Former Newcastle forward Stephane Guivarc’h has lashed out at a poll in a British newspaper that named the 1998 World Cup winner as the worst striker ever to appear in the Premier League.
Guivarc’h, who played under Kenny Dalglish and then Ruud Gullit at Newcastle in 1998, was responding to a survey published in the Daily Mail last week.
He told yesterday’s edition of French newspaper 10 Sport: “I couldn’t care less about this Daily Mail poll. It’s really a crap paper, how can they judge that?”
“At Newcastle I only started in two games and played in four in total. And I scored once, against Liverpool,” Guivarc’h said.
“After two matches Kenny Dalglish, who signed me and who wanted to use me with Alan Shearer, was fired. Ruud Gullit arrived and sidelined me straight away,” he said.
Guivarc’h, who retired in 2002 and now coaches a French amateur side in Brittany, dismissed Gullit as “a tourist.”
“He used to only turn up on Wednesdays and the day of the match, and spent the rest of the time with his wife back home in the Netherlands,” he said. “Never has a coach shown me such a lack of respect.”
The 39-year-old recalled: “After six months I left to join Rangers. I wanted to link up with [Rangers’ then French goalkeeper] Lionel Charbonnier. But the day I signed, he got injured.”
“In the Scottish Cup final I scored and set up another goal, but my ankle was causing me a lot of problems,” he said.
Guivarc’h left Rangers for Auxerre in 1999, going on to score 25 goals in 60 appearances before ending his career at Guingamp in 2002.
Turning his ire on English soccer in general, Guivarc’h concluded: “In fact, what have the English won since the 1966 World Cup?”
“Perhaps they invented football, but they would do better to focus on their national team because they haven’t really made a lot of progress for quite some time,” he said.
Guivarc’h started each of France’s seven World Cup games on the way to the 1998 title but failed to score any goals. In a total of 14 appearances for Les Bleus he managed one goal.
He was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion d’honneur in 1998.
In the Daily Mail poll the second worst striker nomination went to West Ham’s former Dutch player Mark Boogers with Aston Villa “flop” Bosko Balaban in third.
Others to make the rogues’ list were “the footballer that never was,” Southampton’s Ali Dia, Fulham’s Steve Marlet, Ade Akinbiyi (Leicester), Tomas Brolin (Leeds), Andriy Shevchenko (Chelsea), Jason Lee (Nottingham Forest) and Sergei Rebrov (Tottenham).
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