Former Liverpool and Scotland star won it all on the pitch during his time at Anfield before moving into the punditry studio to embark on a memorable Match of the Day career
Success on the football pitch doesn’t always translate into expertise as a pundit, but for Alan Hansen it very much did.
Hansen, 68, is seriously ill in hospital, with former club Liverpool and Match of the Day host Gary Lineker among those to share messages of support. “The thoughts and support of everyone at Liverpool FC are with our legendary former captain Alan Hansen, who is currently seriously ill in hospital,” the Merseyside club said in a statement.
The Scotland international won eight league titles during his time at Anfield, and became a European champion on three occasions. He played 620 times for the Reds, including four seasons as captain.
He spent 14 years on Liverpool’s books, and even longer as a lead pundit on Match of the Day. The Scot walked away from his broadcasting career after the 2014 World Cup, but was able to pack plenty into more than two decades in the studio.
Hansen’s punditry career began not long after he ended his playing career in the early 1990s. Those early years included an infamous moment at the start of the 1995-96 season, when he dismissed the chances of Alex Ferguson’s youthful Manchester United squad.
“I think they’ve got problems,” Hansen said after United lost to Aston Villa on the opening weekend of the campaign. I wouldn’t say they have got major problems.
“Obviously three players [Paul Ince, Andrei Kanchelskis and Mark Hughes] have departed and the trick is buy when you are strong. So he [Ferguson] needs to buy players. You can’t win anything with kids.”
Share your fondest memories of Alan Hansen’s punditry in the comments section
Of course, United quickly showed they could indeed win with kids. Academy graduates David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Nicky Butt each racked up 30 appearances or more as United won the league, with all four playing their part three seasons later in the Treble success.
Hansen, for his part, owned the misjudgement. “It was the line that made me,” he would later say. “I’d be at Euston station or Heathrow airport and they’d be shouting it at me.
“To this day, I stand by that line,” he added. “How many times have you seen a manager pick experience over youth, it happens all the time.”
Nearly 20 years later, Hansen was bowing out at the top. He had remained a big part of the BBC’s football coverage, for domestic football and at international tournaments, with that journey ending in 2014.
“Match of the Day is such an important show and you always felt that what Alan Hansen said was the final word, that was the authority,” Gary Neville said when Hansen called it quits. “You almost forget he was a player with how important he has been to television.”
Jamie Redknapp, like Neville, moved into punditry after his football career and looked to Hansen as the gold standard. “If Alan were to say after a game ‘Jamie Redknapp played well’ I was so happy,” he said. “That made me feel a million dollars. It was an acknowledgement that you had done well, it would mean so much.”
DON’T SCRAP REPLAYS! Join our petition to keep the magic of the FA Cup alive!
Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.