Football fans the world over are used to transfer disappointments and Liverpool is no different.
The club has had a few over the years, but this list look at 12 that hurt supporters the most. Not because they were the worst, but because they just didn’t work quite as they wanted.
That could have been for a number of reasons – perhaps they never bedded in properly or hit the heights that were expected. Maybe they were played out of position, or sold too early.
Whatever the reason, fans invest a lot of emotional energy in football and in new arrivals and it can hurt when it doesn’t work out.
And it’s for that reason that you’ll find players who had an okay career at Anfield on this list, but perhaps never played to the best of their talent.
So scroll down through this list to read about 12 of the biggest Liverpool transfer disappointments and read about the justification via this Reddit feed.
Robbie Keane
Irish striker Robbie Keane was only given six months at Liverpool before being sold back to Tottenham Hotspur.
There is an air of mystery around the signing and why it didn’t last very long, but one thing is for sure: fans never ever saw the best version of Keane.
With 19 league appearances and five goals, things never really clicked for the Republic of Ireland international.
Keane blamed manager at the time Rafa Benitez for his failure. “He [Benitez] wanted to change me to a left winger and I mean I am clearly not a left winger, and that is obviously clear for everyone to see,” the Daily Star reported that the striker complained.
Joe Cole
Former Chelsea winger Joe Cole arrived on a free transfer and is another big ‘what if’. Despite possessing bags of talent, it never worked out at Anfield and Cole was probably past it by then anyway.
His first ever game for Liverpool ended in disaster when the winger was sent off against Arsenal and things never really got better for him from there.
Cole only started a small percentage of competitive games in his first reason on Merseyside, and as Aygers said on that Reddit thread ‘never seemed to be bothered to play for us. Didn’t help that Woy was the manager, the whole club was in disarray at that time.’
After leaving Liverpool, Cole went on to blast the club. “I can only play for teams that I’m passionate about and I think that’s what went wrong for me at Liverpool,” ESPN reported that he said. “I didn’t feel a connection with the club or the place that I had at Chelsea and West Ham.”
Alberto Aquilani
Italian midfielder Alberto Aquilani was supposed to be the answer to Liverpool’s midfield problems after Xabi Alonso left, but Aquilani failed miserably and will be forever remembered as a flop.
Injuries were probably the main reason the Roma man never took off at Anfield. He somehow passed a medical despite not playing for months due to an ankle problem.
After making a brief debut in November, Aquilani finally made his full debut in December and went on to register six assist for the campaign. Not a bad return given how little he played.
But his time on Merseyside didn’t last long and the Italian returned to him homeland with AC Milan and Juventus – leaving a giant pile of ‘what ifs’ behind him.
Fernando Morientes
Former Real Madrid striker Fernando Moreintes joined Liverpool as Michael Owen was making the opposite trip, but never hit the heights that were expected of him.
With 112 La Liga goals in less than 300 appearances, the Spanish international looked to be a high-class player who could make an impact, but in 41 Premier League games he only scored eight goals and never established himself as a key first team member.
Everyone was excited when Morientes arrived and could see his quality, but he never took off in England and that will forever be a huge disappointment for fans.
After 18 frustrating months, he was moved on back to his homeland, leaving Liverpool fans to scratch their heads and try to work out what went wrong.
Lazar Markovic
When Brendan Rodgers signed Serbian Lazar Markovic from Benfica, he tried to convince the world that Liverpool had just landed someone with world-class potential.
A lack of opportunities seem to have stunted his progress, something that Reddit users agree with. “Early on he kept showing flashes of talent, the kind which usually suggest a bright figure, then so few opportunities he just didn’t progress,” said Every_Geth.
After a range of loan moves that never seemed to work out, Markovic is back in the first team squad but it looks like he won’t play for the first team.
With plenty of options out wide, this looks like it will go down in the record books as another giant missed opportunity.
Markus Babbel
This looked like it could have been one of the best free transfers in Liverpool history, but then fate swooped in and robbed the club of an excellent player.
A highly successful time in Germany with Bayern Munich culminated in Real Madrid making an approach for the German, which he rejected in favour of coming to Anfield. What a legend!
But then Guillan-Barre syndrome struck down Babbel. After being left in a wheelchair, it took the defender 15 months to complete rehabilitation and return to football.
However, his return was not a happy one and the German struggled with discipline and fitness issues – understandably so. Eventually he was moved on to Blackburn Rovers and then back to the Bundesliga with Stuttgart.
Harry Kewell
Australian winger Harry Kewell could have been so much more. After being voted Premier League Young Player of the Year for 99/00, Liverpool snapped him up for £5 million after Leeds United suffered financial ruin.
After a good debut season, injuries began to take their toll on the player – who would fluctuate between being able to play and sitting on the sidelines.
The list of ailments that Kewell suffered where lengthy, including septic arthritis – and the Aussie only played 93 times in the league five seasons. Tellingly, 62 of those appearances came in two campaigns.
A tricky winger who could terrorise defences as well as possessing a good eye for goal, the former Leeds man never achieved what he was capable at Liverpool and that will forever be a great shame.
Christian Benteke
Another striker who came to the club with a good record is Belgian Christian Benteke, but he was never going to fit in with the club’s style and failed to flourish at Anfield.
Benteke got everyone’s hopes up after some excellent years at Aston Villa, but he looked like a square peg in a round hole and was swiftly jettisoned under Jurgen Klopp.
His strengths were not suited to the way the Reds played and despite a strong start to his career, the goals dried up along with his confidence.
Crystal Palace soon came calling for the bruiser, and who knows what would have happened had he moved to a team whose style was more suited to his play.
Karl-Heinz Riedle
What is the deal with strikers and disappointing those around them? There seems to be so much guesswork around the science of bringing in players to score goals, and Karl-Heinz Riedle is another that didn’t work out.
“I hadn’t heard that name in a long time. I thought that he would be an excellent Premiership centre forward. Such disappointment,” summed up C_stat.
76 appearances across three seasons and 15 goals was the sum of Riedle’s stay on Merseyside as he made the trip to London to play for Fulham.
Jari Litmanen
Finnish striker Jari Litmanen emerged out of the Netherlands as one of the best players in the world, yet when he left Liverpool he was a shadow of his former self.
Litmanen moved to Barcelona on a free transfer before the Reds finally signed him at the third time of asking, but an ankle injury meant Gerard Houllier was reluctant to play the Finn.
After just two seasons at the club, he moved back to Ajax after played 43 times across both campaigns. Strangely, Houllier had praised him to the hilt upon signing Litmanen, but then hardly played him.
This one could have turned out so differently had the forward been managed a bit better, but we’l never know.
Mario Balotelli
Should Mario Balotelli have made this list? His potential was definitely there, and in that respect his failure was certainly a disappointment to fans. However, all the signs that we wouldn’t were there – so can we really class it as a disappointment rather than a poor buy?
Well to some fans it should be. The Italian had shown extraordinary flashes of quality during his time with the national side and Manchester City and Brendan Rodgers was well within his rights to roll the dice.
But this is a deal that never looked good. Balotelli hardly played, hardly scored and was an all round waste of money and talent.
Nuri Sahin
Was this one Rodger’s fault or Nur Sahin’s? The Borussia Dortmund man is definitely a good player, so was he just unlucky and horribly played out of position?
“Amazing loan that fell in our lap, but Brendan played him out of position and they kind of fell out. Loan cancelled by January. I was pretty bummed about that,” said konja04.
The playmaker certainly could have made Liverpool a better team, but he was played in the wrong role over and over again.
Next: Liverpool’s 32 Best Signings Under Brendan Rodgers
Sahin then proved his quality by going to Germany and turning it on for Klopp at Dortmund. Brendan, this one is on you.