He would have still been atop player!
He
was a top player Joey.
That was the problem, he was well good enough to get by so why did he have to buy in to Revie's 'get your retaliation in first and upset them'' ethos. He turned himself into Revie's Snide in Chief/faux hardman, when he really didn't need to.
He shared a field with Bobby Collins and had a good few years on the wee man...Collins was the only one - not only in The Battle of Goodison, but in subsequent seasons, not to have to buy in to a faux hardman ethos, he was the real deal. It didnt diminish his effect on the pitch or his value to the team.
'I was only folowing orders' has been shot down as a defence years ago.
Collins didn't follow orders (ask Catterick)
Giles did and lapped up, as a player he was just a snidey 2@
Anybody at that Goodison game will tell you the same...whatever he did and possibly said to Sandy after 5 mins...so there wasn't time for any tit for tat to accrue, was so OTT, both literally and figuratively, that the usually placid Sandy just chinned him on the spot...C U, C Me, C This. Of course he went down like a bag of the proverbial, not sure he had that much choice tbh.