Ruddock interview in the Grauniad

[Ron B]

47 minutes ago, Ronnie Whelan said:

That's a fair point Ron. You kind of just presume that all of the old guard were leaders because aside from being excellent players they were part of great teams but we had great management, a winning culture and alpha males like Souness when they were in those teams.

 

In our current team, you just presume they have leadership qualities because they are top players and top pros, but Virgil, Hendo, Milly and Robbo stand out as leaders. The rest seem like great players and good lads who are desperate for success but if you landed them in Liverpool 1992 say I wonder how they would tackle things.

There’s the odd player now who you think “Is he, potentially, a bellend?” But the culture is radically changed - Sakho was out on his ear quicksmart and that set the agenda under Klopp. There are more players who make twats of themselves after they leave than whilst they’re here (Ibe springs to mind). 
 

It’s just a shame that having started with similar intentions (Dicks out, Stewart binned, Wright forced to prove himself in the reserves, even nice guy Nigel Clough identified as a bad fit and dumped), Evans couldn’t do the same. In fairness, Ruddock was ostensibly an ideally player for how Roy wanted to play. He was big and tough but had a reasonable amount of pace until he got complacent. His passing was excellent too. But his attitude was lousy and only got worse. 

[VladimirIlyich]

1 hour ago, Doctor Troy said:

That one was the best at the end.

 

Some of the replies are pathetic, some fella posting his mobile number asking him to give him a bell next time he's in Formby and loads calling him a legend and asking him to sort out Liverpool's defence (from 2017). I'd rather play with 10 men.

Ruddock is ten men!

[Total Longo]

15 hours ago, Doctor Troy said:

That one was the best at the end.

 

Some of the replies are pathetic, some fella posting his mobile number asking him to give him a bell next time he's in Formby and loads calling him a legend and asking him to sort out Liverpool's defence (from 2017). I'd rather play with 10 men.

To be fair Ruddock counts as two men. In size, at least.

 

EDIT - ah balls, should have read Vlad's post above first.

[Crazy Dave]

21 hours ago, Ronnie Whelan said:

Do you think Dave that the Spice Boys learned all of it's bad habits off what went on during the Souness era? As you say, there wasn't many of the old guard left and chances are they just did their own thing amongst each other and by that stage didn't have the hunger to fight what was going on.

 

Hearing the spice boys talk about the old guard they seemed to have really respected them as players, but I wonder how much they listened to them. 

 

The Spice Boys came about because the club found itself in this weird intersection between eighties culture and new Premier League money and from Moores down, they just didn't want to adapt to a new professional environment because they'd been successful for so long before and thought it would last forever. 

 

I don't think you can underestimate how ingrained within the eighties culture (boozing on the bus during away trips, stopping off for fish and chips on the way home, eating burgers in the canteen etc) these senior players were when Souness arrived. The boozy nights out during the week were just a normal thing for them and when Souness arrived and tried to change the way they behaved off the pitch and modernize the club, they just pointed to their medals as proof that he was wrong. 

 

I guess it didn't help that Souness himself was remembered by plenty as a party animal from his playing days either. It's also fair to suppose that Souness probably didn't have the type of leadership skills required where he could bring them with him. His approach was to go on the attack instead and loads of them got bombed out. The senior ones that stayed couldn't stand Souness and did fuck all to be a positive influence off the pitch on any of the younger lads. This basically built the foundations for what happened when Evans took charge. The inmates basically took over the asylum and ran the show. 

 

Evans mid-nineties side were brilliant to watch most of the time, but there were very, very few leaders in the dressing room and Roy himself wasn't ruthless. Barnes and Rush were leaders but had been successful in a different era and for whatever reason they didn't stamp their authority when others were taking the piss. That allowed the likes of Ruddock, Babb etc to think they owned the place. Look at the effect he must have had on somebody like Dom Matteo. Just gets into the first team in 1996 and before too long he's got the likes of fucking Ruddock as his senior mentor. And what does he do? He takes him jetskiing across Windemere whilst tanked up and spends the rest of the time in the pub getting smashed. 

 

It's an absolute travesty that some of these lads have basically fuck all to show for their efforts in the mid-nineties because the talent was there. 

 

 

[m0e]

I'd never describe Barnes or Rush as leaders, and never saw anything in them to suggest I should.

[dave u]

On 17/11/2020 at 13:13, The Guest said:

I don’t know that so many do go along with it.  I’ve heard it from Ruddock, McAteer and now Dave mentioning Harkness.  Ruddock is one of the biggest bullshitters out there.  I’ve heard plenty of completely made up “funny” stories from McAteer as well.  Ruddock says it was games as well not just one game yet nobody wants to say what games it happened in because it would so obviously be debunked.

 

West Ham away was the game I heard about.

[The Guest]

4 minutes ago, dave u said:

 

West Ham away was the game I heard about.

I wish I worked for Sky so I could just go through their archives.  I’d go through in my own spare time and make a 6 part documentary detailing how overrated Paul Scholes is.

 

I’d then go through every West Ham game home and away just to be sure and prove Ruddock is a bullshitter.

[Geoff Woade]

It has to be bollocks ‘whoever was left with the pound bought the drinks’. As much as the stereotype of thick footballers goes, surely you’d know enough to drop it and claim that you never had it.

 

Ruddock is such a prick though, imagine wasting life opportunities like he’s had.

[Reckoner]

3 hours ago, Geoff Woade said:

It has to be bollocks ‘whoever was left with the pound bought the drinks’. As much as the stereotype of thick footballers goes, surely you’d know enough to drop it and claim that you never had it.

 

Ruddock is such a prick though, imagine wasting life opportunities like he’s had.

A footballer throwing a pound away? You’ve clearly never served one in a bar.