17 Sept 2014

'I almost die': £9m star blasts BR for making it hard for him at LFC. Trouble ahead?

It came as absolutely no surprise to see Iago Aspas farmed out on loan this summer, and short of a massive, insurmountable injury crisis at Anfield, it's likely that Liverpool will try and sell the Spaniard next summer. Aspas seems to be struggling for game-time at Sevilla, too, but he seems to be happier in La Liga than in the Premier League.

In an interview today, Aspas revealed the despair he felt at spending all his time on the bench at Anfield. He told SFC Radio:

"Last year [at Liverpoo], it was hard for me to get minutes. I like playing football, I live it, and if I don't play I almost die."

Well, Aspas must've died a thousand deaths last year, that's for sure. This is not the first time Aspas has taken slight dig at LFC. Last week, he told reporters:

"Since I came to Sevilla, I set the goal of feeling like a footballer once again. After a year without playing it is almost like starting from scratch"

Aspas's frustration is understandable, but it's not as if he didn't have a chance to make his mark. He started four of Liverpool's first five league games last season, but made no impression whatsoever. After that, Luis Suarez returned from suspension, and his fate was sealed.

It was obvious Aspas would turn out to be a waste of money, and I argued this from the moment he arrived. At 27 years old, he was the wrong age to fit into the striker hierarchy at Anfield. Rodgers should've a young, hungry, inexperienced striker; someone who wouldn't expect to start a lot of games, and would be happy just to learn from SAS.

It's doubtful that Aspas will ever return to Anfield, but it all depends on whether the Reds are willing to make an inevitable loss on the player. Aspas cost LFC £9m, and I can't see any club paying more than £4-£5m for him.

There's also another troubling scenario: Aspas may decide to follow Fabio Borini's example and reject a move away next summer so that he can stay at Anfield. Given his unhappiness on being on the bench, it seems doubtful, but you never know.

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25 comments:

  1. The way he's performing at Seville I think we'll be lucky to get a million for him.

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  2. Nicolas Chamberlain10:55 pm, September 17, 2014

    He will be sold, no doubt about it. He lacks quality and is a true bad signing. Our owner John w. Henry tweeted last night: ''Oh and sign Reus''...
    Sounds like a decent replacement.

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  3. Quiet Iago, get back to practising those corners.

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  4. who would buy him though ?


    more likely that Henry's account was hacked than he twitted that himself, but i would gladly be proven wrong.

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  5. He's clearly the love child of Ian Ayre after an unfortunate frolic in his youth with a Spanish maiden. That's the only reason I can think that he ever got a game for us. Most memorable thing he did in a Liverpool strip was that diabolical corner

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  6. In fairness to him, I think he was good in his first game last season.

    I can't do anything more than that for you though, Iago.

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  7. Any football player will express similar feelings if they spend a season on the bench, although it is a little bit melodramatic. I guess that's what you get with ultra-competitive athletes. The only difference I see now is that he's in a team where he thinks he has a chance of forcing his way into the line-up, but there is every chance he won't get much game time for Sevilla either. I should say that if he's really just about being on the pitch and playing he never should have left Celta, he should have simply refused Liverpool. He knew where he was going, what players he would be going up against. He knew we had no European football ... what did he think was going to happen? Maybe his ambition got the better of him because it seems like he should have just stayed where he was.


    He was a luxury bench player we didn't need. Once Suarez was fully fit and Sterling cemented his role in the team there was no chance for Aspas, we just didn't have to use him. I never personally had a problem with him being here - for me having an unused quality player on the bench is the kind of problem you want to have. And Aspas is not a terrible player, he just turned our to be unable to step up to the level Liverpool required. I think we would all admit to being surprised at just how good the team was last season. Maybe if Liverpool had been at their previous level, merely hoping for a top 4 spot, then Aspas was our kind of player. But the club outgrew him and suddenly our ambitions were much higher so Aspas was no longer good enough. Maybe he could have been, but it seems it was too much of an ask for him to adapt.

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  8. To think for that money they could have bought Abel Hernandez - already taking the premier league by storm!


    But his first game was good, Rodgers subbing him off, then never getting a full 90 minutes probably killed any confidence he had. If given as many chances as moses, he probably would have done better.


    Now at Sevilla, with Baca and now Deulefeu, probably won't get many minutes, probably won't stay after the loan, and will go back to Celta Vigo for 3m.

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  9. Iago Aspas was a waste of money.I called it early on and got attacked by bunch of Liverpool fans on this forum.They stuck up for him like his wife or agent would.
    Some claimed to have followed his career in the Segunda division and said i know nothing about football outside of England if i didn't think it's a good deal:-7 The defence case put to me by the angry mob was so strong you would've thought Liverpool bought Messi and Ronaldo rolled into one player.
    Aspas was a flat-track bully performer.He looked good when we played Indonesia and Thailand in pre season.But when Liverpool played in competitive matches against decent teams, the lack of quality was evident and he drifted out of games.

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  10. Aspas was brought into the club to be the #3-4 backup, a good player that's still happy to sit the bench. Suarez and Studge were always going to be 1 and 2, and for 9M with a pretty good strike rate in La Liga with qualities that seemed to fit LFC didn't seem that bad at the time. Problem was, he didn't want to sit the bench, but didn't even come close to usurping SAS. We simply got a different guy than we thought we were getting. Lambert is what we wanted when we got Aspas (in terms of attitude, obviously not attributes).

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  11. Considering players like Nabil El Zhar are quite regular starters in La Liga, Liverpool should scout with great details before signing any forward from La Liga.

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  12. Aspas was a beast and will be sorely missed. When I saw him live at Anfield against Hull he was true dynamic. I think he would of been key in the abence of DS. His raw pace and power makes him... Sorry could'nt this up much longer...

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  13. The joke is he was compared to Messi by a well respect journalist at one point. Truth is he was a certified bench warmer and had continue to make benches all over Spain red hot.

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  14. From what I’ve heard, it all came about because he tweeted
    something in the last few days that was unrelated to LFC or football in general, and a whole lot of fans responded with ‘Sign Reus’ messages, so that was just his little lol at them.

    I wouldn’t read too much over it, even if we were to make a
    move in Jan, it wouldn’t have anything to do with the tweet, it’s more to do with the player being someone that would/should fit our team.

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  15. That's because you only like to deal with VermFacts and not speculative nonsense. We respect that.

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  16. Could we of signed Reus?

    John Henry tweeted this last night

    "Oh, and sign Reus!”



    Please please please let this be true

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  17. His next tweet should be, "Liverpool fans are easy"

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  18. oh another note this is why Liverpool Fans are some of the best fans in the world.

    A Liverpool spokesperson said: "Ludogorets officials have been in touch with Liverpool today to once again emphasise how impressed they were by the appreciation and respect they were shown by our fans last night.

    "They were very humbled by the applause afforded to them by Liverpool supporters at the end of the game and were keen to make it known how grateful they were."



    It is small things like this that makes me proud to be a Liverpool Fan.

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  19. Yes. That is why I became a fan of this great club. We did not have sugar daddy's or plastics. Liverpool is a club that stands for certain values no other club has and we should never abandon them.

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  20. He must be over the moon there. He's already played one game for them. Didn't score of course. I love it when players who flop pretend that it wasn't their fault. Maybe if he would have actually scored every once in a while he would have played more.

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  21. You ain't no Luis Suarez, no you ain't no Luis Suarez... reality check in order for Aspas... If he thinks Brendan was being unfair, and if he really believes he could have pushed Suarez or Sturridge for a starting spot, he needs help....

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  22. Excellent point, I think at the end of last season Brendan was suprised at just how good the season was for them, Aspas may have got into the previous seasons team, but in the end, he had no chance.

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  23. THAT Corner was enough for me not to want him to play for us again.

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  24. Where in Aspas's statement does he 'blast' Rogers? He just states it was hard to sit on the sidelines. I wish you'd stop misquoting and/or taking comments out of context for cheap headlines

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  25. if Aspas refuses to go, fire him the second his contract is up!

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