In what is an interesting article about left-backs in The Guardian bearing the title "Are we in a golden age of Premier League left-backs?" and which names no fewer than twelve of them, our Charlie is nowhere to be seen.

Which leads me to draw two possible conclusions:

Either

a) The title of the article is really spot on and there are indeed twelve better left-backs than CT,

b) We Clarets are deluded.

The 12 the journo names:

Andrew Robertson, Aaron Cresswell, Lucas Digne, Luke Shaw, Kieran Tierney, Sergio Reguilón, Oleksandr Zinchenko, James Justin, Matt Targett, Ryan Bertrand, Ezgjan Alioski and Ben Chilwell.

Whilst there's no denying that there are a lot of class acts in that list I do wonder whether Charlie is no better than thirteenth (if that) best left-back this season.


https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... left-backs

The guardian in talking **** shocker

We overate him is the answer. He looks so good in our team because we are lacking big strong physical athletes like Taylor so he gives us something we dont really have elsewhere in the team

Match him up against some of the others and he's not that great on the ball, his crossing is ok and he can switch off from time to time.

He's a decent mid table Premier League player which makes him one of our better players with the likes of Pope, Tarks, McNeil and Wood

Charlie Taylor is better than at least 5 of those.

I like Charlie Taylor. He's a Sean Dyche man and I don't care what some 3rd-rate newspaper reports (Joke)

Devils_Advocate wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:13 pm

We overate him is the answer. He looks so good in our team because we are lacking big strong physical athletes like Taylor so he gives us something we dont really have elsewhere in the team

Match him up against some of the others and he's not that great on the ball, his crossing is ok and he can switch off from time to time.

He's a decent mid table Premier League player which makes him one of our better players with the likes of Pope, Tarks, McNeil and Wood

I’d like to, but can’t really argue with that assessment. Taylor is a damn good player for us, he’s not in the same league as a lot of the names mentioned - some of the names are perhaps debatable.

DCWat wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:17 pm

I’d like to, but can’t really argue with that assessment. Taylor is a damn good player for us, he’s not in the same league as a lot of the names mentioned - some of the names are perhaps debatable.

I agree there's 3 or 4 on the list you cant say either way cos they're close calls but the rest are better players (that doesn't take anything away from Taylor who is brilliant for us)

Love Charlie. Very good player.

Never heard of two of them, so that answers the question.

We all love Charlie, and his overlapping runs.
TBF I think the Guardian are very kind to us, and are one of the few nationals who 'get' what BFC is, it's achievements, etc. I suspect one factor in his omission is the injuries preventing a consistent run / and absence in the in stats / OPTA / Fantasy etc.

On a similar note, David Conn at the Guardian has been a vital voice in highlighting injustices in football for many years. He is City fan, but brought up in sight of Gigg Lane, and their demise clearly affected him and seemed to question the efforts of his particular vanguard. I detected a sense of detachment in his recent BFC article, as if reporting on yet another close to home club serves no purpose when fighting the FA, Premier League, big business and dodgy owners.

You missed option C = doesn’t play for a billionaire type club so is assumed not as good
Charlie Taylor is as good if not better than most of those players

Desperately need him in team on Saturday

Luke Shaw is Much improved.

RalphCoatesComb wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:17 pm

I like Charlie Taylor. He's a Sean Dyche man and I don't care what some 3rd-rate newspaper reports (Joke)

Just curious......if the Guardian is third-rate, what are some first-rate newspapers in England?

definitely some names I don't know but definitely some names I do who are better than CT, but if you start looking at value for money then he has to be right up there in my humble opinion.

To be fair. Charlie is tied to our system and players abilities around him so we don't see marauding down the flanks as often as the others. Robertson was close to joining us before Liverpool stepped in. I bet he'd be somewhat more hamstrung by our system if he was with us.
Some of those are improved (Targett), some of those lost their way a little (Shaw) and some of those are not as good (Zinchenko). Some are better.
Taylor probably deserves to be on that list ahead of one or two but I'm guessing that report is based more on their wing-back capabilities because a few of them can't defend that well.
People may be saying 'Wait, Zinchenko?!' He's comfortable on the ball and can carry it but he is like a rabbit in headlight's under pressure. Granted, City aren't often under pressure but if there's a left back I'd fancy my wingers having a go at. It'd be him. He seems to panic.

Devils_Advocate wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:13 pm

We overate him is the answer. He looks so good in our team because we are lacking big strong physical athletes like Taylor so he gives us something we dont really have elsewhere in the team

Match him up against some of the others and he's not that great on the ball, his crossing is ok and he can switch off from time to time.

He's a decent mid table Premier League player which makes him one of our better players with the likes of Pope, Tarks, McNeil and Wood

Agree, when it comes to Pope I think he’s certainly in the top 5

I think we overrate some of our other players as well, purely because some of our players are so much better than the rest of the squad.

Charlie is one of the top 2 left backs with his last minute tackling and interceptions along with Robertson
Anyone other than Muppet Southgate would have picked him for England already.

As a defender alone, he would be right up there. However, in our system he is not known for his attacking nature which is why those on the list are 'sexier' options.

Too get noticed in football, full backs have to be getting regular assists and the odd goal. As well as keeping the best wingers quiet

Our style of last minute defending doesn't impress everyone.

If Charlie had stayed at Leeds with their attacking style and all the assists he was getting there. He would be in the England squad for sure.

We don’t over rate Charlie Taylor.

There aren’t 12 better left backs in the PL.

We aren’t deluded.

You have only given yourself two options. There are clearly more, end even more reasons (some already explained by other posters) why he isn’t getting the recognition he deserves.

Taylor is a great player for us.

But the Paper is right we truly are in an era of unbelievably good left backs. All them on that list are top quality. I actually think Digne is the best out of all them. He is so consistently good.

Taylor is probably around 5th-6th choice for England right now which just highlights how many top quality left backs there are out there.

Re Charlie not playing for England most on the original list are foreign players so not eligible
Southgate is so stupid he even attempts to play right backs out of position .Mind you he also things Dierbolical at Spurs is a CB so that says it all.

He IS in the list at number 11. It's just the usual Grauniad typo.

Bertrand is the only one I can say Taylor is better than other than that it's right.

He's better than at least 5 on that list.

The Guardian hmmmmm, if Taylor announced he was in a long term relationship with somebody who identified themselves gender neutral, he identified as gender fluid and they were both in a deep and meaningful relationship with a one legged Nelson Mandella lookalike drag queen tribute act he'd be at least in the top three.

ecc wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:02 pm

Andrew Robertson, Aaron Cresswell, Lucas Digne, Luke Shaw, Kieran Tierney, Sergio Reguilón, Oleksandr Zinchenko, James Justin, Matt Targett, Ryan Bertrand, Ezgjan Alioski and Ben Chilwell.

Taylor is better than zinchenko, targett, Bertrand, alioski and arguably above cresswell as well. Taylor isn’t overrated. It isn’t just Burnley fans that rate him - he has been considered for England squads before.

His attacking isn’t all we were led to believe, when he signed. You only need to check his lack of assists or goals to see that. His defending is excellent and perfect for our system.
He is still better than Targett, Bertrand and Alioski and Justin hasn’t been around long enough to judge.
Look at the 2 goals Chelsea scored against us. Both by FBs, both in or around our 6 yd box. I pray for the day when our FBs are allowed that freedom.

Rumour has it that hibsclaret still prefers Stephen Ward and Eric Pieters.

Taffy on the wing wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:36 am

Just curious......if the Guardian is third-rate, what are some first-rate newspapers in England?

Joke, it even says joke, calm down

Charlie Taylor is no different to may of our players and especially our defenders. He is an excellent full back (and one of our most important players) in our system and I would choose him over the majority of those on the list.

However if we played a more expansive game, as others have pointed to, he’d be comfortably towards the bottom of such a list, if included in it at all.

The one defender I think can play outside our system and still look as effective is Tarks.

He is a fantastic full back and the Guardian has no idea

As a defender I'd say Charlie is certainly in the top 12, also he's as good as many at bringing the ball forward. He falls down on only having one foot and his crossing (with a couple of notable exceptions) is pretty poor.

Most of the others in the list play in front of 3 at the back system, so are playing as left side midfielders so perhaps we're not comparing apples with apples.

KateR wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 05, 2021 3:21 am

definitely some names I don't know but definitely some names I do who are better than CT, but if you start looking at value for money then he has to be right up there in my humble opinion.

Kate Humble?

Devils_Advocate wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:13 pm

We overate him is the answer. He looks so good in our team because we are lacking big strong physical athletes like Taylor so he gives us something we dont really have elsewhere in the team

Match him up against some of the others and he's not that great on the ball, his crossing is ok and he can switch off from time to time.

He's a decent mid table Premier League player which makes him one of our better players with the likes of Pope, Tarks, McNeil and Wood

I realise its all very subjective , but people often categorise players as "decent championship footballer" etcetera.
But to say he's of premier league standard, but only for mid table level is stretching things somewhat.
He is definately a very capable player and more than good enough to be classed with the best in that article.
Difficult to analyse a lot of our players who have genuine talent, because they are collectively poor as a team quite often as results and table position shows. If however they weren't under constant pressure during matches, and were surrounded by equally good footballers, then they would thrive. Its like when they used to criticise the beast as our keeper for conceding too many goals. If any keeper had to deal with such a leaky defence and face non stop attacks , they to would look bad, but it wouldnt be justified.

I am glad he is not on that list or perceived to be a top left back. As fans we know just how good he is, but we dont want him being on other club's radar, and prize him away

Wile E Coyote wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 05, 2021 11:59 am

I realise its all very subjective , but people often categorise players as "decent championship footballer" etcetera.
But to say he's of premier league standard, but only for mid table level is stretching things somewhat.
He is definately a very capable player and more than good enough to be classed with the best in that article.
Difficult to analyse a lot of our players who have genuine talent, because they are collectively poor as a team quite often as results and table position shows. If however they weren't under constant pressure during matches, and were surrounded by equally good footballers, then they would thrive. Its like when they used to criticise the beast as our keeper for conceding too many goals. If any keeper had to deal with such a leaky defence and face non stop attacks , they to would look bad, but it wouldnt be justified.

It works both ways does that. If you're Tarks or Mee you play with about 8 defenders and rarely get exposed so its far easier to look a better centre back than if you say are Maguire or Stones who play for sides that leave you hopelessly exposed.

In my opinion there's no way a top 8 side would be looking to pay good money for Taylor to improve their first 11 so by that definition alone he's mid table. I think being a mid table Premier League player is a great achievement and is one I would only say of 5 or 6 of our current squad

RalphCoatesComb wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 05, 2021 9:56 am

Joke, it even says joke, calm down

Didn't see that to be honest..........I wasn't irate, just curious. The newspapers are awful over there.

Charlie Taylor end of season rating on the player ratings thread - 7.18 - Good.

I suspect that either he's under-rated by Burnley fans (Literally), or the report is fair.

There is also a snobbery built in due to our players playing for Burnley and not a bigger club:

Garth Crooks on his team of the season last year:
"I would like to have picked Burnley's Nick Pope - he's had an impressive year - but until he joins a club that is challenging for honours I can't see him having the same impact as Alisson".

Charlie Taylor gets Dwight going which gets our forwards going.

He's an integral part of the machine. Far better than what Pieters manages

Edit: He might not have that many assists but I'll bet he was involved in the play leading upto a lot of our goals. Especially from set pieces at their end

He’s over rated by Burnley players because we aren’t used to having talented footballers in the team.

He’s absolutely nowhere near England material though.

Do you not think the current team is chock full of talented footballers?

I don't care if others don't rate him. That way they hopefully won't come in for him.

Spijed wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 05, 2021 4:46 pm

There is also a snobbery built in due to our players playing for Burnley and not a bigger club:

Garth Crooks on his team of the season last year:
"I would like to have picked Burnley's Nick Pope - he's had an impressive year - but until he joins a club that is challenging for honours I can't see him having the same impact as Alisson".

Alison had a great impact today

MT03ALG wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 07, 2021 6:37 pm

Alison had a great impact today

To be fair not many goalies get an assist

I think Taylor and Dwight are more than a reasonable
combination going down the left that help create more chances for us.

Looking forward to him coming back. Pieters may not be a bad replacement
and has played reasonably well when coming in.

But do feel Tylor offers us more.

Rowls wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:16 pm

Charlie Taylor is better than at least 5 of those.

Which five (or more)?

I tend to ignore much of what the Guardian says, but for the sake of the conversation, if Charlie played for Leeds still, he would be on that list.
I'd love to know how a decent journo rates him.
Reckon he would be in the top 7 or 8