Lovely comments from an Arsenal fan on youtube regarding are Robbie:
"I'm a life-long Arsenal fan: we're a very sorry sight at the moment, we haven't won anything major since 2004. But we've had better days. Now one man that I can honestly compare to Robbie Fowler was Dennis Bergkamp. I'll tell you you I say this: because Fowler wasn't just technically brilliant and a lethal finisher: he KNEW how to draw two defenders and play a brilliant blindside pass, leaving someone else to just touch the ball into the back of the net. His assists were top notch as well, he was far more than an opportunist and a poacher. With people pacy forwards like Stan Collymore and Steve MacManaman on the pitch, Fowler showed that he could play in the attacking playmaker role as well, more times than I can remember.
But Collymore was unreliable and MacManaman was primarily a winger: if Les Ferdinand had played for Liverpool in the mid-90's, they would have been champions for sure. All they needed was ONE other striker in the role of battering ram up front to engage the opposing defense constantly and win crosses consistently - and defeats might have been draws, draws would have been victories. Liverpool were the BEST team in England in the period 1995-98, except that they tended to have occasional bad days against weaker opposition - and sometimes crumble under pressure when things weren't going to plan. Man Utd. for one, had this gameplan against Liverpool: break up play and score from set pieces: ugly but effective. Arsenal had THIS gameplan: play a fast, clean and technical game - and against that Liverpool, that was a death sentence, even in the season when we were champions, 97-98.
People still cry about Steven Gerrard not having won the Premier League in his career: sure, he deserved to have that as well - but what about Robbie Fowler? What honours should anyone hold in the English game that Robbie Fowler shouldn't? Very genuine down-to-earth good man as well: never got involved in any major scandals, never ignored his family, never quarreled with his team mates, never lost his nerve and got sent off for stupid unnecessary shit.
... 96-97 season, one time against Arsenal at Highbury, with Liverpool fighting for the title: lost his footing, fell over in the box, referee instantly pointed to the penalty spot. Fowler turns around and goes "No Ref, there was no contact, there's no appeal: no foul, play on!" STILL a penalty. And that was the age when Klinsmann, Batistuta, Romario and Overmars were practically competing who could simulate contact and win free kicks and penalties most seamlessly: strikers were cheats, divers and PROUD of it... That's why that referee was so quick to give the penalty - because everybody already KNEW there were two main men in the Premier League that didn't resort to that kind of dirty tactics: one was Fowler, the other was Shearer."