10 Most Ridiculously Underrated Ex Premier League Stars

What do Gary Lineker, Kevin Keegan, John Aldridge, Ian Rush and Andy Cole have in common? They played the best football of their careers with Peter Beardsley.

By the time the Premier League arrived in ‘92 Beardsley was approaching his mid-30s. Remarkably enough he was entering a golden phase: re-joining his home town club of Newcastle, he partnered Andy Cole in the most lethal strike-partnership the competition has even seen (55 goals in a single season). The newly promoted club finished 3rd, a feat impossible to imagine today.

It wasn’t the statistics, however, that made Beardsley special - everything about the way he played was extraordinary. Whether for England, Liverpool, Everton or Newcastle, he had an intelligence, and a desire to create which made good players around him look great. He said himself he found assists more satisfying than goals.

Yet goals are easier to judge: a quick YouTube search and you’ll see him walk past three defenders and round the keeper a dozen times. The same goes for chips and volleys, not to mention the 25 yard cannonballs. The full repertoire is there.

Notably ugly in an age of misshapen attackers and gnarled defenders, Beardsley’s looks might have contributed to his lack of recognition as a true great, while arriving a little late on the scene can't have helped.