Ian Wright talks about two famous players he ‘really didn’t like’ while he was playing football.
Arsenal legend Ian Wright was one of the most feared strikers during the early days of the Premier League and is now a well-loved football pundit.
Wright finished his playing career with over 300 club goals, including 113 in the Premier League and 43 in the old First Division.
For a top striker, those numbers really count. Wright won the Premier League with Arsenal, but he’s always been remembered for his amazing goal-scoring record.
Because of this, Wright has always been very focused on the rivals he held grudges against as a player. Two Premier League stars stood out in particular.
Former England striker and fellow pundit Alan Shearer annoyed Wright with his incredible goal-scoring skills. Shearer, who played for Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United, is the Premier League’s all-time top scorer with 260 goals from 1992 to 2006.
“I’m proud to call him a friend now, but when we played, I hated him — simply because he was always hungry to score every week,” Wright told Classic Football Shirts.
“If you scored two goals, Shearer would score three. If you scored three, he’d score four. You never caught up with him. And he did all this even though he missed three years because of bad injuries. That’s just amazing.”
Wright’s toughest battles on the pitch were usually against defenders and goalkeepers, not other strikers. One player he really didn’t like playing against was goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel.
Though they played for different teams at times, they only faced each other when Wright was at Arsenal and Schmeichel at Manchester United.
United usually had the upper hand in their 13 meetings. Wright only won twice, and his only competitive goal against Schmeichel was in the Charity Shield.
“Now when we talk about it, Schmeichel and I laugh about how much I really hated him as a goalkeeper,” Wright said on the Match of the Day podcast.
“I knew how good he was and how hard it was to score against him, so the only goals I ever scored were in friendlies!”
Wright’s frustration sometimes got the better of him, especially in a match in 1997.
Arsenal lost 2-1, but Wright didn’t get a yellow card for a dangerous tackle on Schmeichel that really should have been a straight red. Alex Ferguson was furious.
“We’d had a bit of a thing at Old Trafford before that game a couple of months earlier,” Wright explained.
“The tackle everyone talks about — the whistle had already gone, but I didn’t stop. We were both chasing the ball, and I just went in with both feet. The red mist was there.
“People said it was a tackle that shamed football. Looking back, it’s pretty embarrassing to see now.”