I was too young to see this era but many times I asked my dad how come we won so little in the late 60's.
My dad told me that Tommy Smith (who was in his peak years) carried the side through the end of the first great Shanks team. His view that it was Keegan and Hughes (who was already established there by the time KK arrived) were the driving forces and Keegan was the catalyst.
Your dad's right about Tommy Smith and seeing as a few have mentioned Smithy I'm going to say a few words about him.
Having said how good he was at the end of the 60's into the early '70's and as good as he was throughout his entire career ['63 to '77] it's my own firm conviction that Smithy's finest years were his first three, most especially when Shanks gave him the number 10 shirt and stuck him alongside Rowdy as the footballing twin centre back.
My memory doesn't tell me exactly when the little and large centre back formation came into play in this country [in other words the back four as we still know it today which was first introduced by Brazil in the '58 world cup] or whether we were the first English side to employ it. Certainly if you go back only 2 years earlier to the great early sixties Spurs side they operated with a back three of two full backs [Henry and Baker] alongside a sole centre back [Norman]. Their half backs [right and left half] were Danny Blanchflower and Dave Mckay and neither of them operated alongside Norman.
Whatever, when Smithy played in that role alongside Yeats between late '63 and '67 he was an incredible presence. He wasn't the chunky Smithy back then. He was powerfully built but you'd actually term his build as more slim and lithe. Not that his slim build made him any less of a fearsome presence.
He had every attribute you could wish for in any footballer. He was as brave as a lion and always as hard as nails, of course, and could always tackle like a tank, but it was his timing and decision making in the tackle that set him apart. I'd say it has only ever been approached by mark lawrenson in a red shirt. And of his many famous peers at the time - Chopper harris, Norman Hunter, Nobby Stiles none were remotely as good or precise in the tackle. Hard as it may be to believe now, Smithy hardly ever gave away a foul let alone get booked. Admittedly most times he took ball and man but hey it was a man's game back then.
Though not a tall defender, his heading was decent [Rome '77 was a rarity but certainly no fluke that he connected so succulently]. However, the area of his game that nowadays has become overlooked was his creative play. I don't think there's any exaggeration to say that after Peter Thompson he was probably the finest dribbler in that mid sixties team. Willie stevo and Cally and perhaps even St John and Sir Roger might contest this but I'd back Smithy against them. Every time.
At least half a dozen times each game he'd come surging forward in one of his slalom dribbles past two or three opponents before releasing a slide rule pass for one of the forwards or else occasionally to have a shot on goal himself.
During that period he played against England's finest attackers and also Europes finest. If we take the Ajax Johann Cruyff [5-1] away disaster in the fog out of the equation because it was so freakish then what we have is Smithy basically dominating every attacker he came up against. Bar Georgie Best, of course, because no defender could live with Bestie. In my own opinion he was far superior than the Bobby Moore I used to watch three times a year[once at Anfield, once at Goodison and once at the Boleyn Ground] in every aspect of the game bar positioning [Moore was the master for this] and, perhaps,
[hmmph] good looks and blond hair.
I loved Smithy. He's definitely my favourite Red's player of all time after Kenny and in a thread which has rightly celebrated another unsung hero, I think it's fitting that someone even more unsung and underrated gets a proper mention.