Things are very different in the Premier League than they were back in 1995. Just ask Richard Witschge, who knows full well after his time at Blackburn Rovers.
Soccer News cover comments from him today. He’s looked back on his time at Blackburn in their Premier League winning season.
He joined Rovers on loan that season, joining in March from Bordeaux. He would only go on to make one appearance for them before the end of the season.
Seen as a replacement for the injured Jason Wilcox, he never settled into the side or proved to be a smart addition. Indeed, manager Kenny Dalglish opted to play Graeme Le Saux out of position rather than use him as they pushed for the title.
Witschge has been open about his disappointment in the years since. In fact, he famously branded Blackburn, the town, as “poor and ugly”.
It’s fair to say he wasn’t impressed by the place or the club. And it seems he was less than impressed by the teammates he had during that spell as well. According to him, one aspect still leaves him bemused to this date.
“When I arrived in England, manager Kenny Dalglish said: ‘We brought you in, but we’re already so far in the league that I’ll play with the guys I’m using now. I’ll only use you when absolutely necessary,’” he said in an interview with ELF Voetbal.
“That was a good start, but Blackburn Rovers was my way out of France. I played one match, away at West Ham United.
“We had a really good team with Alan Shearer, Chris Sutton, Graeme Le Saux, David Batty, Tim Flowers… Guys who played for the England national team. They were really good footballers.
“It surprised me a bit, but what surprised me most was that they could just keep going in matches. They were almost different people then, man. Even though they didn’t train much and still drank quite a bit.
“Shearer was top, but a Batty like him was also a really good player. But yes, I came from Zinedine Zidane’s Girondins de Bordeaux… In England, it was all about pushing the pedal to the metal. Dalglish was a typical British manager in that respect. He just announced the lineup and that was it. We had such a good and mature team back then.”
