10 Things Eric Cantona Wants You To Forget

9. Graeme Souness Decided Against Signing Him For Liverpool

Before the trial at Sheffield Wednesday and ultimately signing for Leeds United, Cantona was actually offered to Liverpool at the end of 1991. With Cantona€™s days in France€™s Division 1 by this point looking numbered, his club Auxerre were looking to ship the enigmatic talent out of the door. After Auxerre were knocked out of the 1991 UEFA Cup at the Second Round stage by Liverpool, the French national manager Michel Platini met with the Anfield club€™s then-manager Graeme Souness to explore the possibility of Cantona moving to Liverpool. As it would happen, Souness said no. One of his reasons for this was call was that he didn€™t want to mess with the harmony of his dressing room. Fair enough. The other reason, though, well that was a little bit more surprising. Graeme Souness turned down the chance to have Eric Cantona sign for Liverpool partly down to being happy with his forward line at that time. A forward line that included Ronny Rosenthal, and one that would see Paul Stewart and Nigel Clough added to it. Granted, Ian Rush was still there at that point and Dean Saunders was also just about around (before being shortly sold to Aston Villa), but surely Souness must have looked back with regret on that decision at times over the years. Also, it€™s pretty certain that a Manchester United icon like Eric Cantona would rather fans forget that he was offered to, and turned down by, arch rivals Liverpool.
Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.