Jamie Carragher

[Tee]

Imagine Carra and Gary Neville doing a show together.

[Shaggy]

They'd be ****in brilliant tbh.

[Baracus]

Hoof!

[Tee]

They'd be ****in brilliant tbh.

Who'd have ever thought that?

[Assassin]

Waits for the "Lets get 4th place for Carra" campaign

[Rich]

"Carra" mosiac last home game of the season?

[Shaggy]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/clubs/liverpool/article3681255.ece?shareToken=4acaf498408411a664298795962b00e3

Retiring Liverpool star Jamie Carragher was best of the rest



Oliver Kay Chief Football Correspondent
Last updated at 2:05PM, February 7 2013

They did not always “dream of a team of Carraghers” at Anfield. There was a time, as he recalled with some amusement in an interview with The Times in March 2006, when Jamie Carragher was struggling at right back and attracting such criticism on the Liverpool Echo letters page that his father started to look up those critics in the telephone directory and give him a piece of his mind.

“It was in a period where the team wasn’t doing well,” Carragher said. “It was after the treble in 2001 and then we’d finished second and then for the next two years under Gerard Houllier, it didn’t go well. At the time, Arsenal were flying and Real Madrid were flying in Europe and I think our fans looked at Ashley Cole and Lauren and [Michel] Salgado and thought ‘That’s what we need, an attacking full back. We don’t need Carra no more.’ ”

But they did. In fact, following the appointment of Rafael Benitez as manager in 2004, they built their defence around him. From being perceived as the weak link in the back four, playing wherever there was a hole to fill, Carragher became the cornerstone of a team that won the Champions League and regularly reached the later stages of a competition in which he came up against opponents like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Samuel Eto’o, Ronaldinho and a young Messi and almost always came out on top.

It is therefore with a heavy heart that Liverpool’s supporters will have taken this afternoon’s news that Carragher is to retire at the end of the season. At the time of writing, he has made 723 appearances for Liverpool, putting him second behind Ian Callaghan in the club’s all-time list.

Nobody would have imagined that when Carragher first emerged from Liverpool’s youth team as a tidy but limited central midfielder in the 1996/97 season. At times he played in central defence, as well as in both full-back positions, but it was only after the arrival of Benitez that Carragher began to look as if he truly belonged in the team.

Many central defenders could cover the ground quicker than Carragher. Many could jump higher, show off a more muscular physique or exhibit greater composure on the ball. But few could match him when it came to anticipating and thwarting danger. He was and – as shown since being restored to the team under Brendan Rodgers of late – remains a fierce competitor and an accomplished reader of the game.

How good was he? At his best, perhaps for a four-year spell between 2005 and 2009, he was a defender that would have improved almost any team in Europe. As good as Fabio Cannavaro, Rio Ferdinand or John Terry? Perhaps not. But he was not far below the best at a time when, in stark contrast to now, it seemed that every leading team in European football had at least one and sometimes two top-class central defenders.

The abundance of defensive riches at the time is reflected by the limited opportunities he had with England, where he was challenging Ferdinand, Terry, Sol Campbell, Ledley King and, for a time when both players were injury-free and full of promise, Jonathan Woodgate and Wes Brown. Carragher retired from international football in frustration in 2007, only to make a surprise return for the 2010 World Cup. It is fair to suggest that the standard of English central defenders was a good deal higher in Carragher’s prime than it is now.

Carragher has a football brain, sharpened by his own commitment to self-improvement, which has meant studying his own game and those of rivals and opponents in pursuit of betterment. “I just love football really,” he said in that 2006 interview, contrasting his attitude to some who are less interested in the sport. “I hate that. They’re only playing the game because they’re good at it. If they didn’t have a talent for it, they would have no interest at all. With some players, you talk about big teams in Europe and they don’t even know the team. I’m not criticising them – well obviously I am by saying it – but I just can’t understand it. That’s just the way some players are.”

He is a football obsessive, which makes it hard to take his statement at face value when he says that he is retiring from the game. Perhaps he is for now, but perhaps, as with Gary Neville, a player made of similar stuff, we will see a move into broadcast work not as an end in itself but as a means of improving his knowledge before moving back into coaching or management. Like Neville, he has the knowledge, the dedication and the human touch to make a success of whatever he does next.

[RichC]

I'd love Carra to get 1 more goal before he retires, he'd only be -2 for goals scored then

[BigChief]

Typical, quitting us in the summer.

[Phoenix07]

I think it's the correct decision and at least he has announced it now, rather than as he says, having the manager continue to answer questions or fans speculating.

Fantastic servant for the club and an icon for many a supporter.

[Imy]

Have to admit i hated seeing Carra's name on the team sheet prior to Rafa getting hold of him.

All due respect to both him and Rafa for turning it around and as one of the articles above has said he was excellent for 4/5 years.

It's good that he's going out on his own terms as opposed to slipping down leagues/countries.

Good luck with your future endeavours Carra.

[red g]

Have to admit i hated seeing Carra's name on the team sheet prior to Rafa getting hold of him.

All due respect to both him and Rafa for turning it around and as one of the articles above has said he was excellent for 4/5 years.

It's good that he's going out on his own terms as opposed to slipping down leagues/countries.

Good luck with your future endeavours Carra.

When did he break his leg? after a long absence I thought he came back brilliantly and was almost like a different player. Not sure the year though!!

[RichC]

2003 vs Blackburn, think he had his leg broken by that lot again as well

[Fredo]

Talking of injuries. His record is absolutely phenomenal with that. He was hardly out for a long period, bar that broken leg he suffered. Incredible.

[Shaggy]

Lucas Neill broke it didn't he. Then Carra threatened to get his mates to kick Neill's head in if they ever saw him knocking around the Trafford Centre