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Gerrard at his peak > Xavi at his peak. That said Gerrard seems to have lost some of his luster. Xavi is a great player who's talents have been magnified in a team geared toward his strengths.

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how many times have you seen gerrard do this

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Haha, a backheel that led to nothing? Awesome.

How many times have seen Xavi do this...

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or this...

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and he has too many brilliant passes to link.

<----- thinks messi is the best. sadly

Messi is the best for the next few years

Look out for Thomas Muller in the future

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Gerrard is not a world class passer. For every highlight 45 yard pass theres 19 that are off target or intercepted, theres nothing more frustrating as an England fan, and i see him do it alot for Liverpool, trying to do what Alonso did in spraying the ball but he just isnt up to that level

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When you attempt to make an attacking forward pass of course more aren't going to find their target. Kind of like when a QB throws a ball 50 yards downfield his completion percentage is going to be much lower but one of those is as good as 10 short passes. If you want a guy who can pass the ball around the back all day and do pretty much nothing else than Xavi is your man. His one job is to feed the playmakers and he has three assists passing to the likes of Villa and Messi, pathetic. A guy who is probably the fifth best player on his own team somehow makes it into the discussion of best player in the world.

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how did i know you were going to link me a vid of some long driven shots?

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You linked a video of a pass that amounted to nothing.

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To me, I would rather have xavi the playmaker versus gerrard the sniper

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You clearly failed to read the rest of the post or watch the rest of the videos. Gerrard does much more than just hit rockets from 30+ yards. He passes, he tackles, he wins possession, he works his arse off, he inspires and when he was in his prime and had a supporting cast he was 10x the player Xavi could ever dream of being.

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Just more important to the team.

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Take Xavi off Barcelona and they are still probably the best team in the world, take Gerrard off of Liverpool and they are struggling to avoid relegation.

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we already established that xavi is not required to do the amount of tackling that gerrard does.

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Xavi doesn't tackle because he can't.

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OP, sorry for the hijack. Thread wasn't going very far because we had all pretty much agreed messi was the best.

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Unfortunately I agree.

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Xavi was basically playing up front against Madrid. He pushed up into the space and Busquets took his spot in the midfield...

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I only saw pieces of that game because it was already 2-0 when I turned it on, but that makes sense. They actually pushed forward on kicked arse, good for them.

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his guy is supposed to the best passer in the game and he has three assists playing with guys like Villa and Messi.

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Do you understand what a deep-lying playmaker is supposed to do? Andrea Pirlo, one of the recognized best passers in the game, has never had a season in Serie A with more than 10 assists. Assists are only part of the story.

Like in this video, watch how Xavi specializes in holding the ball against Arsenal's press while at the same time playing very difficult forward balls to the wings.

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While Xavi isn't particularly good at defense, Barcelona isn't really concerned with defense. As Guardiola said himself, they are terrible without the ball, and look to press the ball as much as they can until they regain possession. They have little use for the traditional B2B midfielder.

Xavi really came into his own when Pep became coach. Here's a vid of Pep vs Chelsea. The idea behind his position is uniquely Barcelona in my opinion.

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Pep isn't nearly as good a passer as Xavi, as you can tell I think. The idea is transmitted to other leagues as well. For example, Paul Scholes, an extremely good passer, and arguably a much better player than the bigger Gerrard and Lampard.

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Then, of course, there is the master in my opinion, Andrea Pirlo, the player Ancelotti moved deeper. Again Pirlo isn't that great at defense, but Milan have never relied on him to do that sort of work, giving that task to Gattuso and Ambrosini. I think he's a lovely player.

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Do you understand what a deep-lying playmaker is supposed to do? Andrea Pirlo, one of the recognized best passers in the game, has never had a season in Serie A with more than 10 assists. Assists are only part of the story.

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If you want to make that argument I can get on board. I just see and hear so many people saying Xavi is the far and away the greatest at making that "final" pass or through ball but I see little to no evidence to back that up. If you want to say he's the best at holding the ball and keeping possession that's fine but being as that's pretty much all he does I don't rate him anywhere near the best players in the world.

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If you want to say he's the best at holding the ball and keeping possession that's fine but being as that's pretty much all he does I don't rate him anywhere near the best players in the world.

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Last season Xavi had something like 14 assists in the league. The year before he had 20. It's not like he doesn't possess the ability for the final ball. But I don't see that as the deep lying playmaker's sole job. I don't think Guardiola does either. The ultimate goal is to start attacks from deep. Having a player of real technical quality that deep increases the chances that a goal threat will get the ball played into a position where he can do something with it.