Liverpool's hardest ever player

[Vlads Quiff]

[quote author=Wizardry link=topic=33919.msg880171#msg880171 date=1243900469]
[quote author=Portly link=topic=33919.msg880167#msg880167 date=1243899345]
Hard but clean ............ Tommy Smith
Hard and dirty ............ Graeme Souness

😱
[/quote]

Maybe its a different definition of dirty but I wouldn't have classified Souness as dirty. That's not to say he didn't go in with some, at best, borderline challenges but rather he copped whatever he dealt out and accepted it.

Roy Keane was as hard as they came during his era but I thought he was dirty as well. When he got the same treatment he would often lose it as though it was ok for him to dish it out but not ok for him to be on the receiving end.
[/quote]

Apart from the fact that blood is thicker than water Wizzy, I have to agree with Portly on this.
Souness was the hardest player I have ever seen in a Liverpool shirt, and he was an animal when he needed/wanted to be.

A couple of good shouts for Casey too, and Gerry Byrne, Smithy is an obvious one too.
Runner up to Souness though is Alec Lindsay.

regards

 

[Wizardry]

[quote author=Vlads Quiff link=topic=33919.msg880889#msg880889 date=1243978242]
[quote author=Wizardry link=topic=33919.msg880171#msg880171 date=1243900469]
[quote author=Portly link=topic=33919.msg880167#msg880167 date=1243899345]
Hard but clean ............ Tommy Smith
Hard and dirty ............ Graeme Souness

😱
[/quote]

Maybe its a different definition of dirty but I wouldn't have classified Souness as dirty. That's not to say he didn't go in with some, at best, borderline challenges but rather he copped whatever he dealt out and accepted it.

Roy Keane was as hard as they came during his era but I thought he was dirty as well. When he got the same treatment he would often lose it as though it was ok for him to dish it out but not ok for him to be on the receiving end.
[/quote]

Apart from the fact that blood is thicker than water Wizzy, I have to agree with Portly on this.
Souness was the hardest player I have ever seen in a Liverpool shirt, and he was an animal when he needed/wanted to be.

A couple of good shouts for Casey too, and Gerry Byrne, Smithy is an obvious one too.
Runner up to Souness though is Alec Lindsay.

regards
[/quote]

I think you and Portly are mis understanding me a little Vlad. I'm not saying that Souness didn't committ some horrible fouls and some very dirty ones too. As I said in the quote some of his challenges were borderline at best.

My point about Souness is that while he committed some pretty rugged challenges he was also on the receiving end. The Sampdoria games lives long in the memory in that he didn't make a whimper that night despite them trying to hack his legs from his body.

JJ and I have been down this path before in that I think he exaggerates what would happen if Souey and Keane came together. However, it is in this area that I think the difference between them is clear. Keane was hard enough but when he got hit by a tackle he was quick to complain to the officials or he'd lose it completely and start throwing punches. Souness never liked copping those tackles but he didn't whine the way Keane did nor lose his rag. He'd just nod and figure that was fair considering what he handed out himself. He was, in my time watching football, the ultimate "if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen". Souness never did.

 

[Judge Jules]

The point about Souness not moaning is a good one but underlines the contrast between the two of them, and it's precisely because of that contrast that I stand by my view that Keane would have suffered big-time in such a clash.  IMO Keane was very much from the Movila school of tackling - often not so much hard (though he could confine himself to that when he wanted to) as sneaky, fonder of tackling from the side or behind than of taking his man head-on.  I maintain that that would have fired Souness up to be at his most vicious, that Keane's moaning wouldn't have helped Souey's mood either and that, especially if Keane had meted such treatment out to other Liverpool players on the field at the same time, the whole Keane package would have seen Souness cutting him in half well before full-time.

Pity we'll never know.  Maybe someone should run it on one of those computer programs.

 

[SaintGeorge67]

On the subject of Souness, just watching the Joe Fagan programme on LFC.tv. The penalty shootout against Roma, and what an absolute fucking humdinger by Graeme...