence too easily. All Rodgers had to do was get Suarez to annoy Carrick in the second half and we easily dominated them in the second half because of that. Take out Carrick, they can't dominate games, thus can't protect their defence adequately. I think their CBs are quite good from the old to the young, it is Evra and the midfield that is the problem. Barca's midfield protect their own defence by dominating the possession so much, which makes Pique's life easier and inflates his so-called reputation as some sort of wonderful CB. Our central midfield barely protected our defence against Southampton and it made their life a lot harder than it needed to be.

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  24. Urgh, wheres my post :(

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  25. anyone who thinks Pique and Ramos cannot defend is blind.. Both are class footballing defenders.

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