Team Mates Gold: Former Arsenal midfielder Ray Parlour dishes the dirt on his former colleagues
Saturday 7 February 2015 13:13, UK
Ray Parlour was part of the memorable Arsenal 'invincibles' squad that charged through the 2003/04 season without losing a league game.
But who was the dim one in the squad during his time under Arsene Wenger? Who regularly got dressed in the dark?
Soccer AM caught up with the 'Romford Pele' to get all the info on his Gunners colleagues...
Ray Parlour's team mates
BEST TRAINER: Dennis Bergkamp. When he first turned up in 1996, he really turned the club around, for me. After training - and he was a much better player than us - he’d be staying on his own.
WORST TRAINER: If I’m going to have to pick one, it has to be Patrick Vieira. He looked like his brother used to turn up Monday to Friday, then Patrick would turn up at the weekends and play the game. He was that good he could just turn it on and off.
HARDMAN: Definitely Martin Keown. He was a player - if you ask any forward - that no one really liked to play against. He was like a rash, a proper rash. If you wanted someone to do man-to-man marking, he was the best man for our team. Martin was a good hard player.
QUICKEST: Over five yards, I’ll go with Ashley Cole - he had that little bit of pace. But over 20 yards, definitely Thierry Henry. Thierry was rapid once he got into his stride. A proper 200-metre runner, I called him.
MOST SKILFUL: Robert Pires had great skill. He couldn't run back a lot and tackle - that was our job to win the ball for him - but when we gave him the ball in good positions, he was brilliant at times. He scored some wonderful goals and got a lot of assists as well for Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp. He was a very good player.
MOST INTELLIGENT: Thierry Henry, definitely. A very intelligent man. I’d love to see him involved with Arsenal some day - I’d love to see him as manager. Everyone’s always asking ‘who’s going to be after Arsene Wenger’ but with his intelligence and the player he was, and the way he loved Arsenal Football Club, if he wanted to do that, I think he’d be a great manager.
LEAST INTELLIGENT: Ashley Cole and Jermaine Pennant. They were a nightmare, I promise you! They were always hanging around together, and Jermaine didn’t have many brains. He was a good player - right winger, went past players and he didn’t get a lot of opportunities - but in the dressing room, him and Ashley were funny.
WORST DRESS SENSE: For me, Freddie Ljungberg had some really dodgy gear. He had some chains around his jeans and we always thought he'd grown two inches because his jeans were too short! He had some right dodgy gear but he loved all the banter - we used to hang it up as well sometimes, when he had some really dodgy stuff on.
WORST DANCER: It’s out of me and Martin Keown, but I’ve got to give it to Martin. He’s like my dad at a wedding, seriously. He was terrible - all out of tune. You’d look at him and he thought he was cool as well. But Martin was a great lad. Hardest man as I said before, and he’s tackled a few people on the dance floor, I should imagine! A brilliant lad, but he had some dodgy moves.
And… who’s the longest in the shower?
I think he’s got everything, to be fair to him. He’s a very lucky lad – Thierry Henry, definitely. He'd always be the longest in the shower. So lucky.