Didi vs Masher vs Other

[tony]

Souness

 

[Vlads Quiff]

In over 50 years of supporting Liverpool I have never seen a tackler as good as Masher. We've certainly had better footballing DMs or DM-type players (of whom Didi was one), but purely and simply as a ball-winner Masher was the best of them IMHO.

As an all-rounder though, the best we've ever had doing the midfield nitty-gritty hasn't been mentioned yet - Graeme Souness. Hard to the point of viciousness (even I cringed at some of his tackling), he was also a canny short-range passer (not so strong on long passes, but we didn't play that way much anyway) and got more than his fair share of goals too. He skippers my version of the All-Time XI.

From one old bastard to another- That's a great post and I agree with every word.

This thread has brought up some interesting points in changing styles.
The defensive midfielder is a new (ish) phenomenon as was said in the old days the centre midfielder was supposed to tackle , cover ground and pass in equal measure. We have had some great tacklers in the days when you could. As JJ said Souness was a fucking monster, but McMahon could chuck them in too , John Wark and boy did he have an eye for goal -Jimmy Case was not averse to the odd bone-crunching tackle , literally has it happened in the case of Evertons Geoff Nulty in 1980- Ronnie Whelan was very similar to Didi in many respects they could read the game so well and break down moves just by being in a certain position- A guy I know that coached at a low level used to refer to Whelan as a spoiler - but he weighed in with some decent goals too.
This has been my point over Lucas as a defensive midfielder - it's a wasted position , he can't tackle and gives too many free kicks away in difficult positions and offers zilch going forward- the only time you should play a defensive midfielder is if you have a top notch specialist - like Mascher or Didi - I was almost as gutted when Mascher went as Suarez..
I used to love the Didi Crumple , when he was in trouble with nowhere to go or nothing on he just used to collapse at the knee like a sack of shite and invariably win a free kick.