Totally Gold 1994/95: Blackburn's title, Cantona's kick and Klinsmann's quality

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2:50a chance to review some of the greatest seasons from Premier League's past. Today's episode sees me, Michael Cox, Daniel Story and Matt Davis Adams getting together in 2020 to reminisce about the very first time in Premier League history when the title went down to the final day.

3:181994. The Channel Tunnel opened, Ayrton Senna left us, there was Pulp Fiction, Shawshank and Speed at the cinema, and OJ was on the run. I think I just saw OJ since I'm on the fine streetway. He's heading north. In the Premier League, a new season was getting underway, a season of Kung Fu. Oh, what's going on here? Catanah's getting involved with some supporters. Of bung food. I don't want to comment any more on that. Of Klinsman at the lane, Aussies 505 and Kevin Keegan's polo neck addiction. For the first time, four teams will be going down at the end of this season and, for the first time, Man United wouldn't finish it, Premier League champions.

3:57For this, Michael, this is the Blackburn Rovers' season. Yeah, I think this was really exciting at both top and bottom. As you say, it was the first time we'd had a really proper title race. The fact that there was this slightly strange situation where the league was getting reduced meant that there was a proper relegation fight. I mean, on one hand, it meant that Leicester and Ipswich got relegated incredibly early, I think end of March or something ridiculous. But it also meant that even mid-table sides were kind of looking over their shoulder and thinking, well, there's four teams going down, we're going to have to really compete this season.

4:28So yeah, it was just a really memorable Premier League campaign, I think. Alex Clooney says surely Blackburn and their equivalent spending was as much buying the league as Man City in the 2010s. Is Alex very, very wrong? He's not a million miles away from the truth, I don't think, because most of the key players in that Blackburn team were purchased for what at the time were considerable amounts of money. But it's reflected on in a different way, in part because it was over long 25 years ago, but also because there's a difference in the public perception of a local businessman, you know, from the North West doing his best to help his home time club as there is to, you know, an oil state with questionable human rights practices buying a football club to enable them to promote their own image.

5:16But there are certainly similarities there, I think it's fair to say. They broke the British transfer record to St. Chris Sutton. The only other player they played, in inverted commas, proper money for was Geoff Kenner from Southampton. and Manchester United did spend£7 million on Andy Cole in the January of that year. So it wasn't as if they were blowing their title rivals out of the water in terms of spending, I don't think. You know, they did spend what at the time was considerable money on players in positions like Tim Flowers for£2.5 million was a lot for a goalkeeper at the time. You know, David Batty was a high-profile pick-up and Shearer, when they bought him from Southampton, that was£3.3 million, was it?

5:52That was a lot of money for that kind of time. And there's similarities with Manchester City there because they don't break the world transfer record every year. They spend£40 million,£50 million on players as opposed to£80 million, so there are some similarities. Another world. Well, it's remarkable how much else was also going on in that campaign. Everton, for example. Joe Royal was reviving their fortunes, Duncan Ferguson was arriving, and they were winning their first silverware in eight seasons, the FA Cup, with a 1-0 victory over Man United, thanks to a pull-right-out goal and brilliant goalkeeping of Neville Southall.

6:28The win was predicted in January of that year by Mystic Meg and is to this date Everson's last major trophy. Across town, Liverpool were witnessing the breakthrough season of Anfield legend Robbie Fowler, 25 league goals. Only Shearer scored more, including what was for a very long time the fastest hat-trick in Premier League history, four minutes and 33 seconds against Arsenal at Anfield. because Sadio Mane's now beaten that. And finishing one place ahead of Liverpool that season, who, Matt? Nottingham Forest. Yeah, the two-time European champions roaring back into the Premier League with an exceptional season and only a mere 13 points from winning the title.

7:11It was a very odd season as well in that Frank Clarke was, well, he was appointed to replace Brian Clough, which was a kind of hospital pass for anyone and did sensationally with it. But he kind of fell away pretty quickly after that. I know he managed Manchester City, but he never really hit those heights again. And it was an odd season because in the middle of it, Forrest took 21 points from 20 matches, 20 league games, and somehow still finished third. I think they won one in 10 and drew two of the last 12. But you look at the team and it was, you know, it's an obvious thing to say for Matt and I, but it was such Pete Forrest of our lifetimes.

7:48you know, Pearce, Roy, Collymore, Bahinan, Wohan, Harlan, Cooper, Stone most of whom got international caps around that time and it's an odd season I think because Blackburn were brilliant Manchester United were not as good as they should have been Liverpool were nowhere near as good as they should have been to my mind and everyone else was kind of a much for a muchness and Forrest were able to rise above that muchness And there's a nice kind of encapsulation of the calamity that is supporting Nottingham Forest if you're around the age of me and Daniel in there Forest set the record for the biggest ever Premier League away winning this season, winning 7-1 at Sheffield Wednesday, only to lose that record four years later by themselves being beaten 8-1 at home by Manchester United.

8:29So that's kind of your lot as a Forest supporter.

8:37In London in 94-95, Jon Jensen scored his one and only goal for Arsenal. As good as it got for the Gunners, Paul Merson admitting his addiction to drink, to gambling, cocaine, basically you name it. Manager George Graham fired and banned over an illegal payment of almost half a million pounds for the transfers of Jensen and Paul Leiderson. And Arsenal's European dreams then ending in one of the 90s more celebrated bits of football bans. When Real Saragossa made a splash and Naeem lobsseman from 40 yards. Naeem once of Spurs has taken the Cup Winners Cup surely from Arsenal. Gunners finished 12th.

9:21Meanwhile at Spurs, Aussie Ardiles' 5-0-5 formation wasn't the only thing that had everyone flabbergasted because Jurgen Klinsmann had turned up. What a shock was this? Yeah, I'd say that was a real game-changing moment. probably the first time the Premier League had welcomed a genuine superstar to the league. I was watching the VHS of this season, which I found in my archives, let's say, this morning. And it's incredible how good Klinsmann is. I mean, he just looks on a different planet to every other, certainly the defenders he's playing against, but even compared to Andy Cole and Ian Wright, just his movement's so good.

10:01He's so quick going in behind the defence. And yeah, I mean, it was just really exciting that Klinsmann was here. His whole story in English football was kind of dominated by the allegations that he was a bit of a diver and was very good at winning penalties. And he certainly showed that on a few occasions throughout the campaign. But his finishing was just sensationally good. The arrival of Klinsmann, looking back on it, as obviously have been preparing for this, it feels like a kind of PR triple header from Klinsmann himself, from Spurs and from the Premier League. So you go into the start of this season with Spurs having been deducted six points and kicked out of the FA Cup for financial irregularities, which is later overturned.

10:39Klinsmann, as Michael says, the reputation of being a diver and the Premier League wanting to show that they can attract these big name foreign players. And it kind of worked in everybody's favour. Klinsmann, I seem to remember, was front and centre of every post-match interview. You know, the famous goal that he scored at Hillsborough on opening day or the more famous celebration that came after it. People forget that he was knocked unconscious later in that game, but they still wheeled him out to do the post-match interviews, looking particularly groggy. And I can't remember a Spurs game where he didn't do a post-match interview in that time.

11:10And that felt to me like a kind of campaign from Spurs to say, yes, we've had these problems which have caused us, you know, to be cast in a bad light. But hey, look, we've got Jurgen Klinsmann and Klinsmann kind of saying, yeah, but it's all banter. I don't really dive. And the Premier League, as I say, saying we can attract these big names. This is the place to come. We also have to remember just how much of a game changer he was in terms of foreign players for the future, because he arrived not just with a diving reputation, but also with a media, maybe particularly a tabloid media, that was still pretty mistrusting of foreigners.

11:41I looked and at the end of this season, the 22 managers and 22 captains of Premier League clubs, the only one who was born outside England, Scotland and Wales, was Joe Kinnear, who was born in Dublin and moved to England at the age of seven. This was still such an insular league. So the knock-on effect of Klinsman coming, I don't think without him we get Ruud Hullett and then we get Dennis Bergkamp and the knock-on effect of his signing is absolutely monstrous. Only there for one season, but an absolutely huge arrival there. Michael, in the meantime, Ossiard Delis' formation, if such it was, of four at the back and then Popescu, Dimitrescu, Anderton, Barmbead, Sheringham and Klinsman up front, that was popularly seen as 5-0-5.

12:23How does this fit in among the league's great tactical innovations? Yeah, I mean, I think that's, yeah, 5-0-5 is a slight exaggeration. The Arctic Monkeys formation, I think you can call that. But yeah, I mean, the player I really liked in that system was Popescu. He really was a centre-back, but just stormed forward to join in attacks and scored some really big goals. and on the strength of this season, he went to Barcelona for a couple of seasons afterwards. I remember watching him and just thinking I hadn't really ever seen a centre-back play like that. And of course, that was because of the licence that he was given in this Spurs system.

12:58And I think there's a funny thing there as well that they got Popescu and Dimitrescu. And I think when you saw this early wave of foreign players in the Premier League, often you'd have two nationalities at one team, often basically because the manager or the board got in with an agent. so often whenever you'd see like for example man city sign georgie king cladsey and then you get a guy called cavalashvili who came along and like the second one was never quite as good as the first one but it was always really exciting when they came i think it's a bit like buying kittens isn't it you you want to bring somebody for them to play with and that's a philosophy that's certainly existed in other countries as well if you buy you buy dennis bergkamp get a vim yonk while you're at Yeah, definitely.

13:42All right. Well, let's talk then about Kenny Dalglish's Blackburn Rovers.

13:54Yep, for the first time in the Premier League era, we had a real title race to the war. Kurtiob Rovers and Manchia United, the team that had won the first two Premier League campaigns. Michael, in your book, The Mixer, you note the similarities between Kevin Keegan and Kenny Dalglish, the fact they were both Liverpool, they both won promotion a season after taking charge of their clubs, the fact that both enjoyed or endured late slumps in their title campaigns, the difference being that Kenny's Rovers didn't have perhaps that United chasing them or was it the fact that Sir Kenny didn't do a TV rant or was it the fact that Sir Kenny had Ray Harford as his second, not Terry McDermott?

14:35Yeah, Harford was someone I really tried to give, I think, overdue credit to in the book. I mean, everyone knows his name, but maybe not the extent to which really he was just in charge of the side. He took all the training sessions. He was really, really liked by the players, particularly in terms of his work in terms of build-up play. I mean, Blackburn were a pretty simple side. They had two of the best strikers in the league. They had two flying wingers in Wilcox and Stuart Ripley, who basically just went down the outside and crossed the ball. but there was some kind of nuance and some intelligence to the way that they played football.

15:08So yeah, Harford I think was a huge factor in Blackburn just creating a lot of chances. I think that's what you see from their games. They sometimes conceded too many goals, but you were always fairly sure that Shearer or Sutton would come up with the goods. And there's so many goals where it's literally just the two of them. One of them has this shot and the other one rebounds, or one of them knocks it down and the other one finishes. is I'm not sure there's been any duo that have contributed such a high proportion of the goals and assists for a title winning side. Yeah you alluded to something there James which I think was significant as well I mean in terms of the team the spine of that Blackburn team was really great you know they had Flowers, Hendry, Sherwood and Shearer kind of through the middle of it which was pretty exceptional for the time but you mentioned about Kenny Dalgleish not ranting James and I think that that was a thing that Alex Ferguson certainly came up against and couldn't find a solution to.

15:59You know, if you look at the way in later years, Keegan would be affected by what Ferguson said, but also Arsene Wenger and Rafael Benitez. And Dalglish really didn't seem to rise to that in the slightest. And I don't know, pop psychology, but you kind of feel that it irked Ferguson even more given that, you know, Dalglish was Celtic, he was Rangers, one's Liverpool, one's Manchester United historically, etc. But I think that was a factor because even as Blackburn almost collapsed toward the end of the season, all the interviews with Dal Gleish towards the end of that campaign, not only is he saying the right thing in terms of, well, we're still leading the table, we have a couple of points gap, he's not getting angry at interviewers asking him questions, he's not showing any signs of stress or fatigue particularly, he's just reflecting this aura of calm, which is something that Ferguson very rarely faced in his opposition managers to that extent.

16:48And I think that did play a part, if maybe only a small part. But it's been a remarkable journey that he'd had with Blackburn, aside who he'd picked up in the bottom half of the old second division. Won promotion to the Premier League at the first attempt and then figured in the running, or at least at the top, the high echelons of the Premier League in the first couple of seasons before this campaign. Yeah, I think this season for Dalglish and Blackburn was kind of a perfect storm in that Manchester United weren't as good as their brilliant best in 93-94, which we discussed recently. But they also had very few distractions.

17:23They went out the first round of the FA Cup. They went out the first round of the UEFA Cup to Trelleborg, which is remarkable for a Premier League champions elect, as they were. They went out in the fourth round of the League Cup. And I think seven, basically seven of their players, started 38 or more of the 42 games. They were Flowers, Hendry, Berg, Lissot, so most of the back five, Sherwood, Sutton and Shearer. Shearer obviously had his injury problems later on, but just keeping him fit for a whole season was almost the cheat card. We've spent a lot of time on Shearer already, but it's worth, particularly maybe for younger listeners, his stats are ridiculous.

17:57Bear in mind he had those two serious knee injuries. He got 260 Premier League goals, which is 52 more than Wayne Rooney, who's second in that list. And Rooney played more than 50 games more than Shearer did. So it's really, really astonishing record that he put together. You know, I talked about the insularity of the Premier League earlier and very much the reciprocal was true because I thought it was really funny and I went to look. In 1995, after Shearer had scored all those goals, 34 in a title winning campaign, he got one vote for the Ballon d 'Or and George Weah, who won it that year. And I know, I think Michael is rightly aggrieved by that, but he got 144 votes.

18:37So it wasn't just that the Premier League was in Chile, it was that foreign football didn't really view the Premier League as a high enough quality league to matter, which when you watch how good Shearer was is a nonsense, really. Right. Although results like their early exit in the UEFA Cup to Trelleborg, the part-time team from Sweden who didn't even bring their own shorts to the fixture, probably didn't help the Premier League's case much. True. Very true. That move by Andy Cole was fortuitously timed, given that it came just before Cantona went out of the picture. how much did that impact on Newcastle?

19:08Yeah it hit them really hard and I think you know it took them until the summer to get Les Ferdinand in but I think the thing about that transfer was it was just so shocking it just happened overnight it was unbelievable news when it dropped it wasn't like a modern transfer now where everything seems to take place over weeks or months and all this speculation it was just like click of the fingers it was done six million plus Keith Gillespie who'd scored a couple of weeks earlier I think for for Manchester United against Newcastle, maybe convinced them to go for him. But I've never been so surprised by a transfer in my life.

19:41It was incredible. I think Newcastle fans felt the same way. And then you had Keegan standing on the steps at Sir James' part in that turtleneck with the sleeves rolled up, which is very much his look. I thought we could take it on. And you've got to allow me to do that. If it doesn't work, I know what the implications are. And fair play to Keegan for doing that. There's actually a piece that's been written this weekend by Seb Stafford-Bloor on Football 365 about how that should have been Keegan's defining moment in terms of the way that he could interact with people successfully and showing a kind of side of his personality which most managers don't have.

20:15So he just wanted to try and explain what happened, I think. Obviously, managers don't have anywhere near as much say in transfers these days as they did then, so you're less likely to get it today. I wonder if one of the Newcastle supporters there was the chap who'd had Andy Cole tattooed onto his leg, finished off the day before the transfer to Manchester United went through. It wasn't a small tattoo either. Took up his whole thigh, Andy Cole, in Newcastle kit. The chap then had it reworked over the summer to make it look like Les Ferdinand, which is iffy, I think it would be polite to say. But even with Andy Cole, they missed Eric.

20:53How big a role in Man United not catching the challenger this time was played by events at Selhurst Park in January of that season. Oh, what's going on here? Cantona is getting involved in supporters. Oh, this is outrageous. It's all got wildly out of hand. And once more, Eric Cantona is the man at the centre of a dramatic controversy. I think it was the defining moment in the title race. Cantona being suspended for his Kung Fu kick for the final four months of the season. he still ended it as Manchester United's second top scorer behind Andrei Kinchelskis and that lack of a regular goal score really hurt them.

21:33There were three 0-0 draws. I think Tottenham, Leeds and Chelsea all at Old Trafford which clearly it might have turned out differently but if they'd have won any of those looking back they'd have won the title and they just didn't quite have enough to get it over the line. There were teams still really in transition in that the young players, the Class 92 were coming through but Brian McLear started 35 league games that season So there was still some of the old school and Cantona was just the gel that brought it all together. And without him, yeah, they just looked a little bit clunky, I guess.

22:04Cole came in and also scored 12 goals, so they got 24 between them. But if they'd have both played, I think they win the title. Yeah, just on the Cantona thing, if I could approach this from a slightly self-indulgent perspective, I was on holiday visiting family in New Zealand at this point for, I think, three or four weeks. and at this point before the internet and in a country that didn't seem particularly interested in football they just went three or four weeks without finding out any results whatsoever and then one day top story on the news at 10 in New Zealand was Cantona a tax fan and I just felt like you know obviously from my own personal situation I just felt that was the first time like the Premier League became a really like global story and I think in wow in that being the story it kind of introduced everyone to okay someone who'd done something that was disgraceful etc but also by far the most interesting character in the Premier League someone who completely bucked the trend of what you know English footballs were meant to be like and I kind of think it was the making of the Premier League I mean just from a personal perspective I just remember thinking wow the people care about the Premier League outside England this is incredible.

23:10It's so famous now that moment that it's almost become just divorced of the of the significance of what happened that day a professional footballer running up taking a flying kick at a spectator who had been abusive but was standing on the other side of a barrier it was a genuinely shocking moment yeah it was also it was also incredibly divisive you had commenters saying that cantonal should be banned for life and should never play in england again and then you had players i remember andy townsend's the one that sticks out who said good on him um we've put up with this abuse for too long and if football's going to turn a blind eye to this it was it was always going to happen at some point and the reality is is that as we now know it was probably always going to be someone like Eric Cantona because he had that temper but he had put up with abuse at pretty much every away ground he'd gone to this was at a time when players you know walked off the pitch as bizarrely they do again now having been sent off or substitute they walked right around in front of the home fans and the abuse they got was pretty vile really so yeah it was an incredibly almost a modern reaction in that there was some what we would now call hot takes on both sides of the equation.

24:15Yeah, I think we'd probably all have reacted in the same way if we'd been subject to somebody saying, off you go, it's an early bath for you, Mr. Cantona, as was the defense of the person who the kick was aimed at.

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26:53This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Olly Kaye and the very best football writers around. Man United lacked Cantona then for the remainder of their campaign but Rovers' improbable run of the title seemed to be catching up with them as they neared the finish. Now Gleish seeing his Rovers stumbling, losing three of their last five and from eight points clear with six games to go, they entered the final day just two points ahead of United. Man United would be taking on West Ham, Blackburn were at King Kenny's old stomping ground Anfield United needing a win and Blackburn not to win and the whole thing was simulcast two matches at the same time which back in 1995 was genuinely revolutionary Yeah there was a big piece about it in the Sunday Times that day I seem to remember of it being the most significant moment in the brief history of the Premier League it certainly I think would have helped Sky drive subscriptions going forward to the next season because it was, you know, them showing that it's not just the cheerleaders and somebody, you know, dropping from the sky with a parachute on his back to put the match ball on the centre circle.

28:10We have the capacity to show two games at once and it wasn't just the simulcast. It was you getting a picture in picture of updates of what was happening in the game that you weren't watching. So, you know, I was watching Blackburn at Anfield and I kept seeing in the bottom left corner of my screen Ludo McCloscoe making saves and stuff and it really did feel revolutionary in an almost pre-internet era. Absolutely. Tell us about the game at Anfield then, because it starts off pretty well for Blackburn. Jeff Ken has made a run on this side. Shearer! Yes!

28:43Oh, yes, that's what they wanted. So Blackburn go in front fairly early on for Alan Shearer and they're kind of in command. And then from research I'd done before, the interesting thing is that a lot of the Blackburn players say at half-time they were just, incredibly nervous. I think there was one player, maybe Jason Wilcox, who sat down in the changing room at half-time and said, I can barely get my legs to work because I'm so nervous. Yeah, I think it was Stuart Ripley. Stuart Ripley, okay. Yeah. I mean, the atmosphere couldn't have been better or more welcoming for them because not only were their own fans cheering them on, but also Liverpool's fans were too.

29:15Yeah, I mean, it's bizarre they managed to lose this game in the end. I mean, the funny thing, again, watching this VHS was it was the second game in a row that Jamie Redknapp arguably didn't want to win because in the midweek, he was away at West Ham and could have potentially relegated his dad's team, which I thought was quite funny. So he must have had a very strange week. But yeah, I mean, as Matt alludes to, the star of the show was McCloscoe, who made three or four really good saves to keep out United down at Ogden. And on towards Lee Sharp. Oh, great save by McCloscoe. Otherwise United would have had the goal they so desperately need.

29:54Malastar with the flick on this time. Oh, a tremendous save as Hughes is headed. He's beaten away by McCloskey. As the game wears on, in fact, pretty much with the last kick of the game, Jamie Redknapp scores the winning goal for Liverpool. David Gillan citing the commentator shouting... Oh, my God! ..when Redknapp scores versus Blackburn as his memory of the season. That man, Paul Dempsey, of course. But then attention shifts to what was going on down at Upton Park. And we come back to Cantona again, don't we? In terms of the amount of chances that United missed in this game, the obvious thing was to say, well, Cantona might well have put one of those away.

30:30I mean, they'd looked to address that problem with Andy Cole. He had a couple of shots well saved, I seem to remember. But any other time you'd think United would have won that game really, really comfortably. And we talked about Blackburn players feeling the nerves. Maybe it was the case that United had the same sort of thing. It was really odd that they were so wasteful in front of goal on that day. yeah and there was also a thing here with a lot of man united fans feeling that ferguson got his tactics wrong i think he only went one up front here andy cole played up front that brian mclair as well but they also had nikki bart and roy keen and paul ince which does seem a little bit overkill in defensive midfield for a game that you've got to win mark hughes was left on the bench came on at halftime paul skulls who i must admit i was surprised to see him featuring so heavily this season i don't really remember that but he scored a few goals for manchester he came on with 10 minutes to go but yeah there was a sense that Ferguson had been overcautious and maybe that was the reason why they only scored one goal although that said they did have lots of chances

31:31and as the news comes through from upton park there are wild celebrations because they they know that they blackburn rovers from this tiny town in Lancashire have gone and become the champions of England. Whatever the questions about the money, it was an extraordinary performance. Alex Cooney writing in saying, has there ever been as big a fall from being champions, then bottom of the Champions League group in seventh and then relegated within four years as that suffered by Blackburn Rovers? It did seem to come apart pretty quickly. Yeah, I can't work out as a supporter who's been starved of that whether I'd rather have a team have one season of brilliance that you remember forever, or it being the start of a mini dynasty.

32:16I think it was always likely with the way English football was going and the kind of influx in foreigners that Blackburn were unlikely to maintain it and, for example, win two or three titles in a row. I think the spending power of other clubs caught up with them and they spent really badly in the summer. They obviously lost Kenny Dalgleish. So it already felt unsustainable, to my mind, by September of the next season that they would do anything other than go back into the pack. So they will always remember it. Any Blackburn fan that was alive at the time will remember that as the season. And maybe in some ways I'd rather that than have a period of finishing second and third and second and missing out on the title again.

32:53I kind of like that, having that perfect storm for a season. Yeah, it was also the classic case study of how you can be a good assistant but not a great manager because Dalgleish went upstairs to become the director of football. Ray Harford took over and by all accounts was not so good at controlling the dressing room without Dalgleish there. And then a few years later, as mentioned in the question, Blackburn end up getting relegated when the manager is Brian Kidd, who at this point obviously had been a very trusted assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson. So, yeah, I think they made a couple of bad managerial decisions there.

33:26Well, back at the start of this chat, Michael mentioned that the other really exciting aspect of this season was the relegation battle. Of course, the premiership was slimming down from 22 to 20 teams, which meant an extra club would be going down. And it all came down to the final day again. The big losers being Crystal Palace, the team who finished fourth last, with Ian Dowie leading the line for them, but still went down. Equally, Reading, who finished second in Division I, but lost in the playoff final, didn't come up because only one team was allowed promotion. Leicester went straight back down.

34:00Norwich were relegated just two years after they had been part of a title race. And Ipswich also made the drop, giving Swindon a good run for their money, conceding 93 goals on their way, including a 9-0 defeat to United at Old Trafford, which is the Premier League's joint biggest defeat. Of course, Southampton having a similar scoreline. Southampton themselves this year stayed up, largely thanks to Matt Letiz. And Goal Scorer Challenge nominates, as his great memory of this season, the phenomenal strike that Letiz scores against Blackburn. He's going for goal again. He's only just over halfway and it's a kind of lob, but with a bit more power than your average lob over his mate Tim Flowers, former teammate and one of his good pals apparently.

34:48And Letizia being Letizia, I spoke about his perfectionism last week with those goals against Newcastle. He said he was trying to hit Flowers' towel, which was wrapped up in the net in the goal. So that's the kind of accuracy that he was going for. And it's notable for the lack of celebration, because they were losing the game and they lost it anyway. But it's one of those, if you watch Matt Letizia goals in a big bunch, they kind of lose their impact, I think. But seeing this one on its own, you think, wow, if anybody else had scored that, that would be one of the highlights of their career. But it's just, you know, part of his 10-minute highlight compilation that you watch on YouTube and it's one of the better goals in it.

35:25Wackers Raja does point out that he does make a kind of a celebration, gesturing at his former teammate Tim Flowers, pick that one out. He spent his career playing at the bottom end of the top division. He didn't get the England chances. What is the reason for that? I think he was, well, two things. Firstly, he was a luxury player. And I mean that as a compliment. But in a Southampton team, very literally, he was just given the ball and allowed to do what he wanted. And what he wanted to do was be absolutely brilliant. So it worked out very well. I'm not sure that worked out as well or would have worked out as well at England level.

35:58But I guess, and Michael will know more about this than me, He was a player who, because of his individuality, was quite hard to nail down to a position, which I guess at the time English football was still pretty much, you know, pretty straight minded about where players played. You know, it wasn't just 4-4-2, but there wasn't an awful lot of play in between the lines. Cantona changed that and Letizia did as well. But Cantona's another one who didn't get the international caps that his talent deserved. and his was probably temperament as well. But I think there's a similarity there that I think they're both quite hard to define in terms of positions.

36:32During watching highlights of this season, I was interested to see a young Norwich striker by the name of Jamie Curiton score in the 3-0 win over Chelsea. I found that interesting because, would you believe it, I saw him score in the flesh this season for Bishop Stortford against Kingstonian last-minute consolation penalty. he's now 44 and still playing in a relatively high you know okay seventh tier but you know semi-professional football would you believe you know 25 years on from watching him on a very grainy VHS tape that's quite the achievement. When we talked about the relegation battle it's worth singling out Norwich for their relegation I think they were seventh at the halfway point they had sold Chris Sutton but they took 10 points in the second half of the season to go down which is a pretty remarkable effort from a team that as we mentioned were pretty good in 92-93 and 93-93 So a real fall from grace.

37:25I wondered if we ought to mention something about the scandals across this season and whether they played any part in kind of the ramping up of the reputation of the Premier League. You had Dennis Wise found guilty of assaulting a taxi driver initially sent to jail, overturned. People might remember Dennis Wise's agent, Eric Hall, who claimed to be monster, monster shocked by the verdict at the time when he gave a press conference afterwards. Chris Armstrong, Palace striker, he was charged with possession of cannabis. Quickly back, you mentioned Merson. We had that horrible press conference, which I found really difficult to watch again, where he's kind of hauled in front of the press by the FA, essentially, at which point they haven't told him if he's going to be allowed to play again, just to train, and he's kind of breaking down in tears and being forced to talk through something publicly, which he obviously wasn't ready for.

38:18The Bruce Grobler stuff, which we touched on last week, that resurfaced again, George Graham. But all these kind of narratives that weren't to do with actual football, which has kind of become an essential part of what we think of when we think of the Premier League now, I think. And this was the first season that we really had a big, big cluster of those, even though they're not good news stories, they do make news. Well, thanks to Matt, Daniel and Michael and to producer Charlie. We'll have more Totally Gold this time next week. And we'll be back as mentioned on Tuesday, looking back at the opening few days of the Club World Cup.

38:52For now, it's goodbye. You've been listening to The Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. For more great football podcasts like this one, including The Athletic FC, and our six dedicated club podcasts, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify, and all the usual places. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

39:19The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

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