Nottingham Forest legend Steve Chettle says Stan Collymore was the most talented footballer he played alongside at the City Ground.
An enigmatic and talented centre-forward, Collymore joined Forest from Southend United in 1993 and became a star in his two seasons at the club.
His breakthrough culminated in an unbelievable 1994/95 season, in which Collymore's 22 goals helped Forest finish third in the Premier League.
Those performances motivated Liverpool to pay £8.4m for the then 24-year-old, breaking the British record transfer fee at the time.
The sale wasn't a surprise given Forest had sold Neil Webb and Roy Keane to Manchester United, and Nigel Clough to Liverpool, in the years prior to Collymore's move.
Chettle played alongside all four, and when asked who was the most talented of the bunch, the club's third-highest games holder selected Collymore, who he compared to former Real Madrid and Inter Milan striker Ronaldo Nazario.
"Stan Collymore. The best player I've played alongside is Stan Collymore," Chettle told Tribalfootball.com.
"He had everything. I've compared him, maybe rightly or wrongly, to the old fashioned number nine Ronaldo.
"He could do everything, especially the year when we finished third in the Premier League.
"He scored some unbelievable goals and he was the best player I played with in a Forest team."
After watching the club as a boy and coming through the academy ranks, Chettle was introduced to the first-team by legendary manager Brian Clough in the late 1980's.
He would go on to play 527 games in 13 years for his boyhood club, winning the League Cup in 1989 and 1990 and playing alongside some legendary players such as Stuart Pearce, Des Walker, Keane and Clough.
Quizzed on which was the best team he played in, Chettle split the answer in two.
"There were a couple of generations of teams," he continued.
"There was one that I first came into playing alongside Stuart Pearce, Des Walker, Steve Hodge, Neil Webb, Nigel Clough. I used to go away and travel with the England U21s and all those boys in the senior group.
"It was a great time to be around that football club and in that team because I was only 19 years old so it was a great learning curve for me.
"Then the next phase when I was playing alongside Roy Keane, Steve Stone. We had two kind of generations of fantastic teams so it was kind of a different experience for my career and I like them both as equal."
Video Courtesy of NFFCTube
