Tom Pope: Burslem’s own Lionel Messi?
Sky Sports News have published a list of the current top scorers in Europe and Vale’s Tom Pope is lying in third place with the same tally as Barcelona star Lionel Messi.
The “Sneyd Green sniper” has been in prolific form this season. The forward’s double against Rochdale took him to seventeen, the same number of goals as Messi and Thomas Dalgaard of Danish side Viborg.
Burnley’s Charlie Austin, who scored against Vale in the Capital One Cup earlier this season, leads the way with twenty goals while Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo is in second place with eighteen goals.
While Messi’s goals have undoubtedly come against somewhat higher calibre opponents, some “old-school” English pundits would no doubt ask whether the Argentinian can still “turn on the style on a wet Tuesday in Stoke?”
It’s a question yet to be answered by Messi, but there’s no doubt that Tom Pope can…