PODCAST: Liverpool's best and worst ever signings?

[dave u 7,830]

It's up now.

[dave u 7,830]

11 hours ago, lifetime fan said:

£300,000 for the clubs record goal scorer and no one has mentioned him? 
 

Clueless cunts the lot of you. 

 

Mention him? I put him in my three. Come on man!

[lifetime fan 12,711]

4 minutes ago, dave u said:

 

Mention him? I put him in my three. Come on man!

Meant in this thread, not listened to the pod yet. 

[dave u 7,830]

In that case sorry for the spoiler haha

[johnsusername 3,523]

Yeats 

Dalglish

Rush

 

Joe Cole

Balotelli

Ruddock

 

[Saucepan 62]

Christian Poulsen

[Arniepie 750]

On 29/07/2022 at 23:28, Razoray said:

Top 3 would be same as KMD7

 

3. Barnes - my favourite. Great player, a joy to watch and a class act of a man. Love him. 

2. Virg - was said on the pod and by many others, when you see him live, he is like a under 18 playing in an under 14 game. Awesome.

1. Kenny - I started watching the team in 1979 so saw most of his playing career with us. I was too young to understand tactics etc. but knew he was The King and the smile was infectious. What he has done since is the reason why when the club was in the shit in 2011 and they turned to him it regained it's identity and regained the pride of it's people. A class act. 

 

With honorable mentions for Sami, Suarez, Allison and Mo

 

Worst 3.

 

3. Hysén - I don't necessarily think he was a poor player but we badly needed a replacement for the retired Lawrence and aging Hansen and bought a slow 30 year old. The beginning of the end IMO. Been mentioned on here previously- by Dave I think - that we should have bought Pallister or equivalent and not Rush in 88. We were sorted up top. Harsh on Rushie but the team had changed with wingers and Aldridge scored at a high level for a further 3 years. 

2. Dicks - Not just him but he was a reflection of lazy/fat/useless/unprofessional pricks that Souness bought. Could just have easily been Ruddock, Stewart (obviously not his fault at all), Piechnik, James etc. Due diligence was non-existent 

1. Diouf. All day long. The biggest scumbag to ever don the shirt. Should have been fucked out the window when he started the many things he disgraced the club with. He was the beginning of the end of the promising beginning of Houllier's reign. The 98-01 Ged wouldn't have gone near him. An embarrassment. 

 

Of course Aquilani Balottelli Markovic Kewell Saunders Clough etc. we're poor purchases and a massive waste of money but sometimes that can be written off. Some buys are reflective of the end of an era. 

 

I like to think Fellaini was the Manc one. 

 

 

Think that harsh on hysen that thf.

From memory he wasn't that bad in his 1st season when we won the league.

Doesn't the story go that kenny was keen on pallister but then got the opportunity to bring rush back?

It took pallister a good 2/3 to come good at utd and we didn't have the luxury of waiting that long.

[JohnnyH 7,394]

As part of my 3 hour drive this morning I had a TLW fest of the Fulham pod and then this, which I finished while having breakfast in Barna just outside of Galway on the way to Inverin.

 

A really good podcast I have to say.  Terry was a breath of fresh air.  Loved the wit and hope to hear more from him.

 

It was a really interesting discussion and I loved the differing reasons for people having a "best" signing.  Was it best because of ability, longevity, price, trophies, whatever.  All valid reasons.  An obvious and correct winner.  I laughed when Hyypia was mentioned.  I loved him and thought he was our best CB since Hansen, before VVD arrived.  But, still; one of the best?  But then as the arguments were being made I found myself nodding along.  Not just a great player, and Captain (or a bit) and attitude.  But then it also signified positive change in the club.  So I was all in on it.

 

Still can't wrap my head around Dave giving Countinho the honour though.  I understand his reasoning, but effectively he is saying he's our greatest ever signing because we sold him.  I assumed he was going to pick Racist Mc Biteface though, so I'm happier he picked a different South American.

 

Now, as for the worst......  

 

I feared my boy Aquilani was going to be picked and we were going to hear a load of guff and repeated made-up nonsense about him, and those fears were founded.

 

I fully agree that he was a terrible signing.  It didn't work out from day one (compounded by him being signed with a significant injury) and so having spent that much, to then only play a handful of games, and then by shipped out out on loan, has to be a significant failure.

 

But lads on the pod were saying really extreme things from a position of complete ignorance. 

 

Someone was calling it a "negligent" signing.  And others suggesting there was bungs involved.  That's ridiculous and stinks of the insular 'there's no football outside of England' attitude we see from fans. 

 

This is a player Ferguson's Man Utd tried to sign the season before where he was a key player in the Roma midfield that just missed out on the title (he was injured in the run in).  He was man of the match in the 2008 Coppa Italia Final win against Inter (a match I was at). I was living in Italy at the time and saw him play loads of times and he was superb.  I was desperate for him to sign for us and was then gutted when the Utd links came up.  When we signed him the following season I was over the moon as I'd seen first hand what the lad could do.  The idea it was negligent because of his quality is simply wrong.  Now he had a poor injury record and so I'm more than happy to agree there was a level of ignorance and negligence in thinking we could somehow change that, but sure haven't we done that just now with Thiago?  But to deny his quality is just not true.

 

Even the myths around his loan deals are now becoming "fact".  Like he had to play "14 games to seal a permanent deal to Juve so they jibbed him off after 13 games".  He played 33 league games that season alone.  Juve wanted to sign him but we were asking too much, and they were offering too little.  And when they couldn't get him, the Italian Champions, AC Milan, brought him in, because Champions always look to sign terrible footballers....  Again he did well, playing 23 games before injury stopped him.  He then signed properly for Fiorentina where he played for 3 seasons, playing lots of games and winning somewhere in the region of another 30 caps for Italy. Hardly this terrible player....

 

As you can see, I feel sorry for Aquilani.  As much as it was denied on the pod, a significant part of the 'hate' for him comes from who he was replacing.  Even the ones who said that that didn't matter, were bringing up Alonso within seconds. 

 

I'm not sure he could have made it here even if he was signed fit as, in hindsight, I just don't think his body was up to it, much like Thiago.  But it really grates on me when I hear Liverpool fans confidently saying he was never any good, and it was negligence to sign him, etc, as it's just not based on any kind of fact.  It's fans just assuming a foreign player was terrible because he wasn't any good at their club and didn't exist in their mind before arriving so therefore he was shite.  He wasn't shite, and when he left us he even went on to be good and challenging for league titles in Italy as we were scrubbing around 6th  

 

So, in conclusion.  A terrible signing, but not a terrible player.  I'd certainly have Andy Carrol and Diouf way ahead of him.