| MARK GONZALEZ PROFILE
by Joe Dodd Date of Birth - 10/07/84
Nationality - Chilean
Position - Winger
Cost - £4.5m
Games - 36
Goals - 3
Club Hons (Lpool) - 2006 Community Shield
Intnl Hons - Chile Caps
Other Clubs - Universidad Catolica Santiago, Albacete, Real Sociedad (loan), Real Betis |
Going by the full moniker of Mark Dennis Gonzalez Hoffman, the Chilean International finally joined the club in time for the start of the 2006-7 season. Originally signed by Rafa Benitez on loan from Albacete a year earlier, he was at first denied a work permit by the Department of Employment. In a sign of his faith that he had discovered a potential match winner Rafa then decided to purchase Gonzalez outright, despite him suffering from a serious knee ligament injury at the time, and loan him back to Spain.
After recovering from injury Gonzalez made an impressive impact at Real Sociedad, scoring 5 goals in 12 appearances, most of them from long range, and helping to keep Sociedad in the division. Due to this form and maybe Chile's rise up the international rankings (who can really tell with the DoE's inconsistent decisions?) a work permit was duly granted at the second time of asking.
Because of Rafa's long drawn out chase of the player, and the YouTube highlights of his goals in Spain, many Liverpool fans were building up hopes that we had a real top player on our hands. Unfortunately the start of Gonzalez's Liverpool career was a stop-start affair, again blighted by untimely injuries.
There's no doubt that "Dave" had pace and an eye for a goal, but he never seemed to get to grips with the demands of English football and his performances seemed to get worse, not better, as the season wore on. It was no great surprise when he was sold to Real Betis after just one season on Merseyside.
