Centralscrutinizer
Well-known member
It's close between a few, but I'll go for French Frank, he gets the nod for scoring against Sunderland on his home debut and being part of the cup winning team
As for left backs, as much as I loved Franck and as class as Ziege was, prior to his injury I thought Gordon was the best left back I'd seen in a Boro shirt as he was as good going forward as he was in defence. His all round positional awareness was consistently very good I thought. The other two did have defensive lapses now and then.
Yeah as I've said previously Ziege wasn't really a left back for me, not good enough defensively. Memory plays tricks but don't really recall him playing left back in a 4 for us. Assume he must have done a bit but would love to see the stats.
As for Gordon. Absolutely essential to our first season back in the Prem along with Ricard. We must have been fairly lopsided because I think most of our attacks went through him as our best outlet. It worked though. Shame he got that bad injury when he did, was on the verge of an England call up and kind of finished him as a top flight player. Didn't play much after that I don't think.
wow, Keet O'Neill, Noel Whelan and Paul Okon in the side and we still won
Found it
wow, Keet O'Neill, Noel Whelan and Paul Okon in the side and we still won
Yes Jimmy Phillips is a good shout, recall his last minute winning freekick away at Tranmere, Friday nightZiege without doubt the best, but certainly not my favourite which would be a toss up between Coops and French Frank. I also quite liked Jimmy Phillips!
would Agree with Dean Gordon :-DSeeing as we are struggling for quality at left back, I thought I’d depress us all some more by thinking of some of the great Boro full backs.
Since the PL came into existence the best full back is surely Franck? Ziege was truly class bit would consider him as a wing-back more than a full back. Honourable mention in that department to Dean Gordon too. Could have been a Boro great were it not for his shocking injury. Excellent player though.
Cooper still should have played for England while at the Boro, he was certainly good enoughTerry Cooper for me, he was like a one man show at times down the left wing, a very very entertaining player.
Ziege, undoubtedly, was a top quality German international but a different style to Cooper and as others have mentioned above he left a bit of a bad taste and in my view you can’t have that if you want to be regarded as ‘the best.’