Social media has exploded with the Barclaysman development this week, popularised by the the Cultras Soccer Podcast.

A fast scroll via football-related channels and also you’ll little question have seen compilation tributes to Premier League names from years passed by. It’s been so widespread that official membership channels have gotten concerned, with highlights of fan favourites, cult heroes and forgotten faces from the ‘Barclays period’.

The title derives from the long-running partnership between Barclays financial institution and the Premier League. Between 2001 and 2016, Barclays was the title sponsor of England’s prime flight and the ‘Barclaysmen’ are gamers who outlined that period.

Barclaysmen usually are not the best footballers of that interval, however gamers who invoke a nostalgic fondness. It is likely to be a weird haircut, distinctive celebration, or popularity for scoring absolute bangers that earns them qualification.

Above all, it’s an indelible impression on the plenty that makes soccer followers randomly exclaim in dialog ‘Bear in mind him!?’.

10 of the easiest Premier League ‘Barclaysmen’

Niko Kranjcar

If Crouch and Defoe have been the frontmen of the band Harry Redknapp so usually sought to get again collectively, Niko Kranjcar was the effortlessly cool lead guitarist. Swaggering considerably within the background, he sometimes burst into life with an epic solo.

The inventive Croatian added a contact of sophistication to a Portsmouth workforce bursting on the seams with Barclaysmen, earlier than some ‘triffic Tottenham performances after following Redknapp to North London.

Participant.

Laurent Robert

Not the primary or final beautiful left foot to enter this listing of good Barclaysmen.

Laurent Robert’s catalogue of beautiful strikes is so good that they borrowed footage from the Frenchman to movie a Hollywood film. Santiago Muñez might need been make imagine because the title character of the Objective! franchise, however Robert’s rockets have been the actual deal.

Even when a few of his strikes have been frankly unbelievable.

Golazo Retailers: Laurent Robert, Newcastle’s irritating genius

Yakubu

The broad-shouldered bagsman made his title at Portsmouth, featured in a European remaining with Middlesbrough, turned Everton’s document signing, and banged in targets for Blackburn. It doesn’t get way more Barclays than that.

Yakubu was a nightmare for the Premier League defenders he usually steamrolled via, boasting a purpose fee similar to a sure Didier Drogba.

The truth that Andy Grey virtually solely referred to Yakubu as ‘The Yak’ solely provides to his standing.

Jay Jay Okocha

So good they named him twice, Jay Jay Okocha pitched up on the unlikeliest environment of Bolton Wanderers within the early noughties.

Sam Allardyce should be one easy talker behind closed doorways, having in some way persuaded a number of world names to Bolton.

Why spend the twilight of your profession within the sunshine of the US or Australia when you possibly can play underneath the gray skies of Better Manchester, proper?

Okocha was the funnest addition of the lot, a footballer who revelled in making opposition gamers look silly (simply ask Ray Parlour).

Tugay

Tugay was so good he barely needed to run. The Turkish midfielder arrived in English soccer on the age of 31 however spent eight seasons conducting proceedings at Blackburn Rovers.

The chain-smoking, screamer-scoring playmaker distributed delightfully, boasting a method to make these at Ewood Park gasp and applaud. Simply think about how good he may have been, had he been a bit extra devoted to the sport…

“He would odor of tobacco within the dressing room beforehand. Then he would run the present for 45 minutes. Then he could be smoking once more at half-time,” former Blackburn teammate Matt Jensen recalled.

“I bear in mind [manager] Graeme Souness trying round a dressing-room at half-time and saying, ‘The place’s Tugay?’ All of us appeared over to the bogs and there have been rings of smoke popping out of the highest of the cubicle.”

Mark Viduka

An under-appreciated ahead from an period when correct quantity nines dominated the land.

Half bulldozer, half ballerina, Viduka was the twinkle-toed goal man of a Leeds United workforce who dared to dream, earlier than fading from the consciousness to run a espresso store in Zagreb.

Noughties Nines: Mark Viduka – Australia’s most interesting ahead

Steven Pienaar

Steven Pienaar’s finest soccer got here throughout two spells with Everton the place the winger shaped a part of a Toffees workforce on the verge of breaking into the highest 4.

Arduous-working and technical, his £2m arrival was a snip for the Blues at a time when David Moyes was the very best discount hunter within the league. Was there a cooler left-sided partnership than Pienaar and Leighton Baines?

Michu

We’re can’t all the time bear in mind for certain the place Michu got here from, or the place he went afterwards, however we all know for one season (and one season solely) he was merely unstoppable at Swansea.

Maybe the one-season marvel of the Premier League period, Michu bagged 22 targets and gained the League Cup throughout his debut season in South Wales, having arrived from La Liga for a pittance.

A membership icon and Premier League cult hero, there’s a way of mythology relating to Michu.

Rory Delap

‘Can they do it on a chilly, wet night time in Stoke?’

It’s turn into a phrase cemented into the soccer lexicon, used to explain the last word English soccer acid check. Treacherous journeys to Stoke Metropolis took no prisoners within the Barclays period, as Tony Pulis’s aspect bullied and battled their strategy to Premier League factors.

The trump card for the Potters was Rory Delap, whose ludicrous lengthy throws incited panic in penalty containers. Stoke was the land of the giants contained in the field and Delap’s deliveries, hurled through which Herculean energy, have been their chief weapon.

“I bear in mind trying over at you (Stoke) within the tunnel and it was like Jurassic Park mate,” Joe Cole joked to ex-Chelsea teammate and former Stoke participant Robert Huth.

“You have been big! Kenwyne Jones couldn’t even match via the door as a result of his shoulders have been so vast. You have been the toughest… and this can be a praise, a horrible aspect to play towards.”

Morten Gamst Pedersen

Plucked from obscurity and proprietor of a spotlight reel that by no means will get boring, Morten Gamst Pederson is maybe the Barclaysman development personified.

The Scandinavian winger with the boyband highlighted hair pitched up at Blackburn Rovers and cemented fan favorite standing throughout virtually a decade at Ewood Park. With a candy left foot that would thwack a ball goal-wards from any distance or angle, Pedersen suits the temporary.

Learn – Six Premier League gamers who shone through the worldwide break

See extra – Rating the very best teenage footballers on this planet proper now

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