Ronnie reckons Rosenthal critics wide of the mark
THEY are Liverpool’s Two Ronnies but one will be much more fondly remembered than the other.
Despite that, Anfield hero Ronnie Whelan has nothing but good to say about Ronny Rosenthal – even if everyone else remembers him for one of the worst misses of all time.
That’s because the Liverpool great credits his former team-mate with dragging the Reds over the line to win the club’s last league title
30 years ago – while he watched from the stands having broken his foot against Arsenal during the run-in.
The wait to end the championship famine looked to be coming to an end this season, until the Covid-19 outbreak led to the suspension of the campaign, throwing into doubt whether it will get finished at all.
For Whelan, though
1990 is now a distant memory, he still recalls the impact made by the Israeli who arrived on loan from Standard Liege for the final few months of the season.
“The only thing I can really remember from that whole season is Ronny coming in at the end for us and scoring seven goals in our last eight games,” Whelan said.
“He helped us more or less clinch it because he couldn’t stop scoring.
“He got a hat-trick at Charlton and he helped push us over the line because he brought more pace into the team. He was the difference for us.
“People will always remember that miss at Aston Villa when he hit the bar with an open goal but he was really important to help us win the league because he gave us a little bit extra that we needed.”
It was Whelan’s sixth championship as a Liverpool player, the first coming in 1982, with that decade also seeing him win the European Cup, three League Cups and two FA Cups.
It is that kind of dominance Whelan feels Jurgen Klopp’s side will have to replicate before they can be placed on the same sort of pedestal as the Liverpool greats of the 1980s – or Sir Alex Ferguson’s dominant Manchester United teams.
“I don’t think there’s any chance they could take this league title away from Liverpool,” he added.
“It’s a team which deserves to win the league, they have been great and hopefully they don’t get stripped of it somehow.
“They are a very, very good team but they won’t become a great team until they get a run of results, like the six league titles.
“If you look at the great United teams, Arsenal and even Chelsea, they did it over a period of four or five years.
“Fergie’s sides did it over a longer period so it’s very hard to say this Liverpool team is anywhere near that side of Scholes, Keane, Beckham and Giggs.
“Look at Leeds, they won it in 1992 and then faded away and did nothing after that.
“Blackburn Rovers with Kenny Dalglish were very good in 1995 but they never did much else after that either. You have to be able to show that you can do it consistently over a number of years before you can be classed as one of the great, great teams.
“I think this Liverpool team are definitely capable of doing it, especially with the base they are building.”