Liverpool great Souness calls in to blast Keown over ex-teammates claims | OneFootball

Liverpool legend Graeme Souness was forced call in after hearing Arsenal hero Martin Keown question two of his former teammates on radio.

Keown raised the back-pass law, which was introduced in 1992 and prevents goalkeepers from handling the ball when it's passed back to them from a team-mate.

The former Arsenal defender namechecked Souness' former Liverpool colleagues Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson in the discussion.

“The backpass rule changed the game massively," he told on talkSPORT. “Think about Liverpool and Hansen and Lawrenson just rolling it back to the keeper.

“He just kept picking it up, [Bruce] Grobbelaar, the goalkeeper would just pick it up every time you got near it."

But oblivious to Keown, Souness was listening in. And the Reds favourite was so incensed by what he heard that he decided to ring into the show himself.

He began: "“I nearly crashed my car, Martin, after what you said.

“I understand there have been improvements to the game, without a shadow of a doubt, but I totally disagree with you in terms of Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson.

“You could've picked any other partnership that was playing football at that time and called them out on what they would do by going back to the goalkeeper at every opportunity when put under pressure."

Keown defended his claim, but Souness wasn't having any of it and continued to pile in on the Match of the Day pundit.

“You could've picked anyone other than those two! They were the least guilty of turning out and going back all the time."

The former Arsenal man then conceded ground and said: “I wasn't saying it in a demeaning way about those two, they were the best ball-playing defenders of our time."

To which, Souness replied: “Well, you should've said that," before adding, "“You made it sound, for somebody who's not seen them play, like they couldn't play.

"That's how it sounded. You could not have picked a worse two to give an example of."