- Feb 2, 2006
- 138
- 215
How in god's name do people know/remember this kind of detail about specific seasons/formations/players from 28 years ago? I'm frequently baffled by this kind of post.I thought Popescu and Howells were the absolute epitome of unsung heroes that season.
We went from relegation form with the Fab 4 to title challenging form with Popescu and Howells as a defensive double pivot.
In fact had we started the season with them then you could make the case that we would have been title challengers.
He was given a more conservative midfield role than he had at PSV, with very little licence to get forward, but he performed it brilliantly.
The perception of him not wanting to be here is probably because Cruyff was on the phone to him every other week talking about his role next season to replace Koeman as Sweeper. Also his mate Dumi was loaned out and he didn't speak a word of English.
He came out of communist Romania after the '89 revolution and turned down Real Madrid for PSV because there had been a media black out and nobody in his country knew Real were the bigger team.
Once he understood the wider football world there was no chance he was going to turn down Cruyff and Barca at the age of 27.
I can't blame him for that.
I can barely remember what our starting lineup was against Villa 2 days ago.
Impressive stuff.