\n<\/p>\n
The 1985-86 Double team might have had fantastic individual talents like Rush, Dalglish, Molby and Hansen, but there were some unsung heroes in the squad.<\/p>\n
Before his injury against Manchester United, Walsh had netted 18 goals in a fruitful partnership with Rush, while Scotland midfielder Kevin MacDonald<\/u><\/strong> had also come into his own and sealed a regular place in midfield.<\/p>\n “We were a team and we had players who all made a great contribution,” said Gillespie.<\/p>\n “I remember Kenny signing Steve McMahon<\/u><\/strong> that season from Aston Villa and he brought some steel to the midfield, but then he picked up an injury and Kevin took his opportunity.<\/p>\n “Kenny paired Kevin alongside Jan Molby and it worked really well for us. Kevin did a heck of a lot of hard work in the midfield for us and was an unsung hero in that team.<\/p>\n “When you think about players who score goals these days, anybody that scores over 10 goals seems to be a superstar and yet we had Walshy, who scored 18 goals but couldn’t establish himself as a regular starter in the side.<\/p>\n “I think when you are going to be successful as Liverpool are, you have to have a squad of players who can contribute over the course of the season and that’s certainly what we had. We certainly knew the value of what they all gave us.”<\/p>\n An undoubted personal highlight for Gillespie was the Anfield win over Birmingham in April 1986.<\/p>\n The defender had already scored twice before the Reds were awarded a penalty and Molby had netted a spot-kick earlier in the game.<\/p>\n The Kop, however, offered no doubt who they wanted to take it as they loudly sang Gillespie’s name.<\/p>\n The Scot then stepped up and smashed the ball into the top corner of the net as Anfield cherished a special moment.<\/p>\n “That was just a really nice moment for me and it’s not the sort of thing that happens too often, scoring a hat-trick,” he said.<\/p>\n “It was very special, although what I was doing in those positions around the opposition penalty area I couldn’t tell you!<\/p>\n “You would probably expect me to score a header from a corner or something, but to score twice and then score a penalty was very special.<\/p>\n “I’m just happy that I scored it and I don’t know what I would have done had I missed! It was fantastic to hear the crowd singing my name and it was a nice moment.<\/p>\n “It was also an important victory for us to score five goals as it could have gone down to goal difference in the end.”<\/p>\n On the topic of goals, it is impossible to reminisce on that time without mentioning Rush.<\/p>\n The striker, who scored two against the Blues in the FA Cup final, totalled 33 goals for the season.<\/p>\n “The partnership with Rushie and Kenny was telepathic,” Gillespie finished. “I can remember as a young kid watching a football programme about Kevin Keegan<\/u><\/strong> and John Toshack<\/u><\/strong> being telepathic, but that partnership between Rush and Dalglish was something really special.<\/p>\n “The fact that Rushie is our all-time leading goalscorer I think says it all. We have had some great players over the years \u2013 the likes of Fernando Torres<\/u><\/strong>, Luis Suarez<\/u><\/strong> and Mohamed Salah \u2013 but nobody can get near to Rushie with regards to goalscoring.<\/p>\n “All credit to him because he was a wonderful player.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 1985-86 Double team might have had fantastic individual talents like Rush, Dalglish, Molby and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}