Watching him last night was a mixture of appreciation and absolute irritation at his laziness. First time passing, switching the play, unflustered when on the ball to 'oh he is 1 meter away I will let him run with the ball and take a breather' 'I am not going to tackle and get my knees dirty.
What I was thinking though is how similar is he too Currie, who I never saw play? Would Currie do any tackling, chase back and how would he survive in the modern game or was he like McDonald? (BTW I am not saying that McDonald is as good as Currie just that they are similar in their style).
Copes, I'm surprised how many people have leapt at your throat without reading/understanding your question! TC seems to inspire this strange behaviour when people ask a reasonable comparison question, some of the replies you've received are undeserved.
My opinion for what it's worth - In MacDonalds early days before everyone turned on him, I compared him (on here) to Keith Eddy, mainly due to his stature and playing style. Having had a more rounded look at him, he can't do what Eddy did so well in the defensive side of of a midfielders game. He certainly strokes the ball around very well and would be able to do this in whatever division or era he was playing in. However, its obvious why KM has been passed over by Burnley and better teams than SUFC, he doesn't work quite as hard as he should off the ball.
On that last point, I'll mention that neither did TC when the mood took him, he was a moody player and when he wasn't in the right frame of mind, he could look like he didn't want to be on the field, let alone contribute! But when he was on his game, he was phenomenal, inconsistency was his biggest enemy. He could tackle with the best of them and was a nasty b*astard at times (nothing wrong there!), he had everything except the mental strength to turn it on week in, week out. Thats why he remained at SUFC for 7 or 8 years and only won a handful of caps, had he had the mindset and consistency to go with his incredible ability, he'd have played for Man U, Liverpool etc.. (the Leeds team he joined was going downhill and not the force it had been). The reason we laud him and Jimy Hagan so much is because we've had so much mediocrity over the years.
As for Puppet's opinion - Woody was a different sort of player, lacked TC's all round game and couldn't tackle to save his life. However, his explosive skills were second to none and his work on dead balls were a rare commodity in those days. He never played for England and spent his entire career in the UK at BDTBL, in our history he is up there with the best, in the history of the game as a whole, people might say - Alan Who?
