A few days on from conceding a Peter Crouch header we face another former Liverpool striker in Djibril Cisse at QPR. I’ve always liked Cisse, he’s a character and he’s unpredictable and very capable of producing something special. He was too inconsistent to truly make it at Liverpool and moving him on was probably the right decision but nonetheless he’s still a player I have a lot of time for. Two leg breaks and playing for a manager who didn’t sign him obviously didn’t help his Liverpool career, and the £15 million price tag created expectations he couldn’t really live up to.
Facing Crouch and Cisse has got me thinking about other past Liverpool players who didn’t quite reach the levels we thought they should when they arrived. The five that come to mind for me are Jari Litmanen, Fernando Morientes, Harry Kewell, Joe Cole and Robbie Keane. The signings of every one of these created real excitement amongst Liverpool fans and they were all players we couldn’t see failing, they had the quality, experience and track record required to succeed at Anfield and would surely become key to the team.
Litmanen did well in patches, he showed calmness and quality when needed and made a decent contribution to the side but then we had two games in a row at Anfield against Kiev and Spurs both finishing 1-0 with Jari scoring the only goal and he didn’t start for us again. It’s never really been clear what happened between him and Gerard Houllier but his Liverpool adventure ended quietly rather than with the fireworks he could potentially have delivered for us.
Morientes arrived from Real Madrid with a fantastic reputation and a style of play that was surely suited to the English game but his goal return was poor. I think the hard work required in the Premier League maybe took him by surprise and he was a little too old to adapt. He is a good example of reputation counting for nothing when you move to a new league and culture, players need to prove themselves over again and need a fire burning inside them or things won’t go as well as they could.
Harry Kewell arrived as the final piece in the jigsaw (how many of them have we had?) and was immediately played in a different position to where he made his reputation at Leeds. Speed, skill and Premier League experience were his assets when he arrived. Laziness, greed and a tendency to get injured were the attributes he took with him when he left on a free. I think with Kewell he thought signing for Liverpool was a sign that he’d made it, rather than seeing it as a platform to improve his game and his profile. Joining Liverpool is an aim but it’s not the final result – winning trophies with Liverpool should be a player’s true end goal.
Joe Cole was a talented English footballer who had played as big a part as anybody in Chelsea’s successes in the Abramovich era and his arrival at Anfield was a big deal, we had beaten several clubs to his signature. It was a signing that had everybody talking and was a real note of optimism in what was a dark time for the club, Rafa had just left but the owners hadn’t and the fans needed something to cheer them up. Joe Cole should have been that something but he just never performed for us. Roy Hodgson’s tactics didn’t really play to the talents of a creative midfielder but even so Cole just didn’t seem the same player for us and is still technically out player but has been sent out on loan to Lille where he seems to be doing well.
Robbie Keane lasted six months at Anfield before being sold back to Spurs where he’d come from. A proven top division goalscorer with plenty of ability and experience who should have fit in perfectly at our club, a Liverpool fan all his life who said all the right things when he arrived and a player many supporters had wanted us to sign for years. Rafa had told the owners he wanted Keane but only if we signed Gareth Barry aswell, he had a tactical plan and a formation in his mind, The owners failed in their attempts to persuade Villa to part with Barry but brought in Keane anyway. He didn’t really fit into the team, Torres was on fire up front and Gerrard occupied the space behind the Spaniard not leaving anywhere for Keane to play. He went back to Tottenham as a flop but most Liverpool fans still have plenty of time for the likeable Irishman.
Imagine a side with Joe Cole on the right of midfield, Harry Kewell on the left, Fernando Moreintes up front with Robbie Keane and Jari Litmanen playing behind him. Add in an energetic tough tackler like Mascherano and you’ve got a front six that should grace any team in Europe.
It all goes to show that even the best players and the most well thought out transfers can fail. We have players at the club now who we have brought in for a lot of money, I don’t need to name who they are, that still haven’t got our supporters on the edges of their seats. If they never make the grade at Liverpool they won’t be the first and probably won’t be the last but it doesn’t mean they’re not decent players and they won’t have successful top level careers.
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