Schmeichel down injured after clashing with Wright
Schmeichel down injured after clashing with Wright
Ian Wright was a player who wore his heart on his sleeve but even he's admitted he could be guilty of pushing it a little too far at times.
The former Arsenal man terrorised plenty of goalkeepers during his playing career but one man he very rarely got the better of was Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel.
The pair clashed on several occasions in the 1990s when the rivalry between Arsenal and United was at its fiercest. And tension between them reached boiling point as Arsenal faced United back in 1997, with Wright criticised for a rash challenge on Schmeichel, something he admits regrets.
"We’d had a bit of an altercation at Old Trafford which led to this game, which was a couple of months later," Wright told the Match of the Day Top 10 podcast in 2020. "The tackle which everybody sees, the whistle had already gone and I just didn’t stop.
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"We’re both running for the ball, the red mist was there and I just jumped on the ball with two feet – they said it was the tackle that shamed football. When I look back at it now, it’s quite an embarrassing thing to see."
Wright and Schmeichel have managed to put their rivalry behind them and the former Arsenal man admits they even laugh about how much he "genuinely hated him as a goalkeeper".
"We get on well, play golf together and laugh about the collisions we had," he added. "When we speak about it now, me and Schmeichel, we talk about how much I genuinely hated him as a goalkeeper.
"I knew how good he was and how hard it was to score against him. The only goals I ever scored against him were in friendlies."