Scottish former football player and BBC television football pundit. He played as a central defender for Partick Thistle, for the successful Liverpool team of the late 70s and 80s, and for Scotland. As a player he had the misfortune to be playing when two notable football disasters occurred (at Heysel in Brussels and at Hillsborough in Sheffied). These left a lasting effect on him.
After retiring as a player in 1991. Hansen refused offers in football management: instead he was employed for 22 years as the main pundit for the BBC’s football coverage (rights to show matches or highlights permitting) and was known as a calm, authoritative, and rational analyst of the game who is particularly keen on highlighting the triumphs and “shocking”, “poor” or “diabolical” mistakes of defenders and commenting on “mediocre” performances. He is a columnist for the Daily Telegraph, Telegraph.co.uk and the BBC website on football issues and has also worked as a motivational speaker.
Hansen is known for coining the phrase “you can’t win anything with kids”, having made the remark following Manchester United’s 3–1 defeat to Aston Villa on the opening day of the 1995–96 Premier League season. After selling three high profile players (Paul Ince, Mark Hughes, and Andrei Kanchelskis) in the summer of 1995, United had introduced youth team players Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Nicky Butt and Gary Neville into the first team. United proved Hansen wrong by winning a league and cup double that season. Hansen still continues to this day to repeat these facts, for humorous effect. He later said that the phrase “made him” as a pundit, as people would shout it at him in public places.
Hansen retired as a football pundit at the relatively young age of 59 after the 2014 Football World Cup
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