| JOSEMI PROFILE Date of Birth - 15/11/79
Nationality - Spanish
Position - Right Back
Cost - £2m
Games - 35
Goals - 0
Club Hons (Lpool) - Champions League 2005
Intnl Hons - None
Other Clubs - Torremolinos, Malaga, Villarreal |
Tough tackling and tenacious Spanish right back Josemi (full name Jose Miguel Gonzales) became Rafa Benitez' first signing as Liverpool manager when he arrived from Malaga in July 2004.
Josemi began his career at hometown club Torremolinos before moving on to Malaga, where he blossomed into one of the most solid full backs in Spanish football.
After assessing the Liverpool squad he inherited, Benitez identified right back as a problem position and saw Josemi, a player he knew well from La Liga, as the answer to that problem and snapped him up for a bargain £2m.
Initially it looked a shrewd purchase, as the combative full back produced a man of the match display on his debut against Spurs, but a couple of weeks later he was exposed time and again by Bolton's Henrik Pedersen, and and it went downhill fast from then on.
A knee injury which ruled him out for six weeks was actually greeted with relief by many supporters, and he never looked comfortable whenever called upon. When he played, bad things tended to happen. He failed to settle on or off the field, and it was no surprise when he was shipped off to Villarreal in a swap deal with Jan Kromkamp in January 2006.
