Liverpool Top Ten Signings – When Rafa got it Right
What this list shows is both the positive and negative sides of Rafa’s spending in his time at Liverpool. Only four of them cost £10million or more (Torres, Alonso, Mascherano and Kuyt), something that indicates Liverpool’s true lack of spending power that Benitez has had to cope with, but only of one them is English, Peter Crouch.
1. Fernando Torres
What can you say about this player? Probably the best twenty odd million any club has spent on any player. Rafa probably wouldn’t sell him for £100 million if he was offered by Manchester City. A superb all round striker with a magnificent goalscoring record, he strikes fear in any opposition defence with his speed, strength, heading, shooting abilities and overall work rate. Will become an Anfield legend if he stays fit and stays at Liverpool for the rest of his career.
2. Xabi Alonso
It was a real shock to Liverpool players and fans alike when he was sold to Real Madrid for £30million in the summer. Bought for a quite a large sum of £10.5million at the start of Rafa Benitez reign, Alonso repaid and then some the faith shown by his manager to succeed in the Premier League. Without Alonso this season Liverpool have struggled, his accurate 40 yard diagonal balls and general distribution of play allowed Liverpool to control games, providing ammunition to both Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres to score their goals. It is still perplexing why Alonso fell out of favour with Benitez and Rafa has only himself to blame for the sale as Alonso felt unwanted during the boss’s long pursuit of Gareth Barry.
3. Pepe Reina
Has made a couple of errors during his time at Anfield, but Jose Antonia Reina has mostly been a very reliable goalkeeper for Liverpool. An excellent shot-stopper but more significantly, the best distributor of the ball in the world. From hand or from feet, when he releases the ball he generally finds the feet of an attacking Liverpool player. Definitely one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League.
4. Javier Mascherano
Relegated to sitting on the bench on West Ham by both Alan Pardew and Alan Curbishley who didn’t fancy this Argentinean defensive midfielder. God knows why, now Argentina captain, Mascherano is the archetypal midfield enforcer, breaking up opposition attacks and setting up attacking positions for his own team. Sometimes a fiery character, Mascherano is however an excellent tackler and pressurises opponents into mistakes which provides a great security blanket for the back four. His performances have dipped this season due to heavy interest from Barcelona; let’s hope he doesn’t go the same way as Alonso.
5. Yossi Benayoun
I thought this was a strange signing when Benitez first bought him from West Ham, but I have happily been proved wrong as Benayoun has been arguably been Liverpool’s best player over the last six months. He is a player of very slight build, but has the balance and the ball-control which allow him to dribble past multiple opponents, opening up opportunities for others as well as scoring a few handy goals himself. He is also great at opening defences with incisive passes, like the one he did recently for Fernando Torres against Manchester United last month.
6. Daniel Agger
Injury has plagued his stay at Liverpool. What we have seen of him though is that he is a very assured defender. He is young, fast and could become a prominent figure in Liverpool’s backline for years to come if he stays fit. He also has a remarkable left foot on him, making him capable of 30 – 40 yard piledrivers that not many defenders are capable of. A cultured defender whose distribution of the ball is equally as important as tackling and reading the game, he could help Liverpool to a Premier League title in the future.
7. Peter Crouch
He was certainly not somebody I thought I would be seeing in a Liverpool shirt but Benitez saw something in him the rest of us didn’t. Most Liverpool fans were regretting that he had paid £7million for the striker when he struggled to score single goal in the first few months during his time at Anfield, Benitez however kept faith with him and his faith paid off. He started to score goals, and there were a few spectacular ones too, including a couple of scissor kicks from the 6ft 7 striker. His best moment in a Liverpool shirt was probably when he scored a wonderful hat-trick against Arsenal. He is such an awkward opponent and it was a shame when Benitez sold him to Portsmouth, we could do with him at the moment to give us at different option in attack.
8. Luis Garcia
Who could forget that supposed ‘ghost’ goal against Chelsea in the Champions League semi finals? Garcia scored many crucial, and spectacular goals during his time at Liverpool including a great strike against Juventus in the previous round and another in the semi final of the FA Cup against Chelsea a year later. He will always be remembered for that goal against Chelsea though and his move to Atletico Madrid was only less disappointing because of who came in the opposite direction.
9. Dirk Kuyt
Bough for £10million as a prolific striker, some would say Dirk Kuyt has failed to live up to expectations. In some respects, you would be right, but the Dutch forward has morphed into a completely different player during his time at the club. No one would doubt his work ethic, he is the hardest working player on the field, tracking back, making runs from the right and tackling opponents hard. He may not be that 20 goal a season man we thought he was going to be but Kuyt has scored many crucial goals in Europe which have helped the club progress through to the latter stages of the Champions League including a last minute extra time goal against Standard Liege over a year ago to keep Liverpool in the Champions League and avoid heavy financial losses.
10. Fabio Aurelio
Probably an odd choice for some Liverpool fans but Aurelio has two things in his armoury that deserve to put him on this list. As a left full-back, like all Brazilians, Aurelio loves to get forward and can put in excellent balls from the left. What puts him into the top ten however is his free kick taking ability which was demonstrably shown against Manchester United in the 4-1 victory at Old Trafford last year. More of that sort of thing, and Aurelio’s name will be sung around Anfield as well as the other illustrious names on this list.
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Erm, his name is José Manuel Reina Páez. Ther’s no ‘Antonia’ involved.
Research man! Other than that, good article!
Sorry Tone, I actually knew he was called Jose Manuel but was rushing doing the article. Did not check my writing thoroughly enough. Wasn’t even ‘Antonio,’gave him a girls name, oops!
I know the feeling. I always tend to leave things to the last minute, much to my Editor’s dismay!
What about Glen Johnson? He certainly deserves to be in this list.
yeah noticed reina’s name being wrong straight away,also kuyt cost £9.6m so that is 3 players over £10m read the times today good interview with benitez