Top player....

Itsthehopethatkillsyou

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23 Dec 2017
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Player ratings, it seems calling someone a 'good player' is kind of old fashioned, (Saint & Greavsie always spoke of 'good' or 'tasty' players... Saint once described Joey B as 'Tasty' - I was so proud!) or weirdly somehow lacking in its indication as to what level at which a player can perform - it seems a bit like 'good' is not effusive enough and so means mearly 'ok' in today's football world.

So we now use 'Top': 'Top' tops 'good' and is WAY better ('topper'?) than 'Tasty'. I first really became aware of 'Top' when Appleton used it (all the time) to describe a player, other Oxford managers may have used it before but with Appleton 90% of the time these players WERE actually 'top' players (what a time it was!), and amazingly he was getting these 'Top' players to play for us!.
So after our lost season of Pep's random results and randomer signings we are looking forward to KR's new batch of players. How will we rate them?, I mean 'Top' cannot cover everyone from say between the ''worse than Ronaldo/better than Ruffels*' bracket? And what about when a player is described as "top,top" - This mystery quantity description is doubled!!???

So let's have a stab at clarifying this:
(using old and new players that come to mind as I type this sitting on the bog)

Top player: Rothwell, Hall, Gilchrist

Top, Top player: Roofe, Baldock, Powell,

Top, Top, Top player: Elliott, Beauchamp, Aldridge

....now for some variations...
Big Top player: (clown) Salmon, Wood, Grebis,

Top,Top,Top,Top player: anyone good at singing motown hits.

Top tip player: (bookies enemy) Beauchamp?

And so on....

Ok - back to checking if we have signed anyone yet...(hopefully a 'top' player)

(plop)


*I like Ruffels - good player but maybe not 'top' player?
 
The word “top” was used by MApp because he’s a manc. They’ve always used it. “The Stone Roses were a top band”. “Top one” etc?
 
Getting back to player ratings, you would have thought that the "top" adjective would be used to show where the player is positioned in a general list of footballers. So perhaps a top player is in the highest 25% of players. But I suspect the term is relative as if this is the criteria then only premier league players would be top. So I think each league can have it's own classification, which leads us to situation where a former Championship player like Samir Carruthers can become a top player for League One.

What puts a spanner among the pigeons is where someone uses the epithet "he really is a player", rather than put them firmly in the middle 50% for their league this seems to elevate them above any "top" or even "top top" players.
 
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