Most overrated players we signed that never became good

[TheDrowningMan]

35 minutes ago, Cij said:

El Hadji Diouf - his performances for Senegal at the 2002 World Cup garnered a lot of praise and created considerable hype about his impending arrival at Liverpool. As it transpired, he was one of the most loathsome pricks ever to sign for the club. Spitting at a Celtic fan and a child supporter of Boro, robbing Mellor's debut penalty opportunity, constantly ripping Gerrard and Carragher. The man is, was, and always will be a 24 carat dickhead. 

I’ve long harboured the suspicion that Houllier was serving up a prime cut of horseshit with his insistence that Diouf was always on the cards that summer. I don’t recall any sort of link prior to the World Cup and, to be quite honest, nothing about him as a player suggested he was what that team needed in order to kick-on.

[Aventus]

Balotelli is one for me, in hindsight he was never overrated in the first place but I was so desperate for us to have a good player that I convinced myself he was a potential superstar with the right coaching. 

 

I can see why supporters of a certain blue club harbour similar delusions about their players. 

[RoyHodgeGone]

Mark Kennedy

Igor Biscan

Bruno Cheyrou

Djibril Cisse

 

It's unfair in a way, you can't blame players for not being world class but they got the hype. I wouldn't include people like Kewell/Balotelli who were obvious talents that didn't work out. The excitement made some sense. The mystery is why the guys above were hyped in the first place. I think the story with Diouf was he was recommended to Houllier by someone he really trusted  - Patrice Berges? - and so he went with him.

[Jimmy Hills Chin]

Paul Stewart 

[Ron B]

2 hours ago, TheDrowningMan said:

Babb gave me pause about signing a player off the back of his World Cup performances, Diouf ensured I'll always think it a terrible idea to buy someone hailed as one of the stars of the tournament immediately afterwards. It’s an easy ticket to flushing millions on someone who had never before troubled any sort of “best of” list on account of a handful of good games and will comprehensively fail to look anywhere near as impressive at club level (which is no surprise, given they didn’t look anywhere near as impressive at club level before their summer jaunt).

Babb had apparently been available before the World Cup for somewhere around £1million. His price tag after the tournament, and then his subsequent performances for us, showed just how much he’d benefited from playing alongside Paul McGrath.

Personally I was more excited about picking up John Scales, who had been linked with a big money move for years and looked far more like the sort of ball-playing central defender we needed. Even at the time it was obvious we’d probably overpaid, but Evans was being bold and decisive in an area he felt we had to improve.

Hindsight, eh?

[Ron B]

2 hours ago, TheDrowningMan said:

Babb gave me pause about signing a player off the back of his World Cup performances, Diouf ensured I'll always think it a terrible idea to buy someone hailed as one of the stars of the tournament immediately afterwards. It’s an easy ticket to flushing millions on someone who had never before troubled any sort of “best of” list on account of a handful of good games and will comprehensively fail to look anywhere near as impressive at club level (which is no surprise, given they didn’t look anywhere near as impressive at club level before their summer jaunt).

Babb had apparently been available before the World Cup for somewhere around £1million. His price tag after the tournament, and then his subsequent performances for us, showed just how much he’d benefited from playing alongside Paul McGrath.

Personally I was more excited about picking up John Scales, who had been linked with a big money move for years and looked far more like the sort of ball-playing central defender we needed. Even at the time it was obvious we’d probably overpaid, but Evans was being bold and decisive in an area he felt we had to improve.

Hindsight, eh?

[JohnnyH]

1991-2019

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

Players that were brilliant at other clubs but never really fulfilled their potential here: Clough, Litmanen, Anelka, Morientes.

 

Overrated as fuck, utter shite here and a disgrace to the club: Balotelli.

[Mcfaggen]

3 hours ago, RoyHodgeGone said:

Mark Kennedy

Igor Biscan

Bruno Cheyrou

Djibril Cisse

 

It's unfair in a way, you can't blame players for not being world class but they got the hype. I wouldn't include people like Kewell/Balotelli who were obvious talents that didn't work out. The excitement made some sense. The mystery is why the guys above were hyped in the first place. I think the story with Diouf was he was recommended to Houllier by someone he really trusted  - Patrice Berges? - and so he went with him.

I was going to say Cheyrou. He was supposed to be class. He was not. 

[3 Stacks]

6 hours ago, The Golden Eel said:

Markovic?

That's the one that comes to my mind. Was made to sound like Messi. I remember Avram Grant said he was the second best player he'd ever seen in his career when he saw him at Partizan. Matic said he was one of the most talented players he'd ever seen.

 

I've never seen a player with such an obvious ability to carry the ball, with pace and close control, and then fail to do anything productive with it, pretty much every time. 

[3 Stacks]

3 hours ago, Aventus said:

Balotelli is one for me, in hindsight he was never overrated in the first place but I was so desperate for us to have a good player that I convinced myself he was a potential superstar with the right coaching. 

 

I can see why supporters of a certain blue club harbour similar delusions about their players. 

Balotelli should have been a top player, though. And in odd games during his career when he's been arsed he's been unplayable. I wouldn't have blamed any coach, or fan alike from thinking he'd be great. 

[Guest]

Ryan Babel really was talked about being a world class player, I'm sure a Dutch legend (perhaps Cruyff?) was lauding him as the next great Dutch talent. Occasionally he looked like a great player but it was occasional, mostly he was more Jordi Cruyff legend than Johan Cruyff legend.

 

Also Dean Saunders seemed to be hyped up so much that anything below great would have been a disappointment. He was merely good, as I recall.

 

Not sure if Mark Walters belongs here. Was he supposed to be a really good player? He struggled a bit when I saw him.

[aRdja]

Anthony Le Tallec and Fernando Morientes

[Red74]

5 hours ago, Reckoner said:

Nigel Clough, clay faced disappointment 

I came here to say this. He let me down big time this lad. I couldn’t wait for him to play for us 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

23 minutes ago, Fluter in Dakota said:

Ryan Babel really was talked about being a world class player, I'm sure a Dutch legend (perhaps Cruyff?) was lauding him as the next great Dutch talent. 

Who was the other Dutch lad who was the main star in that Dutch youth side, who went to Real Madrid about the time we signed Babel, but pissed it all away so badly that he was even slumming it at Everton for a while, before retiring due to apathy around the age of 30?

 

By those standards, Babel's career was stellar!

[Shitty Arse]

6 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Who was the other Dutch lad who was the main star in that Dutch youth side, who went to Real Madrid about the time we signed Babel, but pissed it all away so badly that he was even slumming it at Everton for a while, before retiring due to apathy around the age of 30?

 

By those standards, Babel's career was stellar!

Royston Drenthe

[JagSquared]

Ziege was a clusterfuck he was great before, didn’t we get into trouble for signing him (tapping up) such a waste.

 

i was gutted litmanen didn’t really work out, he was superb at Ajax and I couldn’t wait as he was genuinely world class. Still don’t understand why he wasn’t given a fair shake, I guess he didn’t suit the football but it was a missed opportunity. 
 

I never thought morientes would work for us.

 

chris Kirkland was meant to be England’s Future number one and solve our goalkeeper problems for years. He was a massive fee for his age too.

[Trumo]

Andy Carroll. Had one season with Newcastle in the second tier, and a 2-month purple patch in the top flight before his performances tailed off, and then he got injured. We paid (HOW)WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY over the odds for him out of desperation, and his performances never matched the ridiculous hype that had been built up around him. Since then, his career has been a combination of the odd goal, sporadic performances, megabucks contracts and so much time spent in the physio's room as to make Sturridge and Lallana look robust.

[Shitty Arse]

A lot of players mentioned here you just knew they wouldn’t be any good for us. I mean Robbie Keane for fucks sake? The stand out one for me is Kewell. I was fucking made up the summer he chose to sign for us. He had looked genuinely world class under O Leary at Leeds. I really thought he was good enough to turn us into serious title contenders! Well how wrong can you be ?!
Bit unfair to lump Litmanen in here who came at the end of his career after having loads of injuries. He still looked silky as fuck in his cameo appearances. I remember one game at Villa away in particular which we won 2-1. He must’ve been a special player in his prime. Also unfair putting Anelka in here as it was insanity letting him go so early when he clearly wanted to stay at the club.

[mattyq]

Collymore

Had his moments but wildly inconsistent and looked uninterested at times

Had the talent to be something special... what a waste

[AngryOfTuebrook]

42 minutes ago, Soft Joe said:

Royston Drenthe

That's the fucker.

[liverpoolsno9]

31 minutes ago, mattyq said:

Collymore

Had his moments but wildly inconsistent and looked uninterested at times

Had the talent to be something special... what a waste

Collymore was very good here, his discipline and personal problems fucked him, but he had more than ‘moments’, 81 Apps in all comps, 35 goals, 16 assists suggests he wasn’t wildly inconsistent. And I certainly wouldn’t say he ‘never become good’ here. 

[Code]

7 hours ago, manwiththestick said:

Mark Kennedy

Phil Babb

 

 

Mark Kennedy, was going with him as well.
 

 

[Grinch]

3 hours ago, 3 Stacks said:

That's the one that comes to my mind. Was made to sound like Messi. I remember Avram Grant said he was the second best player he'd ever seen in his career when he saw him at Partizan. Matic said he was one of the most talented players he'd ever seen.

 

I've never seen a player with such an obvious ability to carry the ball, with pace and close control, and then fail to do anything productive with it, pretty much every time. 

 

That's what judging players on youtube videos will do for you.

[3 Stacks]

2 hours ago, Grinch said:

 

That's what judging players on youtube videos will do for you.

No, in his case you could actually take into consideration the opinion of a fellow professional footballer and coach which is what I actually wrote.