rustychops

"I saw an interview with Souness some years ago where he talked about some of the players he sold (who he admitted he shouldn't have done). Whe he 1st came in he knew there were a lot of players who'd gone stale and didn't fancy being involved in the rebuilding of the side, so he spoke to each of them indivdually and asked "do you want to play for liverpool". Apparently, if there wasn't an instant response of yes, Souness was working to ship them out right away. He said he couldn't understand why anyone would not be 100% committed for Liverpool, as a player he knew when he'd had his day at Liverpool and needed to move on and did, but before that was 110% and couldn't understand anyone not being the same. He said with hindsight, with some of the more senior players he should have worked with to convince them their future was with LFC. While Souness was a poor manager for us, I understand his reaction to this - although it's probably a reflection of why he was a poor manager." Belatedly, thanks BW. I think Rush summed it up best when he said in his biography the attitude of senior players to his changes was something like "why no more egg & chips boss - we won the title on that?" Or something to that effect.

How well known / reliable is that? I never could and never will understand why he was sold for such a pitiful amount (even in those days). I only remember Souness cryptically referring to established players not showing enough desire to win, or something like that. I took that to mean maybe Beardsley wasn't up for the overly physical training sessions that were imposed at the time.

In the late-ish 80's ITV (I think) had a short lived program where a panel of journalists, retired sportsmen, etc. would discuss 2 current sportsmen and then vote on who they thought was better. One of the first ones was Rush v Lineker. I think Rushie won by 9:1 or something like that, and the whole idea was that "knowledgable" unbiased people would be on the panel. I remember being surprised as it wasn't long after Lineker's brilliant season for Everton but was already at Barca. So, even at the time, the consensus seemed to be that was Rush was better.

Last year my best mate married a Spanish girl, so I had to to give a best man speech in Spanish, to about 200 Spaniards. It was in a place about an hour inland from Murcia, and they gave the impression of being a tough crowd to crack (they hardly listened to a word anyone said). Well, to get on their good side, I tried my luck by firstly declaring my support for Spain in the Euros (which they'd just won) - which brought a massive round of applause. I then moved on to declaring my love of Spain due to being an afficianado of Liverpool FC, (and hence) Fernando Torres and Rafa Benitez. I kid you not, I got a standing ovation and about 30 seconds of cheering! I felt like I'd just scored on my debut in front of the Kop. So yes, based on my impression of a small town in the middle of nowhere in Spain, we are very popular there. There was even a few seconds of YNWA thrown in, but that was probably the English / Welsh contingent in the crowd. Viva the Spanish - Liverpool love in.