23 Mar 2012

Ex-LFC Star: When Liverpool dumped me I 'punched the wall' in frustration...

During his four years in charge of Liverpool football club, Roy Evans produced one of the most exciting and entertaining premier league teams of the last 18 years. With the likes of Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman playing alongside club legends John Barnes and Ian Rush, it was pure joy being a fan in the mid-1990s. Evans' team admittedly was let down by a suspect defence, but not every defender at the club back then was poor. John Scales arguably did a solid job for Liverpool, but looking back, he has regrets about how his career with club ended.

Scales signed a five year contract with Liverpool in 1994 but left just over two years later. During his brief career, Scales won the League Cup; lost in the FA Cup Final to Man United; finished 4th and 3rd in the League, and won three England caps.

Not too bad at all, but in a recent interview with LFC Magazine, Scales revealed his heartbreak over how he was basically forced to leave Liverpool:

"Roy called me in and said he'd had an offer [from Leeds] and it had been accepted. He asked me if I wanted to go and speak to them; I told him I didn't because I was quite happy where I was. I asked about the contract we'd discussed in the summer, but it was clear they'd accepted the bid from Leeds.

"Roy said I had a five-year deal so I could stay if I wanted to, but the signals were clear that they didn't want me to stay. I think every player needs to feel wanted by the manager.

"All of that left me feeling quite disillusioned, and I felt that I had no choice but to move. I remember being in the hotel in Leeds during the transfer negotiations and I punched the wall because I was so frustrated.

"I was trying to get my head around it all - Liverpool didn't want me anymore and, although it was a compliment to be wanted by Leeds and George [Graham], I had never expressed any desire to leave.

"Liverpool were my club, and I felt I hadn't fulfilled my potential with them".


Scales was a better defender than he's given credit for IMO, and the team's performance defensively with him in it was not that bad:

* 94 games for Liverpool

* 75 goals conceded (an average of less than 1 per game)

* 41 clean sheets (44% of games)

* Best run: 11 Dec '94 - 8 Mar '95: Only 7 goals conceded in 21 games, a run that included 5 clean sheets in a row as part of 14 clean sheets overall.

Jaimie Kanwar


8 comments:

  1. good player, but never lived up to expectations. sounds farmilular !!
    hopefully kenny dumping some players this summer to  redeem himself

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  2. kenny redeem himself he has won 3 european cups and done the double in his 1st season won the prem with blackburn you enter liverpool and talkd that shite on the streets you would ko'd you keyboard gangster

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  3. god we needed him as well!  A Harrogate Lad always liked him, but you guys were flying then so no surprise

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  4. lol listen to you wanna be plastic gangster. funny im in liverpool a lot and share the same view with a lot of people. current affairs are poor thats my point numpty boy.
    kenny out of a job otherwise, plenty on here think he aint even going to be manager next season.
    its my point of view and who do you think you are coming on here giving it the big macho man. your a joke (plastic)

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  5. He was ok but nothing more than ok!!!!!.......................decent bloke though!!!!!

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  6. Macca, Fowler, Barnes and Rush(the 2nd time round) were signed by Kenny.

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  7. All of which is utterly irrelevant to what is happening with the team in the here and now.

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  8. The most disastrous part was when Roy Evans sold John Scales to Spurs, he brought in Bjorn Tore Kvarme, who to be fair, performed well initially but soon enough began to make mistake after mistake. 

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