Scholes is simply the best English player of his generation

Two weeks ago we watched a football match in which a £25million new signing scored a hat-trick and came off the pitch to announce that a 37-year-old substitute should be man of the match.

That, of course, was Robin van Persie talking about Paul Scholes, who played his 700th match for Manchester United.

He had come on for just 30 minutes against Southampton but, in the words of Sir Alex Ferguson, he ‘brought order to the game’. That ability, for one player to be able to set the direction of a match and to control its tempo, is extraordinary. Paul Scholes is one of the very few in the world who can do it.

I must have trained and played with him thousands of times and in every one of those training sessions and matches that’s what he was doing: bringing order to the game.

The best illustration I can give of his talent is that at Manchester United there was always a possession drill in training designed to develop our passing ability, which might be three players against another three players, or six versus six, or nine versus nine. But no matter what the numbers were, the side with Paul Scholes on their team would always win by keeping the most possession.

He reached that historic landmark for United, one of only three men to have made that many appearances for the club, along with Sir Bobby Charlton and Ryan Giggs. And, despite the fact that he scored the opening goal, he will have quickly headed home, ignoring the fuss, just as he has done after the previous 699 games.

In fact, his only concern would have been whether his 700th game had brought a victory for his team

 You have to search deep into football’s history to find someone of his kind of class and honour. Players like that don’t seem to exist any more. There might be no knighthoods, no MBEs or OBEs, but every single team-mate will say he is the best they have ever played with. And every player he had played against, including Xavi and Zinedine Zidane, would say he is the best midfielder they have faced. Every fan or every club, no matter who they support, loves the way Paul Scholes plays.

He’s a private man, a family man, and those are the parts of his life he values most. He doesn’t have an agent, he doesn’t employ a PR guru and there are no celebrity mates. He’s just a kid from Middleton who grew up playing football on the streets and achieved his dreams. He is certainly the best player I’ve ever played with and the best English player of his generation.

He’s a model performer for younger footballers to look to in how he plays on the pitch. And given that he’s approaching his 38th birthday, and coming to the end of his career, I would urge anyone who loves football, particularly if they have a child who wants to learn from professionals, to go along to watch him play in the flesh this season.

Don’t watch anyone else. Just watch him for 90 minutes. Sacrifice your gate money and don’t look at the ball, unless Scholes has it. Don’t worry about watching the goals or any other player. Just look at his positioning, where he places himself, his body shape when he receives the ball, where he moves when he hasn’t got the ball and how he sets himself to play the ball. You’ll learn more about the game in 90 minutes than you will from any coaching video or training session.

There’s just one thing I’m worried about. As soon as he finds out that I’ve written this article about him, he will be texting me to say: ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ But for once I have to ignore his concerns. Today he should be in the spotlight.

Written by Gary Neville.