Former players and managers - general discussion

Mich’el Parker has signed for Gosport Borough.
Jason Banton has retired after leaving Brightlingsea - his third club of the season.
Tom Brewitt has signed for Swindon after leaving USFL side Hartford Athletic.

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Who was the guy on TIA who absolutely adored him and wouldn’t have anything said against him. Did he get banned eventually? Maybe @Mascot will recall?

Zagueiro. And me.

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I wish we had a prime Lucas Leiva in this midfield.

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Zags…that was the guy. Pretty sure he got banned in the end…the discussions about Lucas got rather heated but it was probably for something else.

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I was hoping he’d get back for a game with Luis, but so it goes. Terrific character.

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Lucas is everything I wished for to see a player representing our club. Yes before people point out that 11 Lucas will not win us any medals or champions, I will acknowledge that. But players like Lucas will win the hearts of people. And he is far more fitting of being our club legend than some other players ever will be to me. YNWA Lucas and may you now get to spend more time with your family.

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Lucas much closer to cult hero than legend for me. Off the pitch he’s a fantastic guy who is so easy to love, but there were many occasions on the pitch which are remembered less fondly.

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Grk Srav
Zaguerio
Budski

Cardiffpete to a lesser extent

All Lucas fans.

Some great arguments with them over the years.

No doubt Lucas is a class act as a person and a huge Liverpool fan. But he wasn’t a great player no matter how he is remembered. File with McAteer, Tanner and a few more. Would die on the pitch for the Reds, but not the quality required

Cardiffpete once compared him to Clodoaldo, Budski talked about chalkboards and decoy runs, and Stav talked about the Newcastle pass…

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I agree to an extent. Great guy and Liverpool in his heart.
Always fondly thought of.
But legend?
Think Emlyn Hughes, Ian Rush, Steven Gerrard.
Lucas isn’t there.

As @deneb says, cult hero.

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Just like the superlative “great”, the word “legend” has lost all meaning.

Lucas was a good player and appears to be a top bloke. But there is no way that he is a club legend.

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Liverpool fans were really divided on lucas, what some were saying about him and Rafa, others saying about klopp and Trent these days. Im sure you know what I mean.

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He wasn’t great, but some reactions were defensive (and yes, sometimes too defensive) towards him because let’s be real, Lucas got a lot of undeserved hate at least in the first few years.

Masses of fans usually don’t warm to these types of midfielders, or it takes time to appreciate more what they do. It’s mostly those more slower players who also don’t provide numbers.

He was a good player and a very good professional for us, mostly in turbulent seasons for us. The best he played was possibly just before his big injury at Chelsea in 11/12. That was peak Lucas for me.

Didn’t cost much, gave us good service for a lot of years, behaved well and I think there should be no drama if he was underrated or overrated.

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When we signed a Brazilian midfielder a lot of people expected an attacking midfielder. Itnsoon became apparent he wasn’t that guy and was more defensive. Eventually he took over Mascherano’s role but wasn’t as good as him.

He was ok. Pretty limited but had some good games.

Calling him a legend is significant hyperbole of course.

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Didn’t feel like qualifying my legend comment but here goes. Like in my post, it was in comparison as said to some other players and to be specific, if compared to Suarez or Coutinho, Lucas is more deserving. Of course, how legends are defined nowadays is another matter.

Football legends are defined by playing football.

Lucas is a nice guy. Not a football legend.
Just an opinion though

As I said, I only mentioned it in relative to some players. In other words, I rather have Lucas than Suarez or Coutinho near our club considering the latter two would be much more popular than Lucas. We can call them legend, great, best, top 100 etc it’s Lucas anytime over some of the more “lauded” players

A legend I also agree he’s not. He was a likeable character due to many years here and seemed to understand what our club and fans are all about. So we can say a bit of a cult hero. As a player, without ever being great, he was certainly better than “ok, who had some good games”. But I guess that depends what words we use for certain evaluations, no big deal.