Originally Posted by
Romanis
I'm afraid I have to disagree with your comparison of Pearce and
Le Saux.
I think most neutrals would rate Pearce as the 'greater' player.
For sure Le Saux won a title, and maybe some other medals with Chelsea. But you must look at the clubs then.
Blackburn 1994 was a very strong side and deserved champions. As good as Le Saux may have been, I doubt he would be considered the 'star' of defense let alone the team (which would be Shearer, followed by Sutton and Sherwood0. The Forest side that Pearce played in, was good but never 'championship winning good'. But he did win a few medals there too. But Forest then were still behind the dominant teams of the era, Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal, and so a league title was beyond Pearce's reach.
And I bring you forward to Euro 2000, England v Romania, where Dan Petrescu, who was Le Saux's substitute at left back at Chelsea. Well Dan rang rings round Le saux in that match. I believe he even scored from 1 such move dribbling past Le Saux twice. I also remember another England match before this (maybe in the WC 1998) when again he was caught flat footed.
Of course I'm not saying he's a bad player on the basis of 2 matches, he was a reasonably good defender, but he won't be in any shortlist of the best ever England left backs. I would rate Ashley Cole higher than him as well. Kenny Sansom was another. Pearce was a dependable and at 1 stage, considered world class, of course not in the same vein as his contemporaries at the time, Maldini and Brehme, but not that far behind.
But by the time Le Saux played his 1st game for England in 1994, Pearce's career was already winding down and thus if you make the comparison that he's better, because we won something or displaced Pearce in the position, I think it would be unfair. A fairer comparison would be to examine both players at heir peak. If I'm not wrong, Le Saux only displayed Pearce after Euro 96. So even then (19941995), Pearce was ahead of Le Saux in the pecking order for country. But yeah, I'll agree he did enough to be Pearce's successor.
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