Topic: Peter Beardsley

[norecat]

Can anyone explain why Beardsley was sold in 1991 to Everton of all teams? I'm hearing it was for reasons off the park.

[Bennett]

Not sure, but he left Newcastle as a coach under allegations of racism, so fuck him the fucking Quasimodo-looking toad.

[Alf]

He was on Aldo's podcast not long back.

https://youtu.be/cU9PhzXSpzk?si=5UQrepMgUfQ7EnGo

[duvva 💅]

Can anyone explain why Beardsley was sold in 1991 to Everton of all teams? I'm hearing it was for reasons off the park.

I’m not even sure Souness can explain, and he sold him

[norecat]

Cheers for the replies guys. I loved him as a player. Thought he was a genius. Twinkle toes. That Liverpool side between 87-90 was the most entertaining I have ever watched. Absolutely brilliant. Was a dominant centre back away from winning two more doubles.

As for Souness selling him it made no sense. He was English. Yes he was 30. but he played at the top level until at least 1997. If Souness had just bought Mark Wright and maybe Walters in light of Barnes's injury then 1991-92 might have been a much better season than it turned out to be. Also not sold Beardsley, McMahon, and Staunton. I thought Speedie was a cracking player too.

[Sheer Magnetism]

From what I can remember Souness saying, a fair few of the senior players had contract renewals coming up and wanted pay rises, so he thought it was a good time to clean house. Beardsley, McMahon, Venison and Gillespie seem the likeliest choices for that, while Staunton and Houghton's Irish nationality counted against them because of the limit for non-British players in European competition.

[Crosby Nick]

Almost as big a hero of mine as John Barnes. Praise indeed.

Loved his dribbling style and the way he seemed to dangle his ankles as he ran with it. And he saw passes no one else did. A player ahead of his time.

[Red-Soldier]

Almost as big a hero of mine as John Barnes. Praise indeed.

Loved his dribbling style and the way he seemed to dangle his ankles as he ran with it. And he saw passes no one else did. A player ahead of his time.

Yeah.  He was a very talented player.

[9 kemlyn road]

A fantastic player .he came out the blocks slower than Aldridge and Barnes that 87-88 season but once he got warmed up he flew .was absolutely integral to that great front three and was unbelievable with his assists and contributions that season.
I think that goal against the bitters at anfield ,where in the words of the great Barry Davies ,he got a kiss for it by a man incidentally wearing a blue striped shirt,was the spark that lit the blue touch paper he was off and running and no looking back.
One of my favourites was the goal that barnes,Beardsley and Aldridge all linked up together in the 88 semifinal against forest ,a one two from Beardsley to barnes who crosses and Aldo is there to volley it in for 2-0 .
A great goal which I think won goal of the season in a season of magnificent performances and goals of which Peter was very much at the heart of.
A wonderful player whose time at anfield was far too short and criminally let go long before he should have.

[only6times]

A fantastic player .he came out the blocks slower than Aldridge and Barnes that 87-88 season but once he got warmed up he flew .was absolutely integral to that great front three and was unbelievable with his assists and contributions that season.
I think that goal against the bitters at anfield ,where in the words of the great Barry Davies ,he got a kiss for it by a man incidentally wearing a blue striped shirt,was the spark that lit the blue touch paper he was off and running and no looking back.
One of my favourites was the goal that barnes,Beardsley and Aldridge all linked up together in the 88 semifinal against forest ,a one two from Beardsley to barnes who crosses and Aldo is there to volley it in for 2-0 .
A great goal which I think won goal of the season in a season of magnificent performances and goals of which Peter was very much at the heart of.
A wonderful player whose time at anfield was far too short and criminally let go long before he should have.

Favourite Libpool goal that.

[mattD]

Great player, apparent tool of a man. Brexiteering racist is the last I heard of him.

[9 kemlyn road]

Favourite Libpool goal that.

When the players celebrate Aldo’s goal you can see a bbc camera behind them .I was in line with that camera about halfway back up the terrace and saw the build up to that goal right in front of me .as barnes was receiving the ball from Beardsley I glanced to the goalmouth and could see Aldo running in ready to pounce .in that split second I knew it was going in .place went mental.the replay of the goal is from that camera and is the same as I saw it and remember it.
Great goal,great season ,great players

[disgraced cake]

The goal against Everton in the derby (1987) to make it 2-0 at Anfield ... think they won the league not long after but one of my favourite derby goals ever

[KC7]

Cheers for the replies guys. I loved him as a player. Thought he was a genius. Twinkle toes. That Liverpool side between 87-90 was the most entertaining I have ever watched. Absolutely brilliant. Was a dominant centre back away from winning two more doubles.

As for Souness selling him it made no sense. He was English. Yes he was 30. but he played at the top level until at least 1997. If Souness had just bought Mark Wright and maybe Walters in light of Barnes's injury then 1991-92 might have been a much better season than it turned out to be. Also not sold Beardsley, McMahon, and Staunton. I thought Speedie was a cracking player too.

Don't really think it mattered who we kept, Souness was a bad manager so we would always have struggled. He's the worst manager we have had in 70 years. Destroyed the aura the club had built up in over three decades in his first season (something Moyes would replicate at United). 3 away wins in each of his two full seasons. Deserved 3rd round FA Cup losses at home to Bolton and Bristol in consecutive seasons.

The reason I say I don't think it mattered who stayed is you only need to look at the deterioration of McManaman (Wright another obvious example) under Souness. The 92-93 season McManaman, you will struggle to see a player look a pale shadow of himself more. He looked depressed, most of them did. The dip from when he had broken through into the team was significant. And then when Evans took over it was as if a cloud had been lifted from him. The opening game at Palace in Evan's' first full season when we scored six, McManaman was back to his best, he was smiling, and he became our most important player and our player of the decade. Mark Wright is the other one I mentioned as he too suffered a major drop but regained his level and probably exceeded it when Evans came in and also got an England call up.

McMahon was sold at least a season too soon and we never replaced him. Houghton, Staunton and Saunders, all three were key to Villa almost winning the league (gave us a hiding too). Beardsley, was brilliant for the next half decade. It was shocking transfer business.

Mark Walters, Paul Stewart (subsequent issues make his performances more understandable), Nigel Clough, Julian Dicks, Torben Piecnik, very costly and didnt perform. I do wonder how they'd have done under a good manager though. They played in a toxic environment. McManaman and Grobbelaar, teammates confronting each other on the field (which another set of teammates Bowyer and Dyer would later do under another Souness coached team).  If a player of the class of McManaman can look terrible under a manager then a player of lesser ability also can.

[9 kemlyn road]

Don't really think it mattered who we kept, Souness was a bad manager so we would always have struggled. He's the worst manager we have had in 70 years. Destroyed the aura the club had built up in over three decades in his first season (something Moyes would replicate at United). 3 away wins in each of his two full seasons. Deserved 3rd round FA Cup losses at home to Bolton and Bristol in consecutive seasons.

The reason I say I don't think it mattered who stayed is you only need to look at the deterioration of McManaman (Wright another obvious example) under Souness. The 92-93 season McManaman, you will struggle to see a player look a pale shadow of himself more. He looked depressed, most of them did. The dip from when he had broken through into the team was significant. And then when Evans took over it was as if a cloud had been lifted from him. The opening game at Palace in Evan's' first full season when we scored six, McManaman was back to his best, he was smiling, and he became our most important player and our player of the decade. Mark Wright is the other one I mentioned as he too suffered a major drop but regained his level and probably exceeded it when Evans came in and also got an England call up.

McMahon was sold at least a season too soon and we never replaced him. Houghton, Staunton and Saunders, all three were key to Villa almost winning the league (gave us a hiding too). Beardsley, was brilliant for the next half decade. It was shocking transfer business.

Mark Walters, Paul Stewart (subsequent issues make his performances more understandable), Nigel Clough, Julian Dicks, Torben Piecnik, very costly and didnt perform. I do wonder how they'd have done under a good manager though. They played in a toxic environment. McManaman and Grobbelaar, teammates confronting each other on the field (which another set of teammates Bowyer and Dyer would later do under another Souness coached team).  If a player of the class of McManaman can look terrible under a manager then a player of lesser ability also can.

Obviously with hindsight,sounesses appointment was a bad decision but at the the time I’m sure every Liverpool supporter at the the time agreed that he ticked every box and was just what we needed.

A former,legendary captain,a true leader .lead by example,players and supporters looked up to him ,won everything in the game,played in Italy ,took on their professional ways and ideas ,had won numerous trophies as a manager with rangers and had turned them around ,signed English players and even had the balls to sign a catholic so wasn’t afraid to upset anyone or make tough decisions.it seemed an ideal appointment,just what we needed to get us back on track after our “ little wobble “ we’d had after Kenny’s shock resignation.
Yes this was us back on top ,where we belong ,a new era ,what could possibly go wrong …..

Everything…it was the beginning of our wilderness years ,as much as I dislike Jamie carragher and disagree with very much everything he spouts that sky have told him to say ,he was bang in when he said Ferguson and united didn’t knock us off our perch ,we jumped off it ,and eargerly it appeared as it was one bad decision after another .we looked on as a wrecking ball was taken to the club and very very quickly that great 87-88 team was destroyed,Peter Beardsley being the most high profile and baffling victims of the cull and to Everton of all clubs .

Beardsley later returned to Newcastle and continued playing for quite a few more seasons in the top flight turning in great performances and moments of genius and scoring great goals that only he could do.as I said earlier it was one of the most baffling decisions the club made to let him go at a time the club was eagerly shooting itself in the foot .
It was very quickly apparent that we were sinking like a brick and our fall from grace was made sickeningly stark by the fact that Utd were on the rise and flying as high as quickly as we fell .

A thoroughly miserable and depressing time it was and it was just the start of a long long journey back and none of us knew just how bad things were to become.

[Sheer Magnetism]

Much of this is true but it's also worth mentioning Kenny didn't rate Beardsley as highly as many of the fans, which is why he bought Rosenthal and Speedie.

It was bizarre business though, given we broke the transfer record for Dean Saunders the same window while turning down Cantona and Schmeichel after they were basically handed to us on a plate. We didn't really even try to replace McMahon until Michael Thomas came, and a lot of the Souness signings were questionable at the time and bizarre in retrospect.

[9 kemlyn road]

Much of this is true but it's also worth mentioning Kenny didn't rate Beardsley as highly as many of the fans, which is why he bought Rosenthal and Speedie.

It was bizarre business though, given we broke the transfer record for Dean Saunders the same window while turning down Cantona and Schmeichel after they were basically handed to us on a plate. We didn't really even try to replace McMahon until Michael Thomas came, and a lot of the Souness signings were questionable at the time and bizarre in retrospect.

At the time it seemed to me that all rational thinking just went out the window .we became a badly run club virtually overnight with nobody making good ,sensible,football related decisions.
As you say,cantona,schmeichal and I believe Roy Keane at one point we’re all on offer to us but it seemed like a case of “ no thanks ,we know some crap players that are on offfer ,we’ll have them instead.
The likes of Beardsley,houghton ,mc Mahon ,Staunton couldn’t be pushed out the door quick enough and the “replacements “weren’t a patch on them.it’s little wonder we fell so far so quickly.
Dalglish did seem to have a downer on Beardsley most of the time he was with us and at the time towards the end of Kenny’s reign there were rumours of a fall out ,so maybe it all contributed to beardsleys departure in the long run.

[thaddeus]

From what I can remember Souness saying, a fair few of the senior players had contract renewals coming up and wanted pay rises, so he thought it was a good time to clean house. Beardsley, McMahon, Venison and Gillespie seem the likeliest choices for that, while Staunton and Houghton's Irish nationality counted against them because of the limit for non-British players in European competition.

We had to free up those spaces for Istvan Kozma and Torben Piechnik! 

Beardsley was so creative but he never quite scored enough goals considering how good we were at the time.  His best goal return was 18 in his first season (King Kenny had five 20+ seasons in comparison).  Beardsley also only managed nine goals for England.  I think Souness just wanted more goals so preferred Saunders to Beardsley - Saunders obviously flopped for us but he was a more natural goalscorer.

Back then there wasn't the same bitterness between us and Everton either so us selling him to them wasn't that big of a deal.  Better he went to a mid-table Everton than to one of our rivals for trophies.

[bossjon]

What a player he was, as mentioned above he should´ve stayed for another 2-3years at least.
Souness is the first one to hold his hand up for his failures, he had good intentions and some of the ideas he had was correct but executed wrongly. And the transfers were awful.

If you had the privilege to look back in hindsight and look at the 1990-91 squad and then going in to 1991-1992 there weren´t to many top top players left.

I think a new good goalkeeper was not a priority, but it was needed. Didn´t really have a proper goalie until Dudeks first couple of seasons and then Reina.
Largest issue throughout the 90s were in the defense, especially in the middle. Hansen, Nicol, Gillespie, Hysen, Burrows were too old or not good enough to build a title winning defense.
Molby and Mcmahon were two of my favourite players, but past their peak and probably had high wages, but Mcmahon probably should´ve been kept 1-2 years more. But was that possible in terms of what Mcmahon wanted in wages and length of contract?
Whelan and Houghton had been top class, and still had 2 years left.

So in total we only had one top top player which was John Barnes, which was world class but obviously lost 30% of his capabilities with the injury.
Compare it to ten years earlier where I would say we arguably had 4 world class players in Kenny, Rush, Hansen and Souness. Beside them were players that could play in any team in England/Europe at the time like Ray Kennedy, Neal, Case etc.
So Souness is totally right in that the squad needed a change.

He should´ve gone into the 91-92 season with these quality players:
Bruce
Staunton
Mcmahon
Whelan
Mcmanaman
Houghton
Molby
Redknapp
Beardsley
Rush
Barnes

And then try to offload most of them beside Mcmanman, Barnes and Redknapp in the two coming seasons.
In hindsight Kenny didnt leave the best of squads to Souness.
What was needed were 2-3 defenders that could hit the ground running. A perfect player for us would´ve been Gary Pallister before United bought him. Schmeichel was interested in us as well.
Otherwise Paul McGrath from Villa. If we had him over this transition period I think we could´ve challenged for the top positions in the 1-2 coming seasons.

If we fast forward a couple of years after Souness we had a much better team, were much less reinforcements was needed. If we take the 1995 team added with some quality defensive players we should have won the league. Mcmanaman, Fowler, Collymore, Redknapp, Barnes... if you add Schmeichel and McGrath to that we would´ve been a real force. Or perhaps some senior "good" pros from the early 90s...Stuart Peace, Des Walker etc. Although they might have liked a drink they were very reliable on the pitch.

Instead United got those kind of players beside their class of 92 generation. They had Schmeichel, Bruce, Pallister, Irwin, Robson, Cantona etc as their senior pros where we basically only had Barnes that had both quality, seniority and the right character in the 90s.