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Francis Benali


Tom8558

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Neither a legend or a violent thug (too small and lightweight). A good servant who was lucky to play his career in the top division. career highlight for me was witnessing the Kung fu kick on fellow short arse Barmby at White Hart Lane, the whole crowd, including Saints went deathly quiet, as it was pointless and 10 men led to us getting dicked after taking the lead...

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Benali, while loyal and good fan of our club, I'm afraid only got such because of the time he spent with us, considerably disproportionate to his quality. Nothing else in there and at any stage of his Saints career most of us would be happy if the club had seen the back of him.

 

IMO he is one of the reasons why we always seem to think that loyalty will sort everything else out, and not recognize that constant change is essential especially in the pitch-side of things. One of the main factors that lead to the 2005-2009 meltdown.

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Benali, while loyal and good fan of our club, I'm afraid only got such because of the time he spent with us, considerably disproportionate to his quality. Nothing else in there and at any stage of his Saints career most of us would be happy if the club had seen the back of him.

 

IMO he is one of the reasons why we always seem to think that loyalty will sort everything else out, and not recognize that constant change is essential especially in the pitch-side of things. One of the main factors that lead to the 2005-2009 meltdown.

 

really ? those first 2 sentences are aload of bo11ox.

Just looked up his wiki, didn't realise he was born in Southampton aswell as went to school here, that really does make him a Legend on top of everything else and anyone who says otherwise ain't a propa Saint.

It ain't all about quality and scoring 100 goals (and that's not saying Benali wasn't quality as he was, a chopper stopper).

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Benali, while loyal and good fan of our club, I'm afraid only got such because of the time he spent with us, considerably disproportionate to his quality. Nothing else in there and at any stage of his Saints career most of us would be happy if the club had seen the back of him.

 

IMO he is one of the reasons why we always seem to think that loyalty will sort everything else out, and not recognize that constant change is essential especially in the pitch-side of things. One of the main factors that lead to the 2005-2009 meltdown.

 

 

How many managers did he play under?

 

He saw plenty of challenges off. He wasnt the greatest footballer, we all know that, but drop him at your peril..... and those that did , soon had him back in the team.

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Benali, while loyal and good fan of our club, I'm afraid only got such because of the time he spent with us, considerably disproportionate to his quality. Nothing else in there and at any stage of his Saints career most of us would be happy if the club had seen the back of him.

 

IMO he is one of the reasons why we always seem to think that loyalty will sort everything else out, and not recognize that constant change is essential especially in the pitch-side of things. One of the main factors that lead to the 2005-2009 meltdown.

 

Bang on. If Franny hadn't worried so much about running his curry house, we'd have done much, much better between 2005-2009.

 

That was - as everyone surely agrees - his essential weakness. A total lack of commitment to the cause.

 

Sigh.

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*I think I remember him getting sent off up at Bolton. He basically cut someone in half near the dug outs, picked himself up and promptly strolled down the tunnel before the ref could show the red card... classic Benali !

 

 

 

 

 

*this may or may not of happened as I've slept a few times since, but never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

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That was classic Benali. Fought back from 3-1 down to draw on a sunny day, and Frannie taking out there main man. Happy days.

 

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

was there for that one, think it was my 1ooth consecutive game, Matty scored a dubious hat trick if I remeber rightly.

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Hes a great example of our how we rewrite our clubs history. He was generally loathed by most fans. Whenever the team was read out at games his name he was booed. Just because hes played a lot of games for us and is a grade fan panderer he is now a "legend".

He lost his right to be called a "legend" with his embarrasing rant against Cortese on Soccer AM or whatever it was just because Nicola had spilled some wine on his Carpetright **** pile.

Now a fully paid up member of the "Dark Forces".

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Hes a great example of our how we rewrite our clubs history. He was generally loathed by most fans. Whenever the team was read out at games his name he was booed. Just because hes played a lot of games for us and is a grade fan panderer he is now a "legend".

He lost his right to be called a "legend" with his embarrasing rant against Cortese on Soccer AM or whatever it was just because Nicola had spilled some wine on his Carpetright **** pile.

Now a fully paid up member of the "Dark Forces".

 

That is a load of tosh. You are write that in the first stages of his career at a LB (remember he played for England Schoolboys as a forward), he wasn't very good (his distribution was abysmal at times), and people were dismayed when his name was read out... initially. It then came to pass that this man saw off any rival, man marked players like Ian Wright and Ian Rush out of games and spat red and white striped blood. Yeah, he wasn't the greatest, but compare his attitude to someone like Guly, Jesus, what i would give for the attitudes of 11 Frannys.

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One of my favourite Franny memories was him launching the Portuguese winger (can't remember his name but was a bit of a one season wonder) into the stands at Upton Park. A typical "Franny challenge" where he got the ball by taking a limb off the winger!

 

Oh and don't forget his beauty of an own goal, against Bolton i think but the memory isn't what it was, a diving header into the bottom corner leaving Timmy helpless.

 

As for being sh.it i still stand by the fact that he was one of the best man markers i've seen at Saints, there was a reason he was often tasked with following people like Cantona around the pitch, and it wasn't cause he was a violent thug!

 

Now OOOOH Terry Hurlock, there WAS a man that could make widows of wingers wives!

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