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Liverpool's hardest ever player

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SaintGeorge67

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Probably done before, but nevermind.

Tommy smith annoys me but will be up there. Souness would be up there but was scared of Yosser Hughes...

An outsider? Sami?


Joe Louis doesn't count by the way... 😉
 
Hard but clean ............ Tommy Smith
Hard and dirty ............ Graeme Souness

😱
 
[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.
 
I can't agree with your view on Souness, Wizardry. Souness did very nasty things to opponents but he was clever enough to avoid getting caught most of the time. It wasn't just over-enthusiastic tackles but Souness injured players deliberately.

Although for quality of football, he was probably our greatest-ever midfielder, Souness used to embarrass me and to me, it was a bit of a relief when he went to Sampdoria.

For what it's worth, Souness was nominated hardest ever player in this article in the "Daily Mail," while Tommy Smith only came seventh. Tommy always got the ball, although admittedly he wasn't that bothered about what happened to the man! ;D

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1118103/THE-LIST-10-1-footballs-greatest-hard-men.html
 
Souness was hilariously filthy. Remember his two-footed tackle on his Rangers debut? His debut as PLAYER MANAGER. Talk about setting an example.
 
Souness was an absolutely magnificent player. He could attack and defend, pick out sumptuous passes and score scorching goals. A superb ball winner, he was a ruthless minder and a strong captain for his team. I was always relieved that he played for and not against us.
 
[quote author=Dreambeliever link=topic=33919.msg880188#msg880188 date=1243906040]
Souey hands down.

Since him I would go with Carragher.
[/quote]

Are you on drugs? Ruddock, Ince, Case, Dicks, Mcmahon would all clear out Carragher no problem.
 
[quote author=Wilko7 link=topic=33919.msg880193#msg880193 date=1243911864]
Souness was an absolutely magnificent player. He could attack and defend, pick out sumptuous passes and score scorching goals. A superb ball winner, he was a ruthless minder and a strong captain for his team. I was always relieved that he played for and not against us.
[/quote]

Agreed. For me he still - just about - shades the comparison with Stevie, though that may not still be the case by the end of Stevie's career. I can't agree with my friend Portly about being relieved when he left. Keane wouldn't have stood a chance against Souness - if he had tried to rough Souness up he'd literally have ended up in hospital.

I'm going to nominate Gerry Byrne though. Born a bluenose, he played LB for Shanks' first great side and was the one player none of the others (including a young Tommy Smith) wanted to tackle in training. In 1965, when we first won the F.A.Cup Final, Byrne was injured in the first couple of minutes. Substitutes weren't allowed, so Byrne played on and finished the game. It turned out afterwards that he had broken his collarbone. There's hard, and then there's Gerry Byrne.
 
And scoring a peno despite it. Yes indeed, but that was for less than half the game, and I know which injury I'd rather have had to cope with.
 
[quote author=Judge Jules link=topic=33919.msg880262#msg880262 date=1243930011]
And scoring a peno despite it. Yes indeed, but that was for less than half the game, and I know which injury I'd rather have had to cope with.
[/quote]

City had a keeper that played in the FA Cup final with a broken neck didn't they?

Not quite as badass as Didi's feat, but still pretty badass.
 
[quote author=TheBunnyman link=topic=33919.msg880290#msg880290 date=1243932747]
Sissoko was pretty fucking hard. Shame he couldn't play football very well.

[/quote]

That's very harsh - we all thought that Momo was the best thing since sliced bread, until Mascherano showed that it was possible to tackle and pass the ball as well!

As far as I know he did well at Juventus until he had a foot injury early in March.
 
[quote author=Portly link=topic=33919.msg880298#msg880298 date=1243933192]
[quote author=TheBunnyman link=topic=33919.msg880290#msg880290 date=1243932747]
Sissoko was pretty fucking hard. Shame he couldn't play football very well.

[/quote]

That's very harsh - we all thought that Momo was the best thing since sliced bread, until Mascherano showed that it was possible to tackle and pass the ball as well!

As far as I know he did well at Juventus until he had a foot injury early in March.
[/quote]

Portly, you obviously weren't on this site during Momo's second season. I still cringe when I think about him belting the ball 100ft up in the air against United.
 
As Portly says, Smith was hard but fair. In terms of changing a game, Souey did many times by basically reducing the opposition's 'danger' player to a hobbling wreck inside the first five minutes. It was always an ambivalent feeling: relief that we could now play our normal game mixed with a bit of shame we'd needed something as cynical as that to do it. Actually, the player who scared the shite out of me just watching him was Jimmy Case - towards the end of his time with us there was something a bit psychotic about him, and I think his awful tackle in one derby match pretty much made Bob decide to bomb him out the club, even though he was still a tremendous footballer.
 
That Jimmy Case tackle ended Geoff Nulty's career - it was a 90 mph 50/50 challenge that made your eyes water. The Evertonians never forgave Case for that and it was understandable.
 
In a broader sense of 'hardness,' we shouldn't overlook Gerry Byrne. I don't remember him playing, but older relations always go on (and on) about the 65 cup final and him playing most of the match with a broken collar bone. It's bizarre to think of these days!
 
As a defender, Gerry Byrne would be considered an assassin if he played the same way nowadays, but in the 1960's he was no harder than many other left backs in the First Division. Energetic two-footed and over-the-ball tackles were par for the course and the referee would sometimes award a foul for those, but rarely a booking.

The 1960's team had a fantastic balance of players. Chris Lawler, who played right back, had a completely different style of defending - he was not a hard tackler, but relied in reading the game and positional play which was just as effective in its own way.
 
Souey on the 1984 European campaign:


The semi-final against Dinamo Bucharest was particularly memorable for your altercation with their captain Lica Movila...

Occasionally I'd get a man marker in matches - if it wasn't Kenny being marked, it would be me instead. This particular guy was following me everywhere on the pitch, pulling my shirt and I just got frustrated. We were winning 1-0 at the time, attacking the Kop end, and he was tugging on my shirt as I was running into the area, so I did a foolish thing - I swung round and punched him. The referee didn't see it and I got away with it. In the return game in Romania, there was a lot of publicity about how unhappy Dinamo were with me. There were 60,000 people in the stadium and all the banners were about what they thought should happen to me. However, I think I played one of my best games ever for Liverpool that night.

Even the armed guards at the stadium were hissing at you...

I remember as we pulled up to the stadium, the guards were putting their fingers up to their eyes and pretending to pull them out. Of course, I was telling them it was a case of mistaken identity saying, 'It's not me you want, it's Alan Kennedy - he's got the same curly hair and moustache!' It's fair to say there was a lot of anger directed at me that night. I remember lining up in the centre circle and one of their midfield players, who was quite an aggressive guy, pointed at me and motioned as if to say, 'It's you and I tonight.' So I put my thumb up to him and said, 'Yeah okay, I'm looking forward to it.' We won 2-1 on the night, but I think the worst thing we could have done was get that second goal because after that, three or four of their players must have thought to themselves, 'We're going out, but let's see if we can nail him.' However, I was a vastly experienced player at the time. I was 30-years-old, and I managed to avoid all the challenges that came my way.

Was it one of the most intimidating and hostile atmospheres you've ever experienced?

It's definitely up there with anything else I've experienced during my career. I'd like to think as a player I responded to the atmosphere. It excited me in a perverse sort of way.


http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N164605090602-1052.htm
 
"But there is no doubt in my mind when it comes to nominating the hardest person i have ever faced. it has to be Jimmy Case, who played for Liverpool, Brighton and southampton. I came across him when he was at Southampton and i was at Wimbledon. I thought i was jack-the-lad but he soon put me in my place. Now i am not the biggest guy in theworld but over the years - because of the environment where i grew up and through the football i have played - I have learned to look after myself. No one had really frightened me... Until i came up against Jimmy Case. After the game, i said to myself that i would never go near him again. I had tried to give him a whack and i got it back with interest. I decided not to go down that road again."

"The following season we were down at the dell again. My good mate Vaughan Ryan was in the Wimbledon team and Case was in the Southampton line-up. I warned him beforehand, don't go near jimmy Case. He is one hard man. He nearly cut me in half last time i faced him. Did Vaughan listen? Did he hell. He was very naive and thought he was tougher than Jimmy Case. He gave him a bit of stick and Case just whacked him - and broke his jaw. Not only was his jaw in a bad way, so was Vaughan. He was out if it, in a daze and totally disorientated. He didn't know where he was or what he was doing - and that showed up in the game in hilarious fashion. We got the ball and started attacking only for Vaughan to be running the other way. Then Southampton got the ball and were attacking our goal - and Vaughan was just running past in the opposite direction. When we were attacking he was defending and, when we were defending he decided to attack".

"He was all over the place and even he was laughing when we all watched the video later. Vaughan needed to have an operation to wire up his jaw - and all because he wouldn't listen. Jimmy Case was one hard man and Vaughan found out the hard way".
 
Rafa4, that quote's interesting stuff, but by whom?

Souness really soft-pedals the Movila business in that interview. For one thing Movila had already been unwise enough to hack lumps out of other Liverpool players before starting on Souness. Both were serious mistakes when Souness was our skipper, and Movila should have known better. Also gotta love the way Souness says he "managed to avoid" the challenges in the return in Bucharest. The truth is he came off the pitch with his socks in tatters and stud marks in his shinpads. None of it made any difference - he was magnificent that night.

As it happens Case was reportedly the one and only player ever to make Souness take a backward step (including some real hard nuts like Passarella in Serie A who made threats about what they'd do to Souness but somehow never carried them out). There's said to have been an "incident" between them at Melwood one day and it was Souness who blinked first.
 
[quote author=Judge Jules link=topic=33919.msg880433#msg880433 date=1243945666]
Rafa4, that quote's interesting stuff, but by whom?

Souness really soft-pedals the Movila business in that interview. For one thing Movila had already been unwise enough to hack lumps out of other Liverpool players before starting on Souness. Both were serious mistakes when Souness was our skipper, and Movila should have known better. Also gotta love the way Souness says he "managed to avoid" the challenges in the return in Bucharest. The truth is he came off the pitch with his socks in tatters and stud marks in his shinpads. None of it made any difference - he was magnificent that night.

As it happens Case was reportedly the one and only player ever to make Souness take a backward step (including some real hard nuts like Passarella in Serie A who made threats about what they'd do to Souness but somehow never carried them out). There's said to have been an "incident" between them at Melwood one day and it was Souness who blinked first.
[/quote]

Dennis Wise mate.
 
Jimmy Case.

Bur Brucie's meant to have been a right hard bastard too. He put Souey on his arse in practise once, remember?
 
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