Ooof
- Thread starter Woland
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I remember the rumours and refused to believe them. I remember exactly where I was when I heard he'd gone, just over the Runcorn bridge on the way to the M56. I screamed at the radio and thought about turning around and heading for Sefton Park to murder Houllier. I've hated the fat French twat ever since.
I'd sort of forgotten how incredibly irritating David O'Leary was but this has brought it all back.
One of those people in football that most people think is a cunt and is despised by fans of all clubs, including those he played for and managed.
Not a surprise he hasn't been given any more chances in management
cf Alan Pardew, who got more than he ever deserved, and is also a cunt.
I was in a pub in Preston. Got a text then just walked outside in a daze. Saw a lad a few yards away also looking at his phone in a daze. Neither of us knew each other or that we supported the reds, but as soon as we looked at each other we knew.
When he came back I was working in France and I got a text that just said 'God's resigned'. Did nothing but confuse me for about a minute because it should have said 'God's re-signed'.
I always got the impression that his delight in signing Fowler was only partly down to the player's absurd talent, and had as much to do with him nicking an LFC hero, showing that Leeds were now "with the big boys", stroking his own massive ego, and annoying our fans.
CUNT
I'm going to incur the wrath and ire of the board here, but I wasn't that bothered when he left. I was young, a Michael Owen fanboy, and I felt Heskey and Owen were a better fit. Injuries had seemed to take their toll on Fowler and he was never the greatest athlete. I trusted wholeheartedly in Ged, too.
Of course I can now see why people slightly older than me would have been upset, but back then I was just a young, naive Sky generation melt. Thank God (no pun intended) I grew old and cynical and miserable like you lot.
I didn't mind O'Leary either.
Of course I can now see why people slightly older than me would have been upset, but back then I was just a young, naive Sky generation melt. Thank God (no pun intended) I grew old and cynical and miserable like you lot.
I didn't mind O'Leary either.
Well, God was certainly overshadowed by the new whizzkid Owen, who seemed happier with Heskey doing his heavy lifting (something that Fowler couldn't do), so he was deffo lower in the pecking order in that last season or two. His injuries didn't help, but he still scored plenty in that Treble season, after a blighted season the year before.
I'm not sure he was ever going to be happy as "an option though", and he had clearly had enough of Houllier, and vice versa. But we certainly saw the best of him, as we did Owen, even if he did leave too soon.
As for not minding O'Leary...behave.
"In my last year at Leeds I became a right idiot, someone who wasn't me. I had become a real rent-a-quote, never out of the papers.
We were right up there competing with Manchester United and Arsenal and there was me spouting off about Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger. I mean, who was I to start talking about them? In the lead up to matches against those sides, I shouldn't even have given an opinion."
Ah, yes, The wiser, better O'Leary when things were going relatively well at Aston Villa.
Fast forward two years and the fans are hanging banners saying "We're not fickle, we just don't like you" after they tired of his ongoing snidery and shithousery, and he gets sacked, never to be a top-flight manager again.
What did he do that was that bad? Besides always banging on about his young boys. He seemed fairly inoffensive to me. Being compared to Pardew seems unfair, especially. Enlighten me?
He sold us Harry Kewell.
Everyone wanted Kewell, and we were delighted to get him.
So yeah, also O'Leary's fault. Somehow. But deffo.
For all his talent Fowler did not achieve much leaving us. Away from Anfield, he managed 42 goals (league and cup) across 6 seasons - which doesn't solely vindicate selling him, but I don't think we can classify it as a major mistake. We also have to consider that Houllier was trying to modernise the club from the bottom and instill a more professional work-effort in the playing staff. If Fowler wasn't on-board with that then it was further reason to do the same. Klopp would do similar - in fact, he has done so by letting Sturridge go on loan (if anyone thinks Klopp hasn't been open to bids for Sturridge then they need their head examining). It is a shame for everyone involved that Fowlers Liverpool legacy isn't as accomplished as it should be, but we can't lump all that on Houllier.
It was signing Diouf instead of Anelka which really sent the club backward at the time. That was a terrible mistake.
It was signing Diouf instead of Anelka which really sent the club backward at the time. That was a terrible mistake.
What's Sturridge got to do with anything? Are you saying he wasn't professional and didn't put the effort in?
Well, there are similarities in the sense that both are/were injury prone, talented players, among the finest finishers of their generations and didn't fit the managers preferred system. There were also stories of Fowler going out on the piss and getting in fights at the time. Fowler had to move out to the Wirral to stop him going out all the time. There was clearly a clash of cultures between the spice boy era, which Fowler grew up in and Houlliers ideals.
Mate if you were in Preston the other lad was probably in a daze wondering what the magical box in his hands was.
How good was the day Rafa got him back? We all knew he was not the Robbie of old but I imagine its like getting a traumatized son home from war. He's not the same kid who left and he's got some weird health issues now...but you still love him.
I hated Ged from that moment on.
Fowler should have been a one club player until his mid thirties
Fowler should have been a one club player until his mid thirties
It was a remarkably good football and business decision to sell him for 12M at the time. Houllier should be revered for it.
You should be getting your bollocks chopped off for that.
It was doing his knee against Everton which did for him... that said I did actually shed a tear when he left... And I'm a year older than Fowler...
Fowler went to Leeds and scored 12 goals in the 2nd half of that season. We spent the money on Diouf in the summer, he scored 3 goals all season and we and dropped from 2nd to 7th.
Yes, a fucking masterstroke
Diao and Diouf. What the actual fuck was he thinking? Houllier went mental, after doing so much good aswell.
Hahahaha. Probably true.
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