The Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard & Frank Lampard Debate Has Finally Been Settled By Ex-Teammate Of All Three

Ben Foster has ranked Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard after playing with all three - with Scholes edging it over Gerrard.

The trio all played at the highest level for Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea respectively as well as the England national team.

All three players have different skillsets but find themselves compared by fans years after retirement.

Foster played with all three at national level, as well as Scholes at United, and he believes his 'mad' ability on the ball keeps him just ahead of Gerrard.

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The Watford man told the Happy Hour podcast: "The order is not belittling anyone because I've played with them all and they are: 'wow'.

"It would be Scholes, Gerrard, Lampard.

"Like I say, I've played with the others for England and they were just phenomenal. They're all sort of different players. Honestly, I was genuinely surprised by how good Gerrard was.

"Gerrard and Scholes were close. Lampard was a bit of a different player. He would score goals. He would score a lot of goals. But Scholes was [exhales] mad."

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All three won the Champions League with their respective sides, while Scholes and Lampard were multiple-time Premier League winners also.

Gerrard captained boyhood side Liverpool for 12 years and will go down as one of their greatest players.

Foster went on to recall a story about Scholes which lays out exactly why he's considered footballing royalty.

He continued: "I was with the goalies and Tony Coton was the goalkeeping coach.

"We were just sort of taking it in turns, getting some volleys, warming up, all this kind of stuff and I'm just taking a moment to watch the outfield lads out training.

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"Watching all these big boys in action: [Rio] Ferdinand, [Wayne] Rooney, frigging [Nemanja] Vidic, [Cristiano] Ronaldo, Scholes, [Ryan] Giggs. All the bad boys.

"Somebody played a ball over to Paul Scholes and without breaking a stride or anything, he did a half-volley - the ball was travelling to him, by the way - straight out to the wing.

"I remember watching and I don't know if I said it, but I must have gone: 'oh my god'. I just sort of said it involuntarily sort of thing.

"And Tony Coton, who is leathering the balls to these goalies, just sort of went: 'who was it - Scholesy?' Because that for Scholesy was run of the mill. He did that every day in training."

Who do you think is the better player out of Scholes, Gerrard or Lampard?

Let us know in the comments.

Topics: Frank Lampard, Liverpool, Paul Scholes, Ben Foster, Chelsea, Football, Manchester United, Premier League, England, Steven Gerrard

Daniel Marland

Daniel is a journalist for SPORTbible and he has previous experience with Manchester United. He has spoken to some of the biggest names in sport including Rio Ferdinand, Peter Crouch, WWE COO Triple H and WWE legend The Undertaker. May or may not do a decent impression of Jamie Carragher.

@DanMarland_