Premier League veteran Phil Bardsley has said he played against both Cristiano Ronaldo and Eden Hazard, but that he found Everton’s Leighton Baines the toughest winger to face.
Bardsley, who could play both left-back and right-back, came up against many opponents during his 20-year career, which took him to teams in England, Scotland and Belgium. He is best known for his time with Manchester United and Sunderland, with the full-back making 303 appearances in the Premier League, scoring seven goals. The 39-year-old retired from playing last summer, his final stop was with Stockport County, the ninth and final team in his career.
Speaking on talkSPORT, Bardsley said: “I do miss playing against out and out wingers later in my career. Obviously, the game and the way teams set up has changed, usually when I first started and then midway through my career, you’d be facing a rigid 4-4-2, you’d usually have a left-winger.”
“But that changed with the emergence of Leighton Baines and [Steven] Pienaar at Everton. People talk about opponents, but Pienaar was one of the toughest I’ve played against. He’d always drag you into a certain place. He was like a No. 10, operating on the left. He’d drag you into certain places where you’re thinking ‘do I press him, do I hold him?’ That kind of player, Pienaar and Hazard, they were that type. But I do miss that old-fashioned battle with pure wingers and full-backs.”
Pienaar joined Everton from Borussia Dortmund in 2008 for a fee of £2 million and later moved to Tottenham Hotspur for a similar fee. Bardsley admits that he relished the challenge of facing the best players in the Premier League, especially against his former Manchester United teammate Cristiano Ronaldo.
Asked if he ever felt he got the better of him, Bardsley said: “No, but I always felt I played better against the better players. I’m not saying we won those games, but I always felt I had something to prove when I played against better players, you don’t want to get embarrassed. You saw that battle between Ronaldo and Ashley Cole, back and forth, they never gave in. As a player, you want to put yourself out there against the best.”
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