How good was Bryan Robson in his pomp?

Here we go, we can judge for ourselves if memories are playing tricks. 56 minutes of Rippers, Pally, Mogga, Bernie, Hammy, Parky, Coops, Deano, Pearsy and Brennan and Davenport having their best games iirc.

 
I watched the documentary a few weeks ago. It's a good watch, recommend it. I'm a bit younger than the average on here so I remember Robson playing/managing for us but don't remember much detail of his playing and I don't remember him before he came to us. The documentary gave me a good understanding of what he was about, although it is obviously one-sided. It looks like he had a lot of injuries throughout his career, some nasty ones when he was really young which could have stopped his career before he even got started.

Didn't win a huge amount of silverware though but I presume that was down to the rest of the team not being good enough at the time. He was a bit part player when they did start winning in the PL era. 90 caps for England, most of them as captain when England were a decent team but missed all of England's big moments through injury. 1 in 3 goals per game for a lot of his time at Utd. That's better than most strikers these days.
 
He was just about the best: 42 pints, 12 bottles of wine (red), 14 rum and cokes, 6 straight vodkas and 7 mini Guinness in one sitting then change straight into his strip and out to play a match at 3pm! Absolute legend of the game. Only Paul McGrath could beat him, mainly on the mini Guinness as he used to sneak in 4 or 5 in the tunnel on the way out to the pitch.
 
Fatsuma said:
Had he been fully fit in ‘86 (and just possibly even ‘90) England might have won the World Cup.
Click to expand...
Possibly, but certainly in '90 his injury gave opportunity to David Platt who scored a couple of important goals. Perhaps Robsons experience would've made a difference vs Germany, but then again we were pretty good in that game and only conceded through a freak deflection
'86 he would probably have wiped out Maradona and prevented that 2nd goal.
 
Lefty said:
Swap Davenport for Archie and Brennan for Brian Laws and it's mine too.
Click to expand...
Agree about Brenda and Lawsy......we never actually replaced Archie did we despite winning two promotions - the Boro striker curse?
 
Otto42 said:
Agree about Brenda and Lawsy......we never actually replaced Archie did we despite winning two promotions - the Boro striker curse?
Click to expand...

I guess Wilkinson and Hendrie come closest to Bernie and Archie as a successful big guy little guy forward combo.
 
Lefty said:
Here we go, we can judge for ourselves if memories are playing tricks. 56 minutes of Rippers, Pally, Mogga, Bernie, Hammy, Parky, Coops, Deano, Pearsy and Brennan and Davenport having their best games iirc.

Click to expand...

You forget just how good Ripley, Pallister the rest of that Rioch era post receivership team were. Fearless they were. Such credit to Willie Maddren, Bruce, Toddy and Mogga for developing that nucleus the way they did.
 
Lefty said:
Here we go, we can judge for ourselves if memories are playing tricks. 56 minutes of Rippers, Pally, Mogga, Bernie, Hammy, Parky, Coops, Deano, Pearsy and Brennan and Davenport having their best games iirc.

Click to expand...
Brilliant watch. So sad that team got relegated.
Those highlights show how much more than a goal poacher Slaven was - he'd have been great in this Wilder team.
 
Only caught the last few years of his playing career but as other people have stated, Gerrard is probably the closest likeness you could get to Robson in the modern era. Box to box, unbelievable engine, could pretty much do everything. His tackling was unbelievable but that came with a consequence as he would pick up serious injuries.

For all I don't think Robson was a great manager. His reputation in Europe helped us to attract some unbelievable players to the club so he was the right appointment at the right time in terms of elevating the club to the next level. Winning 1-0 in the League Cup final against Leicester and not bringing a couple of subs on to kill time/disrupt Leicester's momentum will always stick with me. He showed a bit of naivety and we saw it quite a lot during his time with us.

At that time though I lost count of the amount of times we signed a player and they said Robson was a major factor in them joining the club. As soon as players heard Bryan Robson was interested they were flattered and took note, such was his reputation. I'm sure money played a major part too but I don't think we would've signed the likes of Merson, Gascoigne (although he was past his best) etc if Lennie Lawrence was still in charge.
 
Robson did well when managing us. He wasn't a top level manager but was still a pretty decent one.
Got us promoted as champions when there were only 2 spots. Made some wonderfully astute buys like Pearson. Learned from his first relegation and put together a more solid and experienced team. (How many managers just stubbornly do the same thing over and over again when it's patently not working) First season in the premier League had us sitting in the European places until we hit a bad run, playing some lovely stuff.
2nd time we got promoted we lost merson and still finished 9th - again some clever buys, Dean Gordon, Andy Townsend.
Did exactly what we needed and entertained us all while doing so. People talk about some of his achievements like they were a piece of ****. Even if you've got money you've got to spend it wisely. (Garry monk).
Look at the pigs **** Strachan made trying to get us up first time of asking, and the pigs **** Southgate was making of it (0 5 at home v west brom Jesus)
On top of that it was his first ever go at management.
And then he accepted Venables coming in. How many other people would do that?
 
Could score left foot, right foot, inside the box, outside the box. Headers. Ferocious tackler. Superb captain for a (generally) p*ss poor Man U team. Carried them - and England - for years.

The ultimate box-box midfielder.

Played in a totally different era where skill, getting stuck in and being able to down a dozen pints post match was expected.

Would be worth £150m+ in today's market, easily.

Remember seeing him score his first 2 Man U goals against Sunderland in a 5-1 win at Roker Park (dad got a corporate freebie). Lovely👍

A proper true great 👍👍
 
Souness was a different type of midfielder, and for Liverpool played in one of the greatest teams (eras) of all time. Robson played in a bang average Man U team for 10? years and carried them.

Not knocking Souness as he was a superb player btw......but disagree to him being a notch above.
 
Great thread this, some great descriptions of those who remember him.

I’m too young for Robbo’s peak years but wasn’t Gerrard just Robbo reincarnated? All action Roy of the Rovers type who can do everything, win games on his own, one man team sort of midfielder?

Who was better for those who saw them both, Gerrard or Robson?

Obviously I’ve seen ‘better’ players (Messi, Maradona) but Gerrard would be my first pick and captain of my team to take on Mars, he’s my favourite ever player.
 
Last edited:
18MFC76 said:
Only caught the last few years of his playing career but as other people have stated, Gerrard is probably the closest likeness you could get to Robson in the modern era. Box to box, unbelievable engine, could pretty much do everything. His tackling was unbelievable but that came with a consequence as he would pick up serious injuries.

For all I don't think Robson was a great manager. His reputation in Europe helped us to attract some unbelievable players to the club so he was the right appointment at the right time in terms of elevating the club to the next level. Winning 1-0 in the League Cup final against Leicester and not bringing a couple of subs on to kill time/disrupt Leicester's momentum will always stick with me. He showed a bit of naivety and we saw it quite a lot during his time with us.

At that time though I lost count of the amount of times we signed a player and they said Robson was a major factor in them joining the club. As soon as players heard Bryan Robson was interested they were flattered and took note, such was his reputation. I'm sure money played a major part too but I don't think we would've signed the likes of Merson, Gascoigne (although he was past his best) etc if Lennie Lawrence was still in charge.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Robbo’s reputation was a massive factor. He was a proper legend of world football, in the same way people want to play for Zidane or someone like Gullit, just to soak up a bit of that aura.

I think nowadays players are more likely to be attracted by the genius managers like Pep, Klopp, Conte. Back then it was a bit different.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top