Players You Like More, or Less, Since They Retired

[3 Colours Red]

Beause he's a know-nothing know-it-all starfucker with an ego the size of a planet, that's why. Just ask any Wrexham fan.

[blameless]

Saunders as player: his stamp on Paul Elliott's knee that ended the latter's career.
Saunders as retiree: refused to take a breath test when stopped for suspected drink driving. Convicted and sentenced to community service. Fails to turn up for said community service and gets sent to jail. Unrepentant throughout.

The man's a knob.

[jameswba]

I didn't mind him much as a player, and he and Dalian Atkinson were quite an exciting partnership for Villa. Given some of the things mentioned here, I'm rapidly revising that view.

His son Callum has been on Nantwich's books ; had a successful 2018/19 season, but was left out a lot in the season just gone. Apparently, Saunders Senior was on the phone to Nantwich a lot, badgering them about Callum not getting games.

He has of course been comically useless as a manager himself.

[Sits]

I think I’m being rapidly persuaded.

[Jah Womble]

Add Dennis Bergkamp to the 'brilliant player, but a really nasty piece of sh*t at times'-pantheon, alongside Cantona and Zidane. (And others.)

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Add Dennis Bergkamp to the 'brilliant player, but a really nasty piece of sh*t at times'-pantheon, alongside Cantona and Zidane. (And others.)

Looking back at football from that era, the shithousery of this type of player becomes a lot more easily understood, when you consider the continuous shithousery being deployed against them. Zidane was able to cruise around the midfield serenely, with the poise, grace and elegance (and speed) of a swan, in large part down to the knowledge that if a defender just kicked him for the sake of it, he might crush their ribcage, or smear their nose all over their face. You can see a similar effect with later era paul scholes. Now these players were very good at finding pockets of space, and were always trying to give the man on the ball a good passing option, but if you went near Scholes, he might maim you, then raise an apologetic hand to the referee, everything would fade to sepia, and the referee would just think, "Ah, heritage tackling, it's good to see the old traditions kept alive." Meanwhile you're trying to push your testicle back inside your scrotum.