This is a great podcast, up there with The Rest is Football. Wright is so passionate, he truly is a lovely inspiration
“In each of the seven seasons that followed the 1990 World Cup, Wright never scored fewer than 23 goals a season for his club. He scored 25 goals for Crystal Palace during the 1990–91 campaign before going on to break the 30 club-goal barrier five times in the following six seasons. Despite Wright’s goalscoring feats, the highest number of games he started for England consecutively was three—something he only did twice.”
Farcical.
Keane sitting there saying nothing about world cups…he walked out of the Irish camp in 2002.
Feel bad for Wrighty, you could tell how much it meant to him to be involved and play for England.
Still can’t really forget Keane walking out on the Ireland team. I can’t help but feel if we EVER had the slimmest chance to win it or go far it was that world cup. I find it interesting he talks about how he didn’t play for Mick McCarthy, he played for his country but it’s strange he would then walk out because of Mick McCarthy.
He was probably totally right about standards in the Ireland setup and in the last few years, we’ve seen how dodgy the FAI as an organisation actually were. There were reports that executives would be flying first class while the players were in cramped economy seats. They also had to be bailed out by the Irish government because of just gross mismanagement. So it’s no surprise to hear that players didn’t have the right food/equipment etc.
Saying all that, I still think he could have sucked it up. I think he probably just felt betrayed nobody had his back and McCarthy tried to throw him under the bus. Such a shame though. He would have made a huge difference.
Not watching Keane and Neville. Wright was done dirty as were many Arsenal players. 89 and 91 title winners and not a single player went to the 90 World Cup. England used the Arsenal players to qualify even trying to sabotage us with friendly in Saudis Arabia etc and didn’t take any Arsenal man to World Cup…… The anti Arsenal bias is real
Shearer pre injury was unplayable. He did all the old Alan Shearer power and strength stuff but could pick the ball up 40 yards out and run at pace. He was skill and pace and was and incredible player. This sub underrates him because they didn’t see him pre injury. Wright was probably the best of the rest he was better finisher than Shearer and more skillful. Fowler as a kid scoring 30 goals three years in a row was like nothing anyone had seen. Razor quick, so nimble and deadly them three were so good.
Ferdinand, Collymore, Cole, Smith, Sheringham…. Incredible talent pool of strikers plus legendary genius like Merson, Beardsley, Barnes, Le Tissier who were fantastic options as deeper strikers.
Wright is the best finisher I’ve seen in English football he deserved more caps but Venables had his favourites. Venables froze out Merson because he was apparently a bad influence on Gazza! You can’t make this shit up sometimes your face doesn’t fit. Wright was petulant, angry and moody at times and always seemed ready to start a fight in an empty room I am sure this hampered his international career. The chilled out uncle Ian the youth see on twitter isn’t the spiky kid who played for Arsenal. Man’s matured massively. Respect