The gate things are one of those little oddities about anfield the makes the place unique. The shankley gates down by the anfield road now for example. They are not gates par se and really just stand on their own guarding a terrible patch of tarmac but they will never be removed. The paisley ones sort of guard the kop yet you can walk straight past the club shop and in round really. They are not statues and there are not many statues done. But they also have one each.
So I know this is probably going to be controversial. But anytime I see clips of football from early 90s and backwards, the standard of defending and goal keeping is always horrendous. Barnes obviously absolutely quality and his footwork in those clips is brilliant. But my god the defenders are just turning their backs, rushing and diving in, keepers always look so small and never seem like they cover much goal. I imagine the quality of defenders was worse because it was only ever full of English players who these days would be champ standard because there wasn’t the influx of top foreign talent until late 90s early 00s?
Their main skills were leg breaking so you can't ignore how such England leg-ends like Stuart Pearce or terry butcher were made into heros
Don't be so literal. They were "hard men" not known for any great skills (bar Pearce could kick the ball hard)
Exactly. You want 90s or 80s in all seriousness as I'll start with irwin at man utd then pivot to Staunton who souness treated like **** due to passport. Again the point is thst if you are John Barnes (or Maradona btw) you were kicked all over the park to stood you. Messi and Ronaldo wouldn't have such long careers in that era. Nobody can know how they'd have coped then bit I can say barners had all the pace, all the skills and all the vision and would have adapted (imo)
Irwin is a decent shout but the fact that is pretty much the on;y one shows he was more than just a "hard man" .
Again the point is they are examples of a type; hard men who kicked lumps out of attackers all game long. Hell I only need say what thst idiot souness bought to replace ginger Staunton as lfc lb. Fat Julian hard man dicks.
