Mark Viduka (!) on Sky Sports this morning

The best centre forward I’ve seen at the boro in my time, the best centre forward I’ve seen live. An uncanny mix of strength, power, guile, vision and unerring blistering finishing. He could do it against top quality opposition and when it really mattered. He was of the highest quality.
 
For me he's the best player I've seen in a Boro shirt. He had a spell where he was unplayable. The Charlton game in the FA cup as an example. Charlton really turned up that night and Viduka was the difference.
I love how proud he is now of his uefa cup final losers medal as well. He said at the time he threw it in a draw and never wanted to see it again. Now he's says how proud he is of it and what. An achievement it was.
 
Redlips said:
If he was leaner and not so lethargic he would have played for Real Madrid.

I watched a podcast on him before and Alex Ferguson tried to sign on few occasions.

swashbuckling on his day. Him and Jimmy Floyd were the best partnership we have ever had.
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Viduka was a great player, but that "partnership thing" is sticking your neck out. Of those I saw, Clough and Peacock" would get my vote.
 
indeedido said:
The biggest load of rubbish posted on here for a long time.
Viduka was the best striker we've had here in my fifty years of going to Boro.
And by an awful long way.
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You've selectively only posted part of what I said, which takes it out of context.

I think you need to relax a bit too, its only an opinion after all, whether you agree with it or not.
 
Jonny Ingbar said:
You've selectively only posted part of what I said, which takes it out of context.

I think you need to relax a bit too, its only an opinion after all, whether you agree with it or not.
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I'm really relaxed actually Jonny.
Don't be so bruised at my response. It is only an opinion after all.
 
atomicloonybin aka ALB said:
Hour long interview with Paul Robinson talking about his career. Well worth catching if its available.

For me, one of the greatest and simultaneously frustrating players who ever pulled on a Boro shirt. He's lived in Croatia for five years, Australia and London before that. An interesting hour - he loved being at the Boro (which slightly surprised me), said we had a good team that made coming in every day a pleasure, good kids and a bunch of players who'd been around; but said we disrespected him by only offering him a contract at the end of the season when his contract ended. Still didn't need to join N*wc*stl*, Mark.

He picked his five best goals, and picked two Boro - the 30 yarder against Charlton in the cup, and the absolute beaut against Birmingham. https://youtu.be/CGNVGpLWx44?t=31


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For me he was a genius
Our best striker ever!
 
BoroMart said:
Yak didn't create and 7 of his goals were penalties won by Viduka, Jimmy, Downing etc. The penalties artificially inflate YAk's goalscoring prowess.

So Yak scored 18 goals in 2 years , plus 7 pens and one miss

If Viduka had been given penalty duties instead, even if he only scored half of the 8 penalties, then you would looking at Vids 30 in 72 and Yak 18 in 73.

Being the chosen penalty taker is the only reason Yaks stats make him look as good as Viduka, and why you need to look a little bit deeper than one simple statistic when validating the value of a players contribution.
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Yak didn't create?! He laid on some great assists. Look at the stunning through ball for Viduka vs Basle, the cut back for Mendieta's 2nd against Man U, or his cross for Downing against Reading.

He also played quite a lot games up front on his own, such as when he destroyed Terry and Carvalho when we beat them 3-0. (Of course it was really 4-0, but Yak's chip of Cech was criminally disallowed). Yak was a top six Prem striker all day long, I think selling him was a much bigger mistake than Viduka, who was also superb, but much closer to the end of his career with a worse injury record.
 
BoroMart said:
No, he had a very decent technique for penalties, and I guess that was an art in itself, but it when you look at his career, his goalscoring, getting into scoring opportunities and clinical finishing was no better than average and his creativity, hold up and link up play was relatively poor compared to Viduka.
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I tend to agree that Viduka was a special talent and on his day, the pick of the three of them, but it's a stretch to call Yakubu's hold up play 'relatively poor compared to Viduka'. It really wasn't, as evidenced by the fact that when we played one up front, it was Yak. He was a beast on the ball, had an excellent touch and was much more mobile than Viduka who, great as he was, was also pretty lazy, and blew hot and cold a lot for 2 seasons. We had strikers with a good mix of assets, but all 3 were class players. Personally I really liked the Viduka/Yakubu partnership, which was when Viduka had by far his best season. It's a shame the rest of the squad was in decline by then.
 
Pinkers said:
Yak didn't create?! He laid on some great assists. Look at the stunning through ball for Viduka vs Basle, the cut back for Mendieta's 2nd against Man U, or his cross for Downing against Reading.
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HE didn't create as often as Viduka, he was quite greedy
 
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