Laboog
Well-Known Member
- Jul 10, 2020
- 654
- 1,243
We mentioned before about you being comfortable with your left foot. Does that open up more angles of movement? Because once you’ve made this run across, you wouldn’t be going back on your right foot.
Absolutely. Yeah, it opens up greater chances to score goals if you can use either foot — unless you’re some kind of genius like Maradona was, who never needed two feet. But yeah, it massively increases the chances, I mean I’ve got no choice there unless you do the old rabona, which was definitely not in my repertoire…
England 1-1 Colombia, May 1988
The next one is a more unusual choice, but I wanted to include a header…
Yeah, I got a lot of headers.
Do you remember this one? Against Colombia at Wembley.
Yeah, a glancing header. That’s the kind of header I scored. I think I’ve scored the most headers for England — I think it’s 15. The statistics don’t exist from the olden days, but there’s only one player who could conceivably have beaten me, Nat Lofthouse, as he was famously good in the air. And he got 30 England goals, so it would have had to be half of them headers, which would be quite a lot.
And again, it’s about the movement.
And that’s why I scored a lot of headers because of my movement getting in front of people. I’m only 5ft 10in, I’m not particularly tall. I wasn’t powerful in the air, I didn’t rise above people. But at one point I’m behind the defender there…
…and then it goes out of shot, and the next time you see us, when the cross comes in, I’m in front of him…
Let’s watch it one more time. I’ve drifted away, to go in front. I’m behind him… and now I’m in front of him… and I’ve gambled on space. This time it’s with my head rather than with my feet, but it’s exactly the same process, and it’s a deft enough flick to score, a bit of luck involved in that.
So just going back a bit in terms of headers. At Leicester, you were always going in behind and using your pace, and when you went to Everton people were surprised you scored so many headers…
They were really surprised, and I did score a lot of headers for Everton, mainly because of the unbelievably good service from both flanks. Gary Stevens we’ve seen (for the assist against Poland), Trevor Steven, who was a great crosser of the ball, and Kevin Sheedy on the left-hand side. So my emphasis on movement got me in front of people, and the quality of the crosses meant I could get my head on a lot of them.
Manchester United 0-3 Tottenham, October 1989
Three to go. Coincidentally, they’re all against Manchester United — you seemed to have a good record against them.
Yeah, I scored a few against United.
This one’s from the League Cup…
League Cup…? I’m trying to remember this one.
I picked out this one because now you’re coming deep, you’re on the ball in a No 10 position here…
But there’s a similar theme. OK, I’m involved in the build-up… yeah that’s me coming deep, that’s unusual… well, I liked a link-up a bit. I wasn’t the most gifted footballer in the world in terms of dribbling and stuff, but I could hold it up, I could give it and go. But again, once I give it, it’s bursting into an area where you think you might have a chance of scoring if the ball goes.
I have no memory of that goal. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it! Who’s crossing that, David Howells maybe…
You seemed to score a few after coming deep around this point. There was one against Arsenal at Wembley as well…
I think when you get older you do drift a bit deeper. If a team’s playing deep like that, that’s the place to get space, towards the midfield. But I’d never trust myself to shoot from 25 yards, I’d knock it wide and get in the box.
And did you do this more after playing in Spain? Did that change your game?
Yeah, Barcelona changed my game quite a bit. I had to change, I couldn’t just spin in behind and get one-on-ones. I often played against man-to-man marking with the sweeper behind.
Who did I have a conversation with the other day? Michael Owen! He thinks the same as me in a striker’s sense. He asked if I liked it, playing against a sweeper. I said, “Like it? I hated it! You couldn’t spin!” He said he was the same.
But I said, “But when you scored the goal against Argentina, that was a classic example of the sweeper.” He said, “I know, I’ve got past the first one, I looked up and there’s a guy on the edge of the box.”
And I related to it — I thought, there’s so many times where I thought I’d done them, and there’s some guy 20 yards behind. We don’t see that in the modern game — if there’s someone in that position now, we’d say, “What the hell are you doing?”
I started to experiment in Spain when they played a sweeper. I used to go and stand on him, and they didn’t really know what to do. It didn’t really help me score goals, but it helped the team have more space, because I’d occupy two players, and because they were so deep, and it would leave a big gap between their defence and midfield for players to get into.
It was a bit sacrificial, which is unusual for me (laughs). It wasn’t something I enjoyed, but it was something necessary.
But you faced man-marking in England sometimes too…
It was a similar thing when I played against Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest. Cloughy would always put Des Walker on me, as a man-to-man. So what I did, for the good of the team, I would drag him out and stand next to Stuart Pearce, which is stupid because Stuart’s quite aggressive… but then I’d have their best two defenders stuck close to me, on our right wing, and we got a bit of joy. That’s a long story…
Go on…
So Clough had always done that with me, and we’d always had lots of success because of it. And Cloughy was obviously thinking… well, we’d played them a few weeks before the FA Cup final in a meaningless game at White Hart Lane with both teams in mid-table, but we both knew we playing each other in the FA Cup final.
So we went out on the pitch, and the game kicked off and Steve Chettle was on me. So I thought, “This is odd… what’s going on here… is he experimenting for the FA Cup final? Is he seeing if Chettle can do what Des Walker does…?”
It’s the only game of my career where I never tried. I honestly let Chettle get every ball in front of me, win every ball.
So we’re in the tunnel for the FA Cup final, and I got a tap on the shoulder. And it was Des Walker. And he went, “It worked…”
So we went out on the pitch and Chettle marks me. And we played for 45 minutes, and I ran him ragged. I won a penalty, which I missed, I had a perfectly good goal disallowed — it was a yard onside, wouldn’t have taken three seconds to overturn it with VAR. We were 1-0 down at half-time.
We were running out for the second half, and Des shouted out to me, “I’m back!”, and I thought “OK, we’ll have to do what we always do”. So I drifted out to the right side, and we played well and ended up winning.
But that’s the kind of thing you have to do as a striker — adapt to circumstances. You don’t really see the sweeper in the modern game — but if you did, you have to think about how you play against it.
Manchester United 0-1 Tottenham, December 1989
Right, Manchester United again. You definitely remember this one…
I’ve seen this one lots of times! It’s not the only goal I’ve scored from outside the box, I’ve scored a few. But generally, they’re one-on-ones when the keeper’s come out. But actually to score a top-corner screamer, bender, call it what you like, from outside the box… it felt miles outside the box, but it’s just outside. That’s the only one I can remember in my entire career.
Again, I’ve gone out to get space. That’s a common theme, that’s where the space was. And that’s what you have to do as a forward. And it’s not all about scoring goals — I joke that it is — but you do the right thing. That movement is least likely to get myself a goal, but it’s most likely to help the team.
I wouldn’t usually shoot from there, I don’t know what came over me. Usually, I’d have someone on the left going outside of me, and I could knock it out and get in the box, but there wasn’t anyone else there.
And on this occasion, it kind of just opened up, and I thought, “Ah, sod it.” And I have to say, it was a major shock when it went in, I won’t kid you.
Manchester United 3-1 Tottenham, May 1992
And last one, another at Old Trafford. This one’s really about the emotion of it…
Ah, the last goal. It’s emotional, it’s the most emotional goal. This is a typical kind of goal. Look, gambling, getting in front, it’s a very common theme. It didn’t bounce very kindly but I managed to steer it into the top corner with my head.
We were 3-0 down, it didn’t matter in terms of the overall match. It was a nothing game. But it was my last game in English football.
It wasn’t just the goal, it was the reception from Old Trafford. Now, I don’t know whether they would have done it if we’d been 3-0 up, but to a person they applauded and sang my name. And that made me… I actually welled up, thankfully in those days they didn’t have those close-ups they do now… it might have been a bit embarrassing, as there were a few tears.
And they gave me a lovely gift before the game, that Bryan Robson gave to me. It was a really, really amazing and emotional day. The best I’ve ever felt after I’ve lost.
The other interesting thing here is your last goal comes in the last game before the start of the Premier League.
Yeah! I never played in the Premier League so, obviously, I don’t exist in the footballing world…
You always joke about that on Match of the Day when Shearer’s stats come up. Is there any frustration your stats are never compared to Harry Kane’s?
It doesn’t really matter. I suppose it’s nice to see your name on the graphics.
It is odd, the way it’s done. My stats would have been different. I was a late developer anyway, a slow developer. I don’t know why. I was tiny, I didn’t grow until I was 17 or 18, I wasn’t one of these boyhood greats like Owen or Wayne Rooney, and I didn’t get into the England team until I was 25.
So my stats were good, but for the first two seasons at Leicester I was played on the wing, so that would have warped the stats to a degree. But once I got going, my stats were right up there. I was successful individually. I didn’t win a million things team-wise — I was a bit unlucky in that sense on occasions. But I wouldn’t swap anything.
People say things like, “When Kane won the World Cup Golden Boot for England, does that annoy you that you’re no longer the only Englishman to do it?” I say no — it reminds people you did it, that you played the game of football. You’d be amazed at how many kids don’t know that I played… and then you get, on Twitter, young people going, “Oh, I didn’t know you were a proper player.”
I found a nice quote from Bobby Charlton when you were coming up to his England goalscoring record. He said that, until people start talking about you potentially overtaking it, his wife had no idea he was the record holder…
That’s exactly my point. And it’s funny when Rooney went ahead, and people said, “Oh, you’re only third now”, and I said, if someone told me when I was 16 and joining Leicester City, that one day you’d be the third-highest goalscorer for England, I’d have thought you were off your rocker. I’d have grabbed that.
England all-time top goalscorers
I have not a single… the only… regret’s the wrong word. But there’s only one thing I look back on in my career and think, “If only”, and it isn’t missing that penalty against Brazil to equal Sir Bobby Charlton’s record. It’s the penalty shootout against Germany, if we’d have won that.
You know, Chris Waddle hit the inside of the post in extra time. If he’d put that two inches to the left, I think we would have been favourites to beat a tired Argentina, and we were a good side. That’s the only thing I look back on because that’s footballing immortality. That really is footballing immortality.
You clearly still love analysing strikers’ movement. Before you switched to presenting Match of the Day, you used to be one of the pundits. Do you miss it?
I did, but I found — and I genuinely mean this — I was a specialist. I’ve sat next to Alan Hansen so many times when he’s talking about defending, and I’ve gone, “Oh yeah”, and that’s what the pundits do, they educate you. I could do that with strikers, but I started to feel like I was getting repetitive with it.
And it’s very easy for me, particularly when we do live football and England games, to put my opinion into something. And with Wrighty and Shearer we can debate the movement and I can involve myself. So I can contribute in that area if I want to.
I know people sometimes say that they’d sooner hear my opinions, but honestly, on midfield, defending, goalkeeping, there are better people than me. Some people see the overall picture — generally the ones that go into coaching, or become the really good pundits. But others are a bit more niche. And I was a bit more niche.
Absolutely. Yeah, it opens up greater chances to score goals if you can use either foot — unless you’re some kind of genius like Maradona was, who never needed two feet. But yeah, it massively increases the chances, I mean I’ve got no choice there unless you do the old rabona, which was definitely not in my repertoire…
England 1-1 Colombia, May 1988
The next one is a more unusual choice, but I wanted to include a header…
Yeah, I got a lot of headers.
Do you remember this one? Against Colombia at Wembley.
Yeah, a glancing header. That’s the kind of header I scored. I think I’ve scored the most headers for England — I think it’s 15. The statistics don’t exist from the olden days, but there’s only one player who could conceivably have beaten me, Nat Lofthouse, as he was famously good in the air. And he got 30 England goals, so it would have had to be half of them headers, which would be quite a lot.
And again, it’s about the movement.
And that’s why I scored a lot of headers because of my movement getting in front of people. I’m only 5ft 10in, I’m not particularly tall. I wasn’t powerful in the air, I didn’t rise above people. But at one point I’m behind the defender there…
…and then it goes out of shot, and the next time you see us, when the cross comes in, I’m in front of him…
Let’s watch it one more time. I’ve drifted away, to go in front. I’m behind him… and now I’m in front of him… and I’ve gambled on space. This time it’s with my head rather than with my feet, but it’s exactly the same process, and it’s a deft enough flick to score, a bit of luck involved in that.
So just going back a bit in terms of headers. At Leicester, you were always going in behind and using your pace, and when you went to Everton people were surprised you scored so many headers…
They were really surprised, and I did score a lot of headers for Everton, mainly because of the unbelievably good service from both flanks. Gary Stevens we’ve seen (for the assist against Poland), Trevor Steven, who was a great crosser of the ball, and Kevin Sheedy on the left-hand side. So my emphasis on movement got me in front of people, and the quality of the crosses meant I could get my head on a lot of them.
Manchester United 0-3 Tottenham, October 1989
Three to go. Coincidentally, they’re all against Manchester United — you seemed to have a good record against them.
Yeah, I scored a few against United.
This one’s from the League Cup…
League Cup…? I’m trying to remember this one.
I picked out this one because now you’re coming deep, you’re on the ball in a No 10 position here…
But there’s a similar theme. OK, I’m involved in the build-up… yeah that’s me coming deep, that’s unusual… well, I liked a link-up a bit. I wasn’t the most gifted footballer in the world in terms of dribbling and stuff, but I could hold it up, I could give it and go. But again, once I give it, it’s bursting into an area where you think you might have a chance of scoring if the ball goes.
I have no memory of that goal. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it! Who’s crossing that, David Howells maybe…
You seemed to score a few after coming deep around this point. There was one against Arsenal at Wembley as well…
I think when you get older you do drift a bit deeper. If a team’s playing deep like that, that’s the place to get space, towards the midfield. But I’d never trust myself to shoot from 25 yards, I’d knock it wide and get in the box.
And did you do this more after playing in Spain? Did that change your game?
Yeah, Barcelona changed my game quite a bit. I had to change, I couldn’t just spin in behind and get one-on-ones. I often played against man-to-man marking with the sweeper behind.
Who did I have a conversation with the other day? Michael Owen! He thinks the same as me in a striker’s sense. He asked if I liked it, playing against a sweeper. I said, “Like it? I hated it! You couldn’t spin!” He said he was the same.
But I said, “But when you scored the goal against Argentina, that was a classic example of the sweeper.” He said, “I know, I’ve got past the first one, I looked up and there’s a guy on the edge of the box.”
And I related to it — I thought, there’s so many times where I thought I’d done them, and there’s some guy 20 yards behind. We don’t see that in the modern game — if there’s someone in that position now, we’d say, “What the hell are you doing?”
I started to experiment in Spain when they played a sweeper. I used to go and stand on him, and they didn’t really know what to do. It didn’t really help me score goals, but it helped the team have more space, because I’d occupy two players, and because they were so deep, and it would leave a big gap between their defence and midfield for players to get into.
It was a bit sacrificial, which is unusual for me (laughs). It wasn’t something I enjoyed, but it was something necessary.
But you faced man-marking in England sometimes too…
It was a similar thing when I played against Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest. Cloughy would always put Des Walker on me, as a man-to-man. So what I did, for the good of the team, I would drag him out and stand next to Stuart Pearce, which is stupid because Stuart’s quite aggressive… but then I’d have their best two defenders stuck close to me, on our right wing, and we got a bit of joy. That’s a long story…
Go on…
So Clough had always done that with me, and we’d always had lots of success because of it. And Cloughy was obviously thinking… well, we’d played them a few weeks before the FA Cup final in a meaningless game at White Hart Lane with both teams in mid-table, but we both knew we playing each other in the FA Cup final.
So we went out on the pitch, and the game kicked off and Steve Chettle was on me. So I thought, “This is odd… what’s going on here… is he experimenting for the FA Cup final? Is he seeing if Chettle can do what Des Walker does…?”
It’s the only game of my career where I never tried. I honestly let Chettle get every ball in front of me, win every ball.
So we’re in the tunnel for the FA Cup final, and I got a tap on the shoulder. And it was Des Walker. And he went, “It worked…”
So we went out on the pitch and Chettle marks me. And we played for 45 minutes, and I ran him ragged. I won a penalty, which I missed, I had a perfectly good goal disallowed — it was a yard onside, wouldn’t have taken three seconds to overturn it with VAR. We were 1-0 down at half-time.
We were running out for the second half, and Des shouted out to me, “I’m back!”, and I thought “OK, we’ll have to do what we always do”. So I drifted out to the right side, and we played well and ended up winning.
But that’s the kind of thing you have to do as a striker — adapt to circumstances. You don’t really see the sweeper in the modern game — but if you did, you have to think about how you play against it.
Manchester United 0-1 Tottenham, December 1989
Right, Manchester United again. You definitely remember this one…
I’ve seen this one lots of times! It’s not the only goal I’ve scored from outside the box, I’ve scored a few. But generally, they’re one-on-ones when the keeper’s come out. But actually to score a top-corner screamer, bender, call it what you like, from outside the box… it felt miles outside the box, but it’s just outside. That’s the only one I can remember in my entire career.
Again, I’ve gone out to get space. That’s a common theme, that’s where the space was. And that’s what you have to do as a forward. And it’s not all about scoring goals — I joke that it is — but you do the right thing. That movement is least likely to get myself a goal, but it’s most likely to help the team.
I wouldn’t usually shoot from there, I don’t know what came over me. Usually, I’d have someone on the left going outside of me, and I could knock it out and get in the box, but there wasn’t anyone else there.
And on this occasion, it kind of just opened up, and I thought, “Ah, sod it.” And I have to say, it was a major shock when it went in, I won’t kid you.
Manchester United 3-1 Tottenham, May 1992
And last one, another at Old Trafford. This one’s really about the emotion of it…
Ah, the last goal. It’s emotional, it’s the most emotional goal. This is a typical kind of goal. Look, gambling, getting in front, it’s a very common theme. It didn’t bounce very kindly but I managed to steer it into the top corner with my head.
We were 3-0 down, it didn’t matter in terms of the overall match. It was a nothing game. But it was my last game in English football.
It wasn’t just the goal, it was the reception from Old Trafford. Now, I don’t know whether they would have done it if we’d been 3-0 up, but to a person they applauded and sang my name. And that made me… I actually welled up, thankfully in those days they didn’t have those close-ups they do now… it might have been a bit embarrassing, as there were a few tears.
And they gave me a lovely gift before the game, that Bryan Robson gave to me. It was a really, really amazing and emotional day. The best I’ve ever felt after I’ve lost.
The other interesting thing here is your last goal comes in the last game before the start of the Premier League.
Yeah! I never played in the Premier League so, obviously, I don’t exist in the footballing world…
You always joke about that on Match of the Day when Shearer’s stats come up. Is there any frustration your stats are never compared to Harry Kane’s?
It doesn’t really matter. I suppose it’s nice to see your name on the graphics.
It is odd, the way it’s done. My stats would have been different. I was a late developer anyway, a slow developer. I don’t know why. I was tiny, I didn’t grow until I was 17 or 18, I wasn’t one of these boyhood greats like Owen or Wayne Rooney, and I didn’t get into the England team until I was 25.
So my stats were good, but for the first two seasons at Leicester I was played on the wing, so that would have warped the stats to a degree. But once I got going, my stats were right up there. I was successful individually. I didn’t win a million things team-wise — I was a bit unlucky in that sense on occasions. But I wouldn’t swap anything.
People say things like, “When Kane won the World Cup Golden Boot for England, does that annoy you that you’re no longer the only Englishman to do it?” I say no — it reminds people you did it, that you played the game of football. You’d be amazed at how many kids don’t know that I played… and then you get, on Twitter, young people going, “Oh, I didn’t know you were a proper player.”
I found a nice quote from Bobby Charlton when you were coming up to his England goalscoring record. He said that, until people start talking about you potentially overtaking it, his wife had no idea he was the record holder…
That’s exactly my point. And it’s funny when Rooney went ahead, and people said, “Oh, you’re only third now”, and I said, if someone told me when I was 16 and joining Leicester City, that one day you’d be the third-highest goalscorer for England, I’d have thought you were off your rocker. I’d have grabbed that.
England all-time top goalscorers
| 1 | Wayne Rooney | 2003-2018 | 120 | 53 |
| 2 | Bobby Charlton | 1958-1970 | 106 | 49 |
| 3 | Gary Lineker | 1984-1992 | 80 | 48 |
| 4 | Jimmy Greaves | 1959-1967 | 57 | 44 |
| 5 | Michael Owen | 1998-2008 | 89 | 40 |
| 6 | Harry Kane | 2015- | 50 | 32 |
| 7 | Nat Lofthouse | 1950-1958 | 33 | 30 |
| 7 | Alan Shearer | 1992-2000 | 63 | 30 |
| 7 | Tom Finney | 1946-1958 | 76 | 30 |
| 10 | Vivian Woodward | 1903-1911 | 23 | 29 |
| 10 | Frank Lampard | 1999-2014 | 106 | 29 |
I have not a single… the only… regret’s the wrong word. But there’s only one thing I look back on in my career and think, “If only”, and it isn’t missing that penalty against Brazil to equal Sir Bobby Charlton’s record. It’s the penalty shootout against Germany, if we’d have won that.
You know, Chris Waddle hit the inside of the post in extra time. If he’d put that two inches to the left, I think we would have been favourites to beat a tired Argentina, and we were a good side. That’s the only thing I look back on because that’s footballing immortality. That really is footballing immortality.
You clearly still love analysing strikers’ movement. Before you switched to presenting Match of the Day, you used to be one of the pundits. Do you miss it?
I did, but I found — and I genuinely mean this — I was a specialist. I’ve sat next to Alan Hansen so many times when he’s talking about defending, and I’ve gone, “Oh yeah”, and that’s what the pundits do, they educate you. I could do that with strikers, but I started to feel like I was getting repetitive with it.
And it’s very easy for me, particularly when we do live football and England games, to put my opinion into something. And with Wrighty and Shearer we can debate the movement and I can involve myself. So I can contribute in that area if I want to.
I know people sometimes say that they’d sooner hear my opinions, but honestly, on midfield, defending, goalkeeping, there are better people than me. Some people see the overall picture — generally the ones that go into coaching, or become the really good pundits. But others are a bit more niche. And I was a bit more niche.
