Arsenal great Martin Keown and Liverpool legend Graeme Souness have entered an ugly tussle over the back pass law back in the 90s which saw many clubs and players take undue advantage.
Keown called out Souness’ former Liverpool colleagues Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson in the discussion.
“The backpass rule changed the game massively,” he told on talkSPORT. “Think about Liverpool and Hansen and Lawrenson just rolling it back to the keeper.
“He just kept picking it up, [Bruce] Grobbelaar, the goalkeeper would just pick it up every time you got near it.”
Souness replied, “I nearly crashed my car, Martin, after what you said.
“I understand there have been improvements to the game, without a shadow of a doubt, but I totally disagree with you in terms of Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson.
“You could’ve picked any other partnership that was playing football at that time and called them out on what they would do by going back to the goalkeeper at every opportunity when put under pressure.”
“You could’ve picked anyone other than those two! They were the least guilty of turning out and going back all the time.”
The former Arsenal man then conceded ground and said: “I wasn’t saying it in a demeaning way about those two, they were the best ball-playing defenders of our time.”
To which, Souness replied: “Well, you should’ve said that,” before adding, ““You made it sound, for somebody who’s not seen them play, like they couldn’t play.
“That’s how it sounded. You could not have picked a worse two to give an example of.”
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