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A Souness story was among the highlights of Matt Le Tissier's brilliantly candid chat with Off The Ball tonight

Given his ability, it is often said that the legendary Matt Le Tissier could have played for a bi...



A Souness story was among the...
Soccer

A Souness story was among the highlights of Matt Le Tissier's brilliantly candid chat with Off The Ball tonight

Given his ability, it is often said that the legendary Matt Le Tissier could have played for a bigger club than Southampton during his Premier League career.

But the master of wonder goals and star of the '90s gave those arguments short shrift when he joined us on Off The Ball tonight to reflect on his time on the pitch for the Saints (and briefly) for England.

"It's been levelled at me against me and thrown in with the 'lack of ambition' thing that people threw at me during my career. But I had an affinity to the football club. It was the football club that gave me the chance to realise my dream and I felt like I owed the football club and the fans there. I've no regrets about any of the decisions I made during my career and I'd make them all again," he said, adding that he didn't have "the drive or burning ambition to win the league every year" once he stepped up the pro ranks, having won many trophies at underage level, and got more pleasure from entertaining people on the pitch.

The Sky Sports pundit also told Joe that moving to a bigger Premier League club would not necessarily have been a positive for him.

"I wouldn't have been the player the whole team to look to get them out of trouble, to create something. I would have been one of the few players in that team that could do something and to be honest I enjoyed the pressure of being the main man in Southampton. I quite enjoyed that and at a bigger football club, there would have been five or six players in that team that could all win you a game in the blink of an eye and you could have got lost in all of that."

Souness at Southampton (Steve Mitchell / EMPICS Sport)

He also recalled a team meeting during Graeme Souness' time in charge at Southampton when the Liverpool legend asked Le Tissier's team-mates if the player was working hard enough. 

"I'd had a few indifferent games and he decided to dig me out and put my team-mates in an awkward position really," he said, adding that the response "wasn't great", admitting that he did not like the more work-rate heavy sides of the game.

The Guernsey-born attacking midfielder also touched on a disappointing England career which yielded just eight caps and no goals.  

Le Tissier also explains why this goal is his favourite wonder goal: 

"I was a little bit frustrated because I saw players playing for England with a fraction of the ability that I had but they just ran around a bit more than I did. It was a little bit frustrating that the managers tended to go for the safe option and know that this player's going to work quite hard but not really give you anything going forward and win football matches. But England managers seem more content with not losing football matches as opposed to going to win football matches," he said, also reflecting on getting dropped by his childhood hero Glenn Hoddle before the 1998 World Cup despite scoring a hat-trick in a B international. 

Le Tissier also reacted to Xavi's glowing praise of him in 2010 and spoke about his brothers who were equally as talented as he was and his almost flawless penalty technique of "always accuracy over power".

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