Former England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey was on Tuesday’s OTB AM and spoke about dealing with criticism both during and after his career.
Heskey had a successful career at both club and international level and scored over 100 goals in the Premier League.
However, there is a notion that he rarely scored and it’s a critique that the Englishman has had to put up with for many years.
“A fan came up and said, ‘You were a great player, but you didn’t score enough.’ ‘I scored over 100 goals in the Premier League.’ ‘Oh did you?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Oh, I didn’t know that. Well, I’m a rugby fan anyway.’
“But this is the notion that people will actually get. [People] who don’t really know football. That I didn’t score enough,” Heskey said.
The Leicester-born ex-striker identified fellow high-scoring Romelu Lukaku as another player who often gets unfair treatment from the public.
“Even now you talk about stuff like Lukaku. ‘He’s not good at this, he’s not good at that.’ He’s the top scorer for Belgium. He’s one of the youngest to get to 100 goals in the Premier League.
"But we forget that because people are saying that he can’t control the ball. He’s good at controlling the ball but he’s not a vision of what you want him to be,” Heskey explained.
Heskey believes that Lukaku has also come under unfair criticism.While many footballers can be affected by criticism from the public and the media Heskey was able to block out the noise and focus on his game.
He did, however, note that it may be harder to do so in today’s day and age with social media potentially being a major detriment for younger players.
“I wouldn’t allow it because I knew my worth and I knew what I was bringing to the table. As well I actually distanced myself from it.
“Now it’s difficult because you have social media and it’s always in your pocket and it’s always there. But back then it was newspapers. So you could take yourself away from that,” Heskey commented.
Heskey's football career came to an end in 2016 but the former striker recently released a book named Even Heskey Scored which delves into the life and career of the man himself.
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