Loyalty or Success?

[Saint Garrett]

http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/mar/21/respect-loyalty-success-open-thread

 

The combination of footballers and Twitter is rarely a good one, but some players use the site to good effect. Matt Le Tissier, one of the game's more amiable characters, often opens up his feed for a question and answer session with fans. Le Tissier is asked one question more than any other: "Why did you not go to a big club?"

 

You wonder why he bothers but, to his credit, Le Tissier always provides an answer: "Why should I have moved? I liked it there." In one way, it makes perfect sense. Why should he have given up the life he enjoyed to chase medals and money? Is putting medals on the table any more valuable than staying with a club that appreciates you and gives you enough of the ball and the green stuff to enjoy your profession?

 

When Michael Owen announced his retirement this week, he could look back on a career that took him to some of the world's largest clubs. But not many fans remember him fondly. Owen chased success on his own terms and will never be loved the way Le Tissier is.

 

Le Tissier made 443 appearances and scored 162 goals for Southampton, but he never picked up a medal and only played eight times for England. A player with his talent should have achieved more than that.

 

Whether Le Tissier stayed at Southampton because he enjoyed his life there or because he was loyal to the club is debatable. The club signed him when Oxford United had turned him down as a schoolboy. Le Tissier repaid their faith in him by rejecting moves to more successful clubs, with Spurs, Chelsea and Manchester United all rumoured to have wanted him. Should he have shown less regard for Southampton or was he right to repay the club that gave him his chance?

 

What about today's players? Any footballer as gifted as Luis Suárez should be playing in the Champions League. Does he owe it to himself to be taking part in the biggest club games – or should he stick with Liverpool, who stuck with him when the football world turned against him?

 

Gareth Bale was once a laughing stock at Spurs; if he played, they lost. But Spurs kept playing him and he developed into the £70m asset he is today. Would you respect Suárez and Bale more if they left their clubs in the summer to maximise their personal success?

[CB Fry]

Le Tiss was loyal to us but he stayed because he wanted to, not through a sense of duty or loyalty in itself.

 

Which is fine, and doesn't make him any less of a legend and he's easily the greatest living Saint and a man who does our profile the world of good.

 

And, all these years on, it clearly was never going to work with England. The national team were never going to build the side around him. That hat trick against Russia B was sensational though....