The age old Scholes v Gerrard debate is revived again on Monday Night Football.

The age old debate of Scholes v Gerrard started up again last night on MNF.

Those of you who watched Sky Sports' Monday Night Football show last night may have been amused to have observed the progressively escalating exchange between the pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher near the end of the show. They were asked the question via Twitter of who was the better player out of Liverpool's Steven Gerrard and Manchester United's Paul Scholes. Predictably Carragher backed Gerrard and Neville backed Scholes. Both thouugh raised some interesting points and approached the question from different angles. Carragher rated both Gerrard and Lampard above Scholes on the basis that they have both scored more goals in big games for their club than Scholes.

Neville took the approach of saying that he rated all three highly and didn't like to make comparisons between three different types of players. I think at this point the former Manchester United full back hit the nail on the head. Although they all play in central midfield they are all so different in playing style that comparing them is almost as glib as suggesting Didier Drogba is a better player than Petr Cech because he scored more goals during his career than him.

Liverpool's main man, Steven Gerrard.

At his peak Gerrard was a box to box midfield player with a fantastic engine on him. He was a brilliant leader and captain who could play on either wing if required, get his foot in and defend. He had a decent range of passing and could always be relied upon to give 100%. In short he was what the classical English model suggests that the perfect central midfield player should be all about.

Lampard is an out and out goal scoring midfielder. He has consistently displayed an ability to arrive late from midfield and get on the end things throughout his career and both the number of goals he has scored and the regularity with which he has scored them is testament to that. He is also something of a dead ball specialist who can strike a mean free kick and can usually be relied upon to bury any penalties that he is asked to take.

Scholes meanwhile started out life as something of a poor man's Eric Cantona in the eyes of many. He played the role of support striker during Cantona's lengthy ban in 1995 for assaulting a fan, then reprised this role for a time after Cantona's shock decision to retire. He really began to stand out though as a central midfielder alongside Roy Keane, where he combined an ability to score goals with an excellent range of passing. Unlike both Lampard and particularly Gerrard he has never had a great engine on him and whilst he has never shied away from the physical element of the game it has been clear almost from the beginning that tackling is not a part of his makeup as a footballer.

Xavi and Messi have both publically stated their admiration for Scholes.

If comparisons are to be made between Gerrard and anyone in the Manchester United midfield of recent years it should be Roy Keane. Both players are regarded as the Captain Fantastic of their team. The man others look to when times are hard. In Gerrard's case it was through individual brilliance. On balance Gerrard is probably the more skillful of the two and has popped up on more occasions to win games through his own skill then Keane did.

Roy Keane's standard axe murderer expression probably
won United as many games as his footballing ability.

Roy Keane however, whilst a very talented midfielder himself was raised from the bracket of simply very good to great by sheer force of personality. People were scared of him, even his own team mates. His ranting and raving on the pitch galvanised United and turned as many draws into wins as Cantona popping up for the only goal off a another 1-0 game or Schmeichel pulling of a string of wonder saves to keep United in it when they were under the kosh.

Both of them will be remembered as players who won games of the up most importance to their teams (Gerrard in the 2005 Champions League final and Keane the 1999 Champions League semi final for example) and both have been greats of the Premier League who would have made it into almost any team ever. The debate on who is better out of those two could go on forever, but it is a much more meaningful one than comparing Gerrard with Scholes.

I also felt that whilst perhaps not trying to deliberately mislead people listening to the debate, Jamie Carragher still presented a few other facts to support his argument that do not take some critical factors into consideration.

The first one was around Scholes being shunted to the left wing during the Eriksson era to make way for the Lampard/Gerrard pairing in central midfield. Why, he asked if Scholes was so good was he demoted to the left wing, a position he rarely if ever played for Manchester United to make way for Gerrard and Lampard? Neville countered with his belief that it was the easy decision to take. Lampard's style isn't really suited to playing left wing and his goal threat could not be sacrificed in a team already over reliant on the goals of Owen and Rooney. This left it as a straight choice between Scholes and Gerrard.

Neither Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard or Scholes came out of "The Golden Generation"
period with much credit whilst playing for England.

Towards the middle period of the Eriksson era and onwards England progressively started moving away from playing chalk on boots type wingers, instead playing with a more compact midfield four. Beckham, always lacking in pace had almost completely abandoned going past people in favour of turning the play inwards by that point in his career.

When Gerrard played on the wing for England in his younger days he played much more in the manner of a traditional wide man, going past people and whipping the ball in. In a four man midfield playing against technically superior foreign sides, often playing with an extra man in there that sort of player had become more of a liability than an asset out wide. Trying to take people on by yourself makes you more likely to lose the ball and get caught out of position, leaving your team mates in 5 v 3 situation. Scholes therefore was seen as the best bet playing wide left out of the three in that sort of system and it was hoped he would provide something of a butterfly effect to Beckham's presence on the right.

Over the past thirty years England have tried playing all manner of people out on the left for tactical reasons. During the course of their careers the three most talented English midfielders in recent decades, Glenn Hoddle, Paul Gascoigne as well as Paul Scholes have all been tried out there to make way for technically inferior players in the middle of the park.

Veron never really settled in England for various reasons.

The other argument Carragher made was questioning why Ferguson felt the need to buy Veron if Scholes was so good. This statement overlooks several key points that need considering. The first is, at the time Veron was purchased Scholes was still playing much further forward than he has done in recent years. In his 20's he was a reliable source of goals and often spent more time on the edge of the opposition penalty area than further back down the pitch assisting Keane.

Veron was bought to play deeper than that and sit in there with the Irishman spraying the ball around in a five man midfield. This configuration was something quite new to Fergie who at the time still largely favoured a counter attacking style of play with two quick wingers. The venerable old system continued to work with great effect in the Premier League but the Scot had come to realise that it was not going to have the same effect in Europe against the best teams.

Despite having some good games in the Champions League for Manchester United that have seemingly been forgotten by most people, Veron's stay with Ferguson's men is now remembered as failure. That was partly because United's initial attempts at playing a modern possession game were spoiled by a lack of fluidity in forward positions at times. It was only really with the arrival of Carlos Queiroz that this element began to be ironed out of United's European performances, but that came too late to assist the South American.

Whilst United's inability to find a system that got the best from him did not help Veron, the main thing that sealed his fate was that in the Premier League when they were still mainly playing a straightforward 4-4-2, Ferguson almost always selected Scholes over Veron for the big games.

Its no when surprise looking at Gerrard and Scholes different styles that Gerrard is held in higher regard in the UK, but Scholes on the continent. He and Rooney are the only England international of the last fifteen years or so that can play a continental type possession game convincingly.

The two English players of recent times you most often hear praised
by foreign players and coaches are Rooney and Scholes.

This debate will likely continue to rumble on for many years yet but it would be wiser to appreciate both Scholes and Gerrard for the very different things that they both are rather than constantly trying to compare them to each other...