- 2 years ago
The 3 Added Minutes crew debate which of the Premier League's greatest ever loan players would make it into a dream fantasy five-a-side team.
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00:00 a real quality footballer. I know there's some bit of clichés when you talk about Rolls-Royce
00:04 footballers. I think Michael Arteta was one of those. He sort of played it low and slow,
00:08 didn't he? But he was bloody good at it. And then obviously off the bat...
00:11 I feel you have to be larger to be a Rolls-Royce player. I feel like Rolls-Royce is reserved
00:15 for bulky players.
00:16 No, it's...
00:17 Was Arteta a bit too thin to be a Rolls-Royce? He's more sort of a Jaguar.
00:21 Maybe, maybe. As far as I'm concerned, it's about the quality of the ride, not about the
00:25 size, Matthew. So yeah, where Michael Arteta is concerned...
00:30 I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know.
00:32 Where Michael Arteta is concerned...
00:33 Hello, I'm Matty Gregory and thank you for joining us for another episode of 3 Added
00:45 Minutes Fancy Fiverside, a programme in which we put together the best possible five-man
00:49 football team based on some extremely specific requirements. This week we're going to be
00:54 making a Fiverside team made up of the finest lone players to grace the pitches of the Premier
00:58 League. And to help me with that, here is my 3 Added Minutes colleague, Jason Jones.
01:02 Yeah, so here's how it all works. Matt and I take it in turns to propose a legendary
01:06 lone e for a spot on our team, spend a bit of time arguing over who should make the cut
01:10 until one of us has persuaded the other. And as usual, we're going to have to start
01:13 with the goalkeeper. So Matt, I'll come to you first, mate. Who are you fancying? Number
01:18 one, the best lone e goalkeeper in Premier League history.
01:22 I mean, there haven't actually been a tonne of lone e goalkeepers, so this was definitely
01:25 one of the trickier positions to sort out. I'm going for a player who wasn't necessarily
01:30 at his best, shall we say, in his lone spell in the Premier League, but was still a very
01:34 memorable player who was part of something more special than his lone spell perhaps amounted
01:40 to in its own right. And that's Andy Gorham, the late great Scotland goalkeeper. Had a
01:44 wonderful career north of the border, arguably the greatest goalkeeper Scotland has ever
01:49 seen, certainly up there. Remarkable player. When he was getting a little bit long in the
01:54 tooth, I think he was 38, playing at Motherwell, you know, playing his autumn years, he suddenly
01:58 found himself called up for two games by Manchester United. They'd run out of goalkeepers, you
02:04 know, I think it was Barthez was out, his back up Ramon van der Haal was out as well.
02:08 They just desperately needed a goalkeeper. They're in the thick of a title running.
02:12 Andy Gorham, the Scottish connection with Sir Alex Ferguson was brought in and he played
02:16 two games. He conceded four goals. I don't think anyone would say that he'll be going
02:20 down with like Schmeichel and so on and De Gea in the hall of Manchester United goalkeeping fame,
02:26 but he was still a part of a successful title run. And it's one of those things where he'll
02:31 always be just a little footnote, a little mark in the appendix of Manchester United's
02:36 title win that year. But I just think it's one of those things where he's such a wonderful
02:39 goalkeeper who doesn't really get remembered perhaps as often and as well as he deserves to.
02:45 And I just like sort of, you know, I know he's not the greatest goalkeeper United ever had or
02:49 Premier League has ever seen. He was nowhere near his peak when he was playing in the Premier League.
02:54 I just thought he's someone whose name needs to be mentioned more often. And,
02:57 you know, especially since we lost him not that long ago. So that's my shout. Andy Gorham.
03:01 I think it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because obviously you're saying there's not
03:04 been a great deal of sort of lonely goalkeepers in the Premier League. I think certainly towards
03:09 the sort of top end that happened because it almost feels as if one of the prerequisites
03:13 for a successful title challenge is that you have a well-established, reliable, number one
03:18 goalkeeper, you know. So in that sense, I think Gorham is a little bit of an outlier. For me,
03:23 personally, you know, and again, we are sort of scraping the barrel a little bit on this one.
03:27 I'm going to go with Keylor Navas. Purely because, I mean, when that deal went through last
03:32 season, I don't know if you remember, but it was just, it just felt like lunacy, you know,
03:37 it felt like something out of a football manager's save. Suddenly you've got Keylor Navas, PSG,
03:41 you know, we're talking however many caps for Costa Rica, Real Madrid, their former Real
03:47 Madrid goalkeeper, and suddenly he's rocking up at the city ground for no apparent reason whatsoever,
03:52 you know. And, you know, obviously Gorham had more success at Manchester United than Navas had
03:58 at Nottingham Forest. But I do think in terms of the level of performance, it's really hard to
04:03 argue against how integral Navas became to that Nottingham Forest team last season. You know,
04:08 I think that as far as his shot stopping ability goes, he was up there with the best
04:12 in the division during his time for Forest. And, you know, I don't have the sort of exact
04:17 numbers hand, but it'd be interesting to see just how many of his interventions earned points
04:22 for Forest and how important that was in their bid for survival last year. You know,
04:26 it's not entirely unforeseeable they could have come up and then gone straight back down. And I
04:31 think that being able to bring the player like Navas, his experience, his quality,
04:35 over the second half of the season really helped to steady the ship a little bit for
04:40 Steve Cooper's men. And I just think that through a combination of that and the fact that it was so
04:44 bloody absurd, I think that I'd probably go with Keiron Navas if I had a quick one.
04:51 Yeah, I'm kind of fine with that because, you know, Navas at his prime was a heck of a goalkeeper.
04:57 I mean, it might not sound like much to say the greatest player that Costa Rica has ever produced,
05:01 but Paulo Wanchope exists. That was a good player for any 90s kids out there.
05:06 And yeah, just wonderful around Madrid, obviously PSG as well. And it did seem ridiculous that he
05:12 suddenly turned up and not team Forest. And I imagine it must have been a little bit of a lift
05:16 when they're buying this huge raft of players in, you know, most of whom I doubt any of the other
05:20 team, the teammates ever heard of. Suddenly there's Keiron Navas. So just to give a lift
05:24 to our Fiberside team in a similar manner, I think I'm pretty happy to put Keiron Navas in the number
05:28 one jersey. All right, next up, we are going to need a defender, someone to protect Keiron Navas
05:40 in goal. I'm going to go for Ivan Campo. Now, pedants might point out that of course he was
05:46 at Bolton for several years and he certainly was not on loan for most of those years. But he was
05:50 originally a loan signing. This was a player who Real Madrid felt was kind of a little bit over the
05:55 heel. They were trying to rejuvenate the defense a little bit. He was supposed to take a year at
05:59 Bolton and then everyone could take stock. He then decided that he preferred life in Bolton to Madrid,
06:06 which is makes him possibly the only person in the history of football or indeed life in general to
06:12 have that opinion. I mean, I have no issue with Bolton. It's a perfectly nice town, but I've also
06:17 been to Madrid and it is a heck of a lot nicer. But whatever reason, Ivan Campo, I don't know if
06:22 it was all that curly hair meddling with his brain somehow, but yeah, he decided he wanted to stay at
06:27 Bolton and did for several years. He was a transformational player for them. It's really
06:32 hard to underestimate him alongside Yuri Chorkaev, JJ Acotia. It's the time when Bolton was suddenly
06:37 promoted to the Premier League. Everyone thought they'd go down. Instead, they just changed the
06:41 entire narrative around who they were as a football club, which has come a little unstuck since
06:47 admittedly, but it was the golden era for Bolton and they had these brilliant players and Campo was
06:53 a fantastic player. Maybe he was a tiny bit over the hill by Real Madrid standards, but by Bolton
07:00 standards, just by Premier League standards, he really was still a brilliant player, mostly
07:05 operating out in the fields, obviously centre back as well when he wanted to be. He was so composed,
07:11 so controlled with the ball. He didn't miss a tackle, scored a couple of absolute screamers as
07:16 well. He was just a proper cult hero player. Even as someone who has no particular sort of love of
07:22 Bolton, I couldn't help but love him, just as I couldn't help but love JJ Acotia. So I think Ivan
07:28 Campo, I just want to see his long flowing, flapping locks running around the field and
07:31 half-fivers side team, to be honest. Yeah, that Bolton team was a bit special, wasn't it? That
07:35 sort of give or take, the sort of first Bolton team that I properly, properly remember and was
07:42 sort of aware of and just a ridiculous crop of players. I mean, we didn't even mention Fernando
07:47 Hierro there, you know, sort of unbelievable squad. For me, I've also got a sort of midfielder who can
07:55 sort of moonlight at the back in Javier Mascherano. Obviously, Liverpool before that at West Ham and
08:03 that sort of very controversial transfer that sort of was and wasn't, you know, anyway. But yeah,
08:09 so obviously Mascherano joined Liverpool initially on loan and then went on and signed on a sort of
08:14 permanent deal further down the line. And I just don't think there's any denying how
08:18 unbelievably talented he was, you know, very much the sort of player who might not necessarily catch
08:24 the eye compared to certain other members of the team, so Stephen Gerrard or whoever it might be.
08:30 But there's no denying that a team with Mascherano in it is a better team for it. I think it's as
08:35 simple as that, you know, he, you know, really aggressive player, loved to tackle, could read
08:40 a game really well, decent range of distribution. You know, Rafa Benitez called him an absolute
08:45 monster and I think that's probably the best way that you could describe him. I think Javier
08:48 Mascherano, you know, on his day was as good as anybody in the Premier League. Maybe didn't have
08:52 the level of success at Liverpool that he would have liked. You know, I think off the top of my
08:57 head, he might have had a Champions League runners-up medal or something like that. But
09:00 certainly if we're talking about individual quality, I think it's really, really difficult
09:05 to look past Javier Mascherano as one of the best loanees at the Premier League I've ever seen.
09:09 Yeah, we seem to have got into a situation where I'm naming cult heroes and you're naming actual
09:15 world-class players, which I know feels slightly like cheating to me. I'll try and redress the
09:21 balance later. But for now, yeah, look, Mascherano, obviously an important part of
09:25 a brilliant Barcelona side as well in his career. Just a fantastic player. There's not really
09:30 anything else he could say. He was great when he was young. He was great when he was in his prime.
09:33 He was pretty damn good when he was old as well. Fabulous player. I think I can't really argue too
09:38 hard as much as I do love him. I can't blame him without Mascherano in the squad.
09:42 Right, so far you've been naming great players of yesteryear and I've been naming cult classics
09:53 that weren't quite as good as your players. So I'm going to try and flip the tables a little bit.
09:58 Next man I want on the team sheet is the president of Liberia, better known to us as George Wayle.
10:02 Genuinely one of the greatest players, certainly ever to come out of Africa. One of the best
10:06 players of the late 80s, early 90s, throughout the 90s really. Just a fabulous player, brilliant
10:12 athlete, great technician, really skillful, wonderful dribbler of the ball, brilliant eye
10:18 for goal. Had a fantastic career pretty much across the continent. In terms of the Premier
10:22 League, he rocked up at Chelsea in the year 2000, supposedly a little bit past his prime,
10:27 but I think it was Gianluca Biali who was the manager, decided to give him a crack in the
10:30 Premier League and he immediately endeared himself to Chelsea fans by scoring a winner against Spurs.
10:37 Scored a couple more league goals over the course of a six-month spell and also scored two goals in
10:41 their FA Cup run, which of course was the year they won the FA Cup in 2000. And just for that
10:47 reason, he's just a brilliant player at his prime and he wasn't at his prime in Chelsea. He didn't
10:51 score tons of goals like he might have done had it been five years previous, but he still scored
10:56 important goals. And still, if we're going to go by past achievements, as we did with Navas and
11:00 Mascherano, I think you can't really argue against George Weah. He really was a proper all-time
11:06 great. And it's just his list of achievements, his quality speaks for itself. Who else can you put up
11:14 against George Weah who could possibly put up an argument? I don't know. But great player,
11:19 good at Chelsea, scored key goals. I would love to have him in my squad.
11:24 Yeah, it's hard to disagree really, isn't it? I'm going to give an honourable mention to Jesse
11:31 Lingard, though in no way, shape or form, I'm not suggesting that Jesse Lingard has had the same
11:36 sort of career that George Weah has, or had rather.
11:39 All right, well, we're halfway through the process of building our Fiverr side team.
11:50 Join us after these adverts to find out who the third member of the squad will be.
11:53 [Whistle]
11:55 [Whistle]
12:03 Welcome back to 3 Out of 10s from Navas and Fiverr's side. We've already got two members
12:12 of the squad settled, so let's see who the third player joining our squad will be.
12:15 [Whistle]
12:23 I'm going to give an honourable mention to Jesse Lingard, though in no way,
12:28 shape or form, I'm not suggesting that Jesse Lingard has had the same
12:31 sort of career that George Weah has, or had rather. But when Jesse Lingard went to West
12:38 Ham a couple of years ago, there was a real feeling that it was kind of make or break for
12:43 him. Things weren't working out at Manchester United, obviously his boyhood club never truly
12:48 lived up to his potential there, or at least never truly lived up to his potential over
12:52 a consistent period of time, I think it's fair to say. He then obviously went to East
12:57 London and was just absolutely unplayable, like simply unplayable for a time. 16 appearances
13:04 across all competitions in that time, he scored nine goals and he assisted five more. That's
13:08 14 goal contributions in 16 matches, he's literally world class, like there's no other
13:14 way of describing it. He looked lifted, he looked buoyant, he looked happy. And I think
13:21 the sort of biggest shame about Jesse Lingard's time with West Ham was that it didn't last
13:25 longer. Obviously that loan stint was relatively short and then off the back of that, when
13:30 his contract with Manchester United eventually expired, despite links with West Ham, he went
13:36 to Nottingham Forest, didn't quite work out there. And obviously, again, he was linked
13:40 to someone he's got in the Middle East instead, but for that brief, brief period that he was
13:45 a West Ham United player, I genuinely think there's an argument to be made for him being
13:49 one of the most consistently creative players in the Premier League. And so for that reason,
13:55 and on the basis of that brief loan spell alone, I would probably suggest Jesse Lingard.
14:01 That being said, the precedent we've set with our first couple of picks, I think it would
14:05 be a little bit ridiculous to put him in over George Weare at this stage.
14:08 Yeah, I mean, Lingard was fantastic in that loan spell, obviously got called back up to
14:14 the England squad, but he couldn't keep it up, which is a bit of a shame because I think
14:17 he was a good player, just couldn't do it consistently. I guess in terms of legacy,
14:23 George Weare was sort of the icon of not just his own nation, of the clubs he played for,
14:29 but arguably for an entire continent. And he's now even got into politics and become
14:34 the president of his country, which is a mark of a man who's pretty successful, I guess.
14:38 Jesse Lingard gave us that thing, which I can't probably do correctly. So I hope you
14:44 don't mind too much if I do say that George Weare should probably be on this team.
14:48 It's absolutely fine with me, mate. What I will say, that in, you know, 2040,
14:52 when Jesse Lingard sat in 10 Downing Street, we can revisit this and maybe rediscuss that.
14:57 I should note that I don't follow Liberian politics especially closely,
15:03 so there is at least some chance that I'm praising some horrific dictator at this point,
15:07 but I haven't got a clue. He was a great footballer. Let's just go with George Weare.
15:11 [Whistle]
15:11 Right, three slots decided, two more to go. For our next player, I'm going to propose
15:22 Carlos Tevez. Now, it's easily forgotten, and to be honest, I'd forgotten it until I actually did
15:27 some research for this article, that Tevez was on loan for the whole two years he spent at
15:31 Manchester United. Never signed permanently, still in the space of those two years, scored
15:36 hatfuls of goals, irritated the hell out of pretty much every opposing team he came across,
15:42 won two Premier Leagues, won the Champions League, probably won a domestic cup in there
15:46 somewhere as the Ferguson Ears. They won everything. I can't be expected to remember
15:50 every year they won what. Just a fantastic player as well. Just, you know, that
15:54 stocky little frame darting around between defenders, scoring often brilliant goals,
16:00 irritating every single defender he came across, just barging them out of the way.
16:04 They'd have this tiny little thing buzzing around about a foot below their head,
16:07 sort of just knocking their shins out and getting the ball off them. And then usually scoring.
16:11 Just a really great technical player. I think that's something I'd slightly forgotten about
16:15 Tevez. When people talk about his aggression, you know, talk about the stuff he's won, obviously,
16:20 and they sort of remember the energy and sort of him buzzing around and getting in people's faces,
16:27 or at least getting a foot below people's faces. But he really was a fantastic technical player,
16:32 and just could score goals from basically anywhere. And, yeah, just achieved a hell of
16:37 a lot of Manchester United. Just, you know, the number of games he won, goals scored,
16:41 trophies won, Champions League and two league titles. It's really hard to argue there's ever
16:47 been a more impactful loan in the Premier League. And just, you know, it was only a short stint in
16:53 Man United, really two years, but what two years they were. And yeah, just a great player, even if
16:58 I suspect he's probably not that popular at United these days, what with the whole, you know,
17:02 welcome to Manchester and Sky Blue sort of lifted above, you know, Deansgate on a big billboard.
17:07 But, you know, I'm sure they probably forgive him for that when it comes down to it, he did
17:11 do pretty well for them. Yeah, he did, didn't he? He was a real sort of bulldog of a player,
17:16 Carlos Tevez, I feel. You've gone for impact, I'm going to go for more sort of longevity, I think.
17:21 I'm going to go with Mikhail Arteta, who initially signed for Everton on loan from Real Sociedad
17:28 in the mid-noughties. And then obviously we know what he did after that. He became a real sort of
17:33 cult hero, good at some park, just a wonderful technician, real quality footballer, you know,
17:40 like I know there's some bit of a cliche isn't it when you talk about Rolls Royce footballers. I
17:43 think Mikhail Arteta was one of those. He sort of played it low and slow, didn't he? But he was
17:47 bloody good at it. And then obviously off the bat... I feel you have to be larger to be a
17:51 Rolls Royce player. I feel like Rolls Royce is reserved for bulky players. No, it's... Was
17:56 Arteta a bit too thin to be a Rolls Royce? He's more sort of a Jaguar. Maybe, maybe. As far as I'm
18:01 concerned, it's about the quality of the ride, not about the size, Matthew. So yeah, where Mikhail
18:06 Arteta is concerned... I wouldn't know. Mikhail Arteta is concerned. Yeah, just a wonderful
18:14 footballer. And I don't think anybody who saw him play during his time at Everton, and obviously he
18:19 did go on and do wonderful things at Arsenal as well. I don't think anybody who saw him in the
18:23 Premier League can deny that he was a fantastic signing for both of those clubs. But initially,
18:29 he did join Everton on a temporary stint, which I didn't actually realise initially. And I think
18:35 that on that technicality alone, being able to chuck him into a discussion like this is a good
18:42 thing. But that being said, again, I do find it hard to disagree with Carlos Tevez. I think that
18:48 at his pod from Manchester United, he was borderline unplayable. So I think on that basis
18:54 alone, probably tend to disagree with you and Carlos Tevez there.
18:58 Right, one last spot to fill in our team. I'm going to propose Birmingham City legend
19:10 Christophe Dugas. Now, according to Wikipedia, he scored 36 goals in 15 games in one spell for
19:15 Birmingham City. I'm pretty sure that isn't true, but he did score a decent number. And he was in
19:21 terms of class, in terms of quality, in terms of finishing, in terms of all-round game, all-round
19:26 ability, footballing IQ, his intelligence. He was probably the most elegant player ever to play for
19:31 Birmingham City, and probably the best player ever to play for Birmingham City, assuming we discount
19:37 a young Jude Bellingham. Now, for some reason, Dugare's number isn't retired at St Andrews,
19:42 which seems a bit of an oversight in retrospect. But his brief stint in Birmingham was just
19:48 brilliant. He basically kept him in the Premier League, if not single-handedly, then. He was that
19:52 player who comes in and takes a team who are very much a threat of relegation and lifts them by
19:57 himself. He didn't score hatfalls. He certainly didn't score 36 goals, but he did just get key
20:03 goals. He made the players around him better. I know he's still incredibly fondly remembered in
20:08 St Andrews. Let's be honest, how many other World Cup winners have Birmingham City had? I don't
20:12 actually know the answer. I suspect it's probably close to zero, unless a member of the 66 squad
20:17 had a spell there at some point in their career. But yeah, just a heck of a player, someone who
20:23 felt too good to be playing for Birmingham, and was good enough to pretty much pull them up by
20:28 the collar and keep them in the Premier League for another season. Yeah, he's just a wonderful
20:33 player, very fondly remembered, I know, by a lot of people who watched him. And a lot of impact in
20:37 a very short space of time. Yeah, he's sort of another Kehlaar, Navas, Even Campo figure, isn't
20:43 he? You know, the sort of player that you do a double take when you see the transfer announced.
20:47 I'm sure there was a certain amount of disbelief around St Andrews when it was confirmed that he
20:51 signed for them. Now, over the course of two loan spells, the first one at West Brom, where he
21:03 really sort of broke out and established himself as a sort of Premier League level striker,
21:07 and then a follow up at Everton, which obviously then became a permanent deal. He did sort of
21:13 transform himself from, you know, Chelsea youth team prospect to genuinely sought after top tier
21:21 striker, you know, I mean, during his time at West Brom alone, he's got something like 17 goals in
21:25 the Premier League and, you know, give or take, that might not be entirely accurate, but he's got
21:29 a ridiculous amount of goals, especially for a team who was sort of in the position that they
21:32 were in. And, you know, he helped West Brom to achieve an absurdly high finish during the time
21:37 that he was there. But, you know, in terms of his traits, we all know what Lukaku can do when he's
21:42 at his best, you know, he runs in behind better than most. He's obviously a wonderfully strong,
21:47 powerful player. And I think sometimes, certainly in recent years, there's been a sort of
21:51 a tendency to memeify him for want of a better word. I don't know if that is a word, but on his
21:56 day, you know, he's as good a finisher as anybody in continental football. And I think that while
22:03 he always would have come to the fore, I think the fact that he really sort of, you know, broke out
22:08 on loan during, you know, his time with West Brom and then, and afterwards, I think that
22:13 qualified him more than enough for this team. And I think that if we're talking about how much of an
22:16 impact they had on their respective sides, obviously Biggory did a fair amount for Birmingham,
22:21 but I don't think there's any denying that Lukaku probably did just as much for West Brom.
22:26 Yeah, I mean, that was the moment that he sort of went from being a hyped up prospect to being a
22:31 proven, productive Premier League player. And he was fantastic, you know, he ruined Sir Alex
22:36 Ferguson's farewell as well. You know, scoring a bunch of goals at Old Trafford on the last day of
22:40 that season. Just, yeah, he's obviously had a heck of an up and down career. His highs have been very,
22:46 very high, his lows have been pretty much rock bottom. But there's no argument that at his best,
22:52 when he is on his game, Lukaku's up there with the best strikers in the world. He doesn't do it
22:57 every year, but when he does it, he does. And he did a lot of it at West Brom. So yeah, I've got a
23:02 lot of fondness for Dugali. I think he was a cracking player and I think he was so key to his
23:06 team. But you put him head to head, I think it's fair to say Lukaku was just a better player. So
23:10 yeah, last one on the team I think goes to Romelu Lukaku.
23:20 Well, that's all for this week's episode of 3 Out of Minutes, Fantasy Five Aside.
23:24 And our squad of the best Premier League loan signings is Caelon Avas, Javier Mascherano,
23:30 George Weah, Carlos Tevez and Romelu Lukaku. We'll be back with another episode next week,
23:35 but until then you can read all the latest football news along with some of the finest writing and
23:39 insight on the internet at www.3outofminutes.com. And enjoy even more sporting insight on Shots TV,
23:45 3G Channel 276. This program was produced by Marcles.
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