The trials and tribulations of Liverpool Football Club over the past few decades has certainly meant that the club has had its fair share of players that have adorned cult hero status. But what is a ‘cult’ hero though? It’s a difficult thing to define, but more often than not, it’s a player that rarely meets expectations yet is adored by the terraces for the rare occasions that he reminds us that he’s still a professional footballer. Full-blooded commitment to the cause, eccentric characters and the ability to do something unexpectedly and inexplicably out of character in its importance are often essential ingredients in making up a cult hero.
Here are a list of 10 that plied their trade for Liverpool at one time or another in no discernable order. If there is anyone that you think is more deserving of a place on this list than the ones that I’ve chosen? Post your comments below.
Click on the image below to see the Top 10 Liverpool Cult Heroes
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West Ham head to Eastlands on Sunday knowing the writing is on the wall for their future in the top flight.The Hammers are bottom of the league and have lost their last four matches.
City are fourth, four points clear of Tottenham. They maintained their push for a Champions League spot with a 1-0 win over Blackburn on Monday.
It was also their 15th clean sheet, the equal best in the division, with Manchester United and Chelsea. City have also conceded only 30 goals, just three more than Chelsea.
Spurs are at Chelsea on Saturday and Arsenal face leaders Manchester United on Sunday. If all three games go to form, City would be seven points clear of Tottenham with four games to play and just two points behind the Gunners with a game in hand.
West Ham, meanwhile, are looking worryingly at relegation to the Championship following six seasons in the Premier League.
When the Hammers were last relegated, in 2003, they won three and drew one of their last four games but still went down.
They amassed 42 points that season but still could not avoid the drop. They have won just 13 of their 32 points away from Upton Park.
Manager Avram Grant cannot use Wayne Bridge at City as the defender is on loan from Eastlands and is ineligible.
Mark Noble, who damaged a stomach muscle in the 3-0 defeat at Chelsea, is out for three weeks while Scott Parker is also a likely absentee, meaning West Ham will be short of midfielders.
West Ham are hoping Matthew Upson recovers from the chest infection that ruled him out of the loss at Stamford Bridge.
Even owner David Sullivan fears the worst.
After City, West Ham face relegation rivals Blackburn and Wigan before finishing at home to Sunderland, who should have little riding on the game.
Sullivan added: “We still have at least a 25-30 per cent chance of staying up so all is not yet lost.”
City manager Roberto Mancini will have one eye on the FA Cup final at Wembley against Stoke City in two weeks.
Carlos Tevez is still receiving treatment for a hamstring injury and he has been given an ultimatum that he must return against Tottenham on May 10 if he is to be considered for the final.
One player keen to add to his match-winning performance against Blackburn will be striker Edin Dzeko.
The Bosnian will be keen to start against the Hammers and impress Mancini with the FA Cup showdown in mind.
Tottenham Hotspur boss Harry Redknapp has described his Arsenal counterpart Arsene Wenger as a 'nutter', but says that he still gets on well with the Frenchman.
Redknapp was speaking of the changes in Wenger's demeanour on the touchlines, with the Gunners manager having long since cast off his image as a quiet, studious coach.
"When Arsene first came to England I remember reading articles and they said that he was like a professor watching the game," Redknapp said.
"All the other nutters were jumping up and down shouting and screaming, hollering and hooting – and this man is not like those idiots.
"He just sits there and is studying every move that goes on on the pitch like chess. They didn't lose a game all season.
"Now he has joined the nutters, you know. In fact, he is one of the key nutters. That is the tension that you are under. It has affected him now.
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"He is no longer sitting there now. He is up there arguing with everybody and gets into it all. I think he has changed. He was the quietest man of the lot at one point.
"I don't have any problems with him at all, he's always been good. Sometimes I go into his office at Arsenal."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
‘If we had just scored when we had that chance it would have been so different.’ How often do you hear that after a game of football? Nearly every time. It is either a manager, a player or a pundit bemoaning a missed chance – not to mention the media and fans. It may seem an exaggeration to say this, but one chance can change a game, and make all the difference, and whilst I am not in the business of criticising someone for missing a chance during a game, no one can underestimate just how crucial that goal could have been.
Long have Arsenal been accused of passing more times than a cast member of TOWIE gets a spray tan, and failing to score when it counts, and before RVP became the MVP, their lack of clinical finishing cost them.
Anyone with a vague notion of intelligence – and I don’t mean MENSA here, just Wayne Rooney level – you know reading ok, grunting occasionally, that kind of thing – can point out to you after a game where a chance that could have made it all so different was missed.
In the only big game Real Madrid will ever play in a season if you listen to some English people – El Clasico – at 1–0 up, they had a golden chance to go two clear, and that would have made everything oh so different. Instead the chance was spurned and Barca went straight down the other end to equalise. The game was turned in the blink of an eye, and it was clinical finishing down one end, and the lack of it down the other that did that.
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Too many missed chances can see heads dropping and the overall mentality of the team dipping. Not to mention the opposition will be aware of the fact that if they manage to go a goal to the good, they are probably safe and there is little chance of being pegged back due to the mental issues created from being tagged as a team who can’t finish.
Likewise this can happen to an individual player – the number of strikers who down the years have gone through a poor run of form and let this affect them, subsequently struggling to pick both themselves and their form up – they can still have the touch and the movement but simply cannot hit a barn door – Torres is the prime example here, and it is a long time before the player can forget the multiple or in Nando’s case the million missed chances playing over and over in his head.
Whether it be a team or a player who is suffering because of missed chances and a lack of clinical finishing, it is not just that one game and three points it can cost. It is easier said than done for a player to put these things out of their head, and a complex can develop affecting the team and the individual for a long time to come should they let it.
All too often people criticise players for being lazy and not doing anything except be in the right place and the right time to score goals – Van Nistelrooy being a prime example – but I would take a player who stuck the ball in the back of the net every day of the week over one who wasn’t a clinical finisher and cost the team not only goals but points to boot.
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A football fan will defend his team and its players till the cows come home against rival fans, because after all no-one likes to hear anything they love being slated; this doesn’t however stop the fans berating, criticising or judging his team’s own players. I believe the fans do have a divine right to highlight the flaws of players that aren’t justifying their starting eleven position, given the time, effort and money invested into the supporting of their club. There are players however who do appear to experience the anger of their own fans on a greater scale, where constructive criticism becomes a rant, but who are the top ten Premier League scapegoats?
Click on Darron Gibson below to see the top 10 scapegoats of the season
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Listen to the third episode of our brand new podcast – The Football FanCast. – Featuring Razor Ruddock, Gary O’Reilly and singer/songwriter Alistair Griffin, who performs a live version of his cult tribute to Mark Viduka, with Razor on backing vocals!
The Football League have refused to ratify Stoke City midfielder Liam Lawrence's deadline-day switch to Portsmouth, with the Republic of Ireland international now poised for an interim loan move.
The 28-year-old was snapped up by Pompey, along with Dave Kitson, as part of the exchange deal which saw Marc Wilson head to the Britannia Stadium.
However, the Football League say that the relevant document were not received by 6pm last Tuesday, a view refuted by Pompey administrator Andrew Andronikou.
He told The News:"The Lawrence deal has not been ratified by the Football League yet and we are still waiting to hear the outcome.
"Unfortunately, we are not Tottenham and are not allowed to have this issue sorted the next day as they did with Rafael van der Vaart.
"This sort of thing will only happen to us. There is proper brinkmanship going on just because we are Portsmouth Football Club.
"From our end, all documentation was sent on time, well before the 6pm deadline. I was there myself to see it."
City chief executive Tony Scholes added:"We're disappointed that this transfer hasn't gone through.
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"However, it is important that we work with Portsmouth, the player and the authorities to find an expedient solution as if it had gone through.
"That will probably take the form of a loan move until the end of the year and then Liam would finalise his permanent move to Fratton Park in the January window."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Blackburn manager Steve Kean is confident that his side can get the necessary points to avoid relegation this term, and feels that the club have been hard done by in some refereeing decisions this season.
The Ewood Park club sit bottom of the Premier League currently on 11 points, but showed resolve to get a 1-1 draw against Liverpool at Anfield on Boxing Day.
Despite acknowledging that his team were in a bad situation, the Scottish coach feels the Lancashire outfit will get out of the relegation mire.
“Of course we believe, absolutely no question,” he told Sky Sports.
“I believe even now, with our injuries, we can go back and look at some real tough decisions.
“I know everybody can do this, but we can go back and look at a last-minute penalty against Norwich, a last-minute penalty against Everton.
“There have been a number of games where we have just fallen the wrong side of decisions.
“I think we should already have six or seven more points, even though we have got so many defenders out injured.
“We are really confident if we have a good transfer window, which I am sure we will, and get these defenders back, then we will really fly out of the blocks in the second part of the season,” he concluded.
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Blackburn face Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday to complete 2011’s fixture list.
Manchester United’s search for Edwin van der Sar’s replacement has come to an end, well as far as the Daily Mail is concerned anyway. They have reported that ‘Atletico keeper De Gea to sign five-year contract with Manchester United as clubs agree £17.8m deal’.
Its common knowledge that the Spanish stopper is one of Manchester United’s top targets, but reports in The Daily Mail are way off the mark according to quotes from David de Gea published on dbs-football.blogspot.com.
“There is nothing, it is all lies. I know nothing about offers from any team, whether it is other clubs or a renewal from Atletico. I have given my all to this team since I have been here, and that will continue today and tomorrow, I will always fight for this team.”
The young Spanish keeper’s comments mean United have got plenty of work left to do if they want to pull off the signing of the 20 year old. There hasn’t been any public refusal from Atletico to do business with United over the highly rated Spanish keeper’s services, so there is still a strong possibility of a deal being carved out.
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With the introduction of new Premier League legislation this season allowing clubs to name an unlimited number of under-21s in their squads, the Tottenham Hotspur starlet John Bostock may well have been hopeful. The 18-year old midfielder who made his debut for Spurs in a Uefa Cup tie against Dinamo Zagreb in 2008 has not featured much since. He recently bemoaned the chances of youngsters such as himself getting playing time in the cosmopolitan Premier League. Having spent a short spell at Brentford last year he has now committed to a season long loan at Hull City. Bostock now has to use this opportunity to do his talking on the pitch if he wishes to command a more prominent role on his return to north London
The gifted midfielder’s transfer from Crystal Palace to Tottenham Hotspur in 2007 was particularly bitter. The then Palace chairman Simon Jordan was determined to retrieve the highest possible amount for the club’s prized asset. The two clubs failed to settle on a fee which was eventually set by a tribunal at £700,000. Bostock would have felt flattered by an ambitious Premier League club recognising his promise and fighting to secure his services.
The feeling of being wanted by a club, which all players seem to crave was not to last. Bostock has recently hit out at the number of foreign players in the league blocking the path of young players into regular top flight football. He spoke in broad terms about the problem in the Premier League which is harming youth development. “You look at the foreign contingent over here and it’s blocking us. It’s hard because we might have to wait until we are 21 or 22.” But could his sweeping comments be interpreted as a swipe at his club’s Croatian contingent, which Harry Redknapp palpably enjoys working with. Attack minded midfielders such as Kranjcar and Modric are way ahead in the pecking order at White Hart Lane. For an aspiring 18-year old his comments are unrealistic but his eagerness to play for the club which fought for him is admirable.
In comparison to many promising players of his age a scenic route around the grounds of League One and the Championship is the best way of eventually securing first team football. Having spent a month at Brentford last year, Bostock recently agreed to a season’s loan at Hull City. His arrival at the KC Stadium may be the remedy this beleaguered side have been looking for. The financial state of the club remains perilous yet the Hull faithful would have been cheered by Bostock’s match winning performance in their first match of the season against Swansea. He tested De Vries early on before unleashing an unstoppable 30-yard screamer which was always destined for the top right-hand corner. Already being touted as the Championship goal of the season it was not simply this wonder strike that had the fans brimming with delight. Operating in the hole behind the lone front-man Bostock was able to exploit this space despite the increasing pressure placed on him by Swansea’s defence.
Performances of this nature will not go unnoticed at the England under-19 international’s parent club. Players who just want to play must relish their opportunities however unorthodox or unexpected. Frequently players on loan will enjoy encouraging starts before fading away due to frustration at a change of setting, team-mates and tactics. If Bostock adopts the right attitude and develops as a player he will return to Tottenham with a renewed hope of competing with their biggest stars.
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With the PL season nearly upon us, let’s see the WAGS that will be keeping the players on their toes. Click on image to VIEW gallery
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Managerless Sunderland travel to the Midlands to face fellow struggles Wolves at Molineux just 72 hours after sacking Steve Bruce following a disastrous start to the season.
Former Black Cats boss Mick McCarthy suffered a similar fate at the Stadium of Light five years ago and will take great pleasure in adding to the misery on Wearside. The Wolves boss saw optimism levels rise in the Black Country after winning their first two games and putting in some dynamic performances. However their next 11 games saw them win just once and slide down the Premier League table to 17th with that victory coming against Wigan at the start of November. McCarthy has now found himself under increasing pressure to turn things around at Molineux with supporters not prepared to tolerate another morale sapping relegation battle. Defensively they need to improve tenfold with summer signing and captain Roger Johnson failing to provide a stable presence in the back four and stop goals flowing in. Wolves have conceded 23 goals in their 13 games so far and need to get back to basics with their defending with the partnership of Johnson and Christophe Berra proving ineffective against the ruthless Premier League forwards. They also need some big performances in the final third against Sunderland this week with winger Matt Jarvis, in particular, not showing the kind of form that won him an England cap earlier in the year.
The Black Cats go into the game without a manager in the dugout after chairman Ellis Short dispensed with the services of Bruce after two years in charge. Three home wins in 2011 and an appalling start to the season saw the former Birmingham and Wigan manager relieved of his duties with the club lying two places above the relegation zone. Defeat against the Latics last week was the final nail in Bruces coffin with his already sour relationship with the clubs supporters completely evaporating as they turned on him once and for all. It’s no surprise that he find’s himself out a job after seeing Sunderland slip to 16th in recent weeks following a run of one win in their last eight games and a series of displays that fell way below the standard expected on Wearside. It was always going to be a challenge once Darren Bent left in January but to lose Danny Wellbeck and Asamoah Gyan just a few months after left the club without first choice centre forward. £30 million was spent on improving the squad in the summer with the former boss opting to spend £8 million on teenager Connor Wickham and unknown South Korean Ji Dong Won. Nicklas Bendntner was also brought in on loan but has failed to suitably plug the gap and it has ultimately Bruce paid the penalty. His tactics often left Sunderland looking directionless on the pitch at times this season and it has cost them dearly and whoever takes charge for the trip to Wolves will need to get the defence structured and the midfield disciplined. Getting Bendtner scoring and Sessegnon purring in behind the Danish strike will be key to the Black Cats starting the post-Bruce era with a bang.
Wolves – 17th
Last Five
Lost 3-0 v Chelsea (A), Lost 2-1 v Everton (A)Won 3-1 v Wigan (H), Lost 3-1 v Manchester City (A), Drew 2-2 v Swansea (H)
Potential Starting X11: 1. W. Hennessey 23. R. Zubar 14. R. Johnson [C] 16. C. Berra 3. G Elokobi 11. S. Ward 4. D. Edwards 20. N. Milijas 17. M. Jarvis* 29. K. Doyle
Injury News: McCarthy will be without key defender Richard Stearman for the visit of Sunderland whilst Kevin Foley has been ruled out until Janaury with an ankle injury.
Key Player: Matt Jarvis
It’s been a disappointing season from the Wolves winger who has looked a shadow of the player that made his England debut earlier in the year. Jarvis’ performances this season have been well below par and fairly inconsistent with his brilliance on the wing only appearing in flashes. A display worthy of an England cap would be welcomed on Saturday against Sunderland as his club strives to move clear of the drop zone.
Match Fact: This will be only the fifth time Woves have met Sunderland in the Premier League the omens definitely favour McCarthy’s side. Wanderers have won their last three games against the Black Cats and would take great pleasure in making that four in a row.
Sunderland – 16th
Last Five: Lost 2-1 v Wigan (H), Drew 0-0 v Fulham (H0, Lost 1-0 v Manchester United (A), Drew 2-2 v Aston Villa (H), Won 2-0 v Bolton (A)
Potential Starting X11: 24. K. Westwood 16. J. O’Shea [C] 4. M. Turner 6. W. Brown 2. P. Bardsley 7. A. S. Larsson 6. L. Cattermole 16. J. Colback 11.K. Richardson 28. S. Sessegnon* 52. N. Bendtner
Injury News: Managerless Sunderland are still without key players Simon Mignolet and Connor Wickham whilst Fraizer Campbell remains out for the long-term.
Key Player: Stephane Sessegnon
A rare bright spot in what has been an awful start to the season for Sunderland the former PSG midfielder’s importance in the side has soared. The departure of Asamoah Gyan in the summer has left Sessegnon as the only real flair player in the Black Cats squad and has proved a capable partner for Bendtner up front. His agility on the ball and forward thinking nature will come in handy against Wolves on Sunday.
Match Fact: Sunderland first met Wolves in 1890 – a staggering 121 years ago! Since then they have visited Molineux 60 times since then but have emerged victorious from the Midlands just 15 times.
Last Time at Molineux
Wolves 3-2 Sunderland
Foley, 51 Hunt, 81 Ebanks-Blake, 89
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Bent, 67 Wellbeck, 77
Attendance: 25,112
Referee: Mike Jones
PREDICTION
Both sides have struggled to string a decent set of results together this season and find themselves fighting to pull away from the drop zone. Sunderland sacked manager Steve Bruce on Wednesday after their 2-1 defeat to Wigan and the Black Cats will travel to the Midlands without a leader in the dugout – something that could prove disastrous. Wolves are also in a slump and need to start being more ruthless at home having lost three out of six at Molieneux. This could be considered a game that will shape both clubs seasons going into the festive period.