Liverpool’s 15 most expensive sold players
By Ethan Lowe
Stan Collymore
Date Sold: 13th May 1997 Appearances: 81 Goals: 35
Stan Collymore was a controversial player indeed, who signed for Liverpool on the first of January, 1995, for £8.5m. Stan Collymore showed his first signs of being both a great player and a pain to coach when at Nottingham Forest. In his first season for the club Stan scored 19 goals in just 28 league appearances – helping Forest earn promotion to the top division. All looked well and good, but off the field things weren’t actually going as well for Stan as they seemed. His former manager, Frank Clark, had this to say about Stan in an interview;
“I’m not sure I will live long enough to understand exactly how the boy’s brain works. Some people might accuse me of treating Stan with kid gloves on most occasions. My answer would be: `You try and cope with the lad, because it’s not easy’. Stan didn’t really get close to his teammates. There was often a certain cool in the air. I remember him decking Alf Inge Haaland with a left hook during training.”
Stan went on to earn himself his first England cap, before moving to Liverpool for a record breaking £8.5m – a move that he celebrated by scoring a 25-yard winner on his debut for the reds. In his first season, Collymore partnered with Robbie Fowler, scoring 55 combined goals in the 1995/96 season. Anticipation was high for the following season, but Collymore started to wind up his manager and the rest of his team-mates, even refusing to move to Liverpool and instead deciding to travel 80 miles from his home to train and play in matches.
As you can probably guess, Collymore was a difficult personality to work with, and despite him and Fowler scoring 47 goals in their second season together, Collymore was sold to Aston Villa in a £7million deal.
15) Stan Collymore: Sold for £7million
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