Back Four - Bould or Keown?

[arseofacrow]

Bould

[hugh jardon]

Bould for me. But what an incredibly difficult choice to make. Two phenomenal defenders.

George used to collect centre halfs back then. As well as the first choices such as Adams and Bould we had the likes of Keown, David O'Leary, Gus Caeser, Andy Linighan, Colin Pates, and Scott Marshall in reserve at various times.

Reckon even a partnership of Caeser and Pates could teach Vermaelen, Mertesacker and Koscielny a thing or two about the art of defending!

[green gooner]

I remember well in our CWC winning run Keown just used to man mark any threat out of the game, he did not like that role, yet he got on with it and we loved him for the shift he put in

[knee_jerk_reaction]

linighan

[northbank123]

Tough choice. Both of them were actually far more talented than they were given credit for, and obviously had fantastic dedication.

The only one of our centre-halves who could possibly be said to be willing to run through a brick wall would be Vermaelen. And even then hed somehow embarrass himself and make the wall look like a top-class centre forward.

[Top Londoner]

Bould for me. But what an incredibly difficult choice to make. Two phenomenal defenders.

George used to collect centre halfs back then. As well as the first choices such as Adams and Bould we had the likes of Keown, David O'Leary, Gus Caeser, Andy Linighan, Colin Pates, and Scott Marshall in reserve at various times.

Reckon even a partnership of Caeser and Pates could teach Vermaelen, Mertesacker and Koscielny a thing or two about the art of defending!

Just Keown for me though. Just.

[Clash]

Keown. England managers thought the same too.

Keown fair enough ... but I'm not sure the England managers thing is necessarilly a good indication mate One particular turnip who shall remain nameless picked Keith Curle for a major championship over both Bould and Adams. Mind you he also picked Woods over Seaman and once dropped Gazza for Gordon Cowans so that tells you the level of cretinousness we are dealing with with this particular individual. Way out of his depth at international level.

Anyway going back to the likes of Bould, I still cant understand why did England managers neglected him and so many of our players in an era where Arsenal were the best team in the country and the team was English. These players were some of the best in the country and the alternatives used in some cases were laughable. Tony Daley instead of David Rocastle? Gary Stevens instead of Lee Dixon? Even when an Arsenal player was picked it was Alan Smith (dropped at club level) instead of the moment and golden boot winner Ian Wright (the man who supplanted him at Arsenal).

In my opinion the England manager in the 1992 euros deserved to fail. It was a JOKE that he ever got the job in the first place but dont want to go off topic!!

Bacl to Keown, I could be wrong here but did he ever win an England cap when he was an Arsenal player? From memory they all seemed to come when he was a Villa or Everton player. I dont think its anything sinister that Arsenal players were overlooked but its very strange. Nowadays I couldnt give a fcuk!

[QuartzGooner]

But Bould was very good, and Adams preffered him as a person, though said he fully respected Keown as a player.

Did Adams and Keown not get on? Or am I jumping to conclusions? Your comment seems to imply that Adams liked Keown professionally, but not personally. Apologies if I've misinterpreted, just never heard anything about that before.

Adams speaks about it in his book, he found Keown hard to get on with personally.

[GranadaJoe]

Keown was a better man-marker, had more pace and a bit more composure, so gets my vote. Bould was competitiveness personified (take note BFG and Kos).

[officepest]

Can't split them for the different strengths they had so I'll cop out and play Steve as part of a pair of centre-halves and put Martin in the modern DM role and ask him to stick to his man like glue, GG Style.

As for Bould's criminal overlooking by England, I couldn't give a shit tbh. As someone else said Turnip played some utter filth whilst in charge - even Carlton Palmer gots caps. Carlton fucking Palmer.

[Ben Diesel]

Close call, but for me it's Bould. Because of the 1990/91 season. He played in 38 League games.

We conceded only 18 goals in the League and lost one game - away at Chelsea.

That was the only League game Bould failed to finish, IIRC. Subbed - replaced by David Hillier.

[DB10GOONER]

Close call - both were fantastic for us. They both had great parts to their game and both complimented Adams in different ways. Probably give it to Keown just purely for Old Shatford and his Vampire Lord impression over Van LongFace.