During his time in the premiership he was simply the best out and out winger around. In my opinion a more complete footballer than Ryan Giggs.

the mid ninties liverpool much like newcastle were the nearly men of english football, if cantona hadnt struck that 'lucky' volley in the FA cup final everything might have been a slightly bit different.

His private life was quite different too, he could speak fluent Spanish and relished the lifestyle over there whilst his wife was as far from the "trophy wife" epithet as you could imagine.
Interesting chap.

"In my opinion a more complete footballer than Ryan Giggs."

Mother of christ.

what was so grat about ryan giggs?

he milked a so called wondergoal for years and struggled to get a place in the first team for a number of seasons. The quality of the players around him made him look a lot better player than he was

I have fond memories of McManaman in the Liverpool side in the 90's. Scored an outrageous goal against Celtic in a European match if I remember right. Liverpool had a very talented side back then -- everyone remembers United's kids, but Liverpool themselves had McManaman, Redknapp and Fowler to mention three, but never quite had the same disciplinarian that young players require to guide them. Good article.

Good piece. McManaman was the second-greatest Liverpool player I ever saw live, after Dalglish. (Actually, given that the one time I saw Dalglish, he had a quiet one, McManaman arguably ought to be top.) I'll never forget the gleefully effortless way he tore apart Palace in the 6-1 at Selhurst, Bolton in the League Cup final at Wembley, and the Chelsea defence in a 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge. Every time the ball went in his direction, my Chelsea-supporting friend whined "Oh god, please don't give it to HIM..."

what do you mean unappreciated? every liverpool fan was always rabbiting on about how world class he was. Then he got sick of trying to carry liverpool, and left to go to real madrid and doubled his wages, becoming at 27, the type of player that ryan giggs would only have to become at the age of 35.

He was a good player, but not unappreciated. he'd certainly stick out like a sore thumb at anfield now though

May the good lord be praised. As far as I've been concerned, the lack of respect he gets is primarily based on two things:

a) the insistence of successive England managers - but not Venables, under whom, as you say, he did just fine - to try and play him as a traditional English winger, usually on the left, getting to the line and whipping it in. Had Maradona been English, he'd probably have been wasted too.

b) the 1996 FA Cup Final, from which no Liverpool player came out well.


On the other hand, there're the two Champions League medals. And there was the once-famous statement by Bryan Robson that if 'you stop McManaman, you stop Liverpool'. Here was a player who could transform a game on his own, a phenomenal talent who could run pass defenders as if they were dust and who could create a chance out of nothing.

Even his great failing - the often poor finishing - wasn't that big a deal; he scored an awful lot of important goals, made many more for others, and hell, he wasn't a striker anyway. We had Robbie Fowler for that.

(As you can probably guess, I'm all for a wholesale reappraisal of the Evans era and its glorious, entertaining failures)