Babb, Phil

[dave u]

Written by Dave Usher

PHIL BABB PROFILE         Date of Birth - 30/11/70 Nationality - Irish Games - 170 Goals - 1 Position - Defender Cost - £4m Club Hons (Lpool) - League Cup 1995 Club Hons (other - None Intnl Hons - Ireland Caps Other Clubs - Millwall, Bradford, Coventry, Sporting Lisbon, Tranmere (loan), Sunderland

In my humble opinion, the least skilled player ever to wear the red shirt. Babb did have some attributes, so I'm told anyway, but ability on the ball certainly wasn't one of them. Babb's control and passing ability were so poor that if he hadn't cost so much money we could have laughed at him. Perhaps it was because he had cost so much money that Roy Evans felt he had to persist with him, no matter how incompetant his performances were.

Liverpool's experiment with the 3-5-2 formation didn't help Babb's cause, as he was always most comfortbale in a flat back four. He had come to prominence during the 1994 World Cup when alongside the fantastic Paul McGrath, he helped shackle an Italian side including the great Roberto Baggio. The uncomplicated style of the Irish suited Babb's game down to the ground, but at Anfield he was expected to do a lot more than just win the ball and then launch it downfield. Used mostly on the left of the three man defence, he often found himself confronted by the opposition's right winger, and it's fair to say he had some problems, notably when he allowed Andrei Kanchelskis to give him the runaround in a 2-1 derby defeat at Anfield.

A switch to a flat back four in the 97/98 season helped Babb settle, and he did produce some fine performances in the middle of the defence, but not enough to ever justify a place in the side, and when Gerard Houllier took over, there was no way Babb was ever going to last at Anfield. Houllier was not slow to let players know if they were no longer needed, and the likes of McAteer, Harkness, James and Ince all moved on. Babb however, chose to sit on his arse picking up wages for doing nothing. Say what you like about Paul Ince (and I usually do), but at least he had enough professional pride to find himself another club when he was told he was not needed at Anfield.

Not Babb though, oh no. He was quite content to see out his contract, even though he was not even considered for the reserves such was his abysmal attitude. Tranmere took him on loan, but he was so bad that they couldn't wait to send him back. For someone who's main asset was supposed to be pace, he was regularly beaten by opposing strikers, and when he was at Tranmere he had a proper beer gut under his baggy shirt. A disgrace to his profession, it says a lot about him that he will best be remembered for crushing his bollocks against the post at the Anny Road end in a failed attempt to stop a goal that he had caused.

His one brief highlight came when he scored his one and only goal in a red shirt, against his former club Coventry City at Highfield Road.