Former Aston Villa and Middlesbrough star George Boateng has claimed that he came very close to signing for Liverpool during Gerard Houllier's tenure at Anfield.
In an interview with the Daily Mail over the weekend, Boateng - who is still going strong at the age of 38 - recalled:
"When I left Villa, I wanted to join a top four team. I was really close to signing for Liverpool.
"Unfortunately, the middle man wanted whatever, something went wrong, and, last minute, the deal collapsed"
Boateng joining Middlesbrough instead for £5m, where he spent six years, amassing over 180 appearances.
Unluckily, Liverpool ended up with Salif Diao, a signing indicative of Houllier's catastrophic performance in the transfer market that summer, which also saw the likes of El Hadji Diouf, Bruno Cheyrou, Abel Xavier and Patrice Luzi arrive at Anfield.
Clearly, Boateng would've been an infinitely preferable signing to any of the above (!)
Houllier's signings in the summer of 2002 effectively killed his career at Anfield. It was a case going from the sublime to the ridiculous: Liverpool had just had two wildly successful years, culminating in qualification for the Champions League, and the right signings could've taken the Reds to the next level.
Alas, it all went wrong, and after finishing 2nd on 80 points the previous season, Liverpool crashed and burned, and ended up in 5th place after (arguably) one of the club's worst seasons in the last 20 years.
It's hard to find a worse summer of transfer business for the club in the modern era. Rafa Benitez's 2009 business comes close (Alonso sold; Aquilani and Kyrgiakios bought), Graeme Souness bought some rubbish, and in terms of sheer wasted money, there's Kenny Dalglish's transfer business in his second spell, but for negative impact, player quality, and wasted opportunity, Houllier's 2002 spree has to be the worst.
Jaimie Kanwar
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In an interview with the Daily Mail over the weekend, Boateng - who is still going strong at the age of 38 - recalled:
"When I left Villa, I wanted to join a top four team. I was really close to signing for Liverpool.
"Unfortunately, the middle man wanted whatever, something went wrong, and, last minute, the deal collapsed"
Boateng joining Middlesbrough instead for £5m, where he spent six years, amassing over 180 appearances.
Unluckily, Liverpool ended up with Salif Diao, a signing indicative of Houllier's catastrophic performance in the transfer market that summer, which also saw the likes of El Hadji Diouf, Bruno Cheyrou, Abel Xavier and Patrice Luzi arrive at Anfield.
Clearly, Boateng would've been an infinitely preferable signing to any of the above (!)
Houllier's signings in the summer of 2002 effectively killed his career at Anfield. It was a case going from the sublime to the ridiculous: Liverpool had just had two wildly successful years, culminating in qualification for the Champions League, and the right signings could've taken the Reds to the next level.
Alas, it all went wrong, and after finishing 2nd on 80 points the previous season, Liverpool crashed and burned, and ended up in 5th place after (arguably) one of the club's worst seasons in the last 20 years.
It's hard to find a worse summer of transfer business for the club in the modern era. Rafa Benitez's 2009 business comes close (Alonso sold; Aquilani and Kyrgiakios bought), Graeme Souness bought some rubbish, and in terms of sheer wasted money, there's Kenny Dalglish's transfer business in his second spell, but for negative impact, player quality, and wasted opportunity, Houllier's 2002 spree has to be the worst.
Jaimie Kanwar
NOTE: Please stick to the Comment Policy (Click to read)
dalglish and comolli signings in summer 2011 1.hendo 16m looking better than allen, 2.downing 3rd choice behind ashley and adam johnson who rodgers could have signed for 10m instead of borini and jose enrique worth 7/8m and charlie adam well brendan lost more on sahin in 3 months and coates is young but brendan refused a comolli type figure but coutinho is class but thats 12m well spent unlike allen, danny sturridge better than borini but
ReplyDeleteBR obviously took a chance on Sahin and Assaidi to put pressure on what was already at the club and even though they did not displace anyone, I would like to believe they did have an affect on the likes of Downing and Henderson. Having said that, I can't for the life of me understand why he played Sahin the way he did. DS, like Kelly and Lucas, is a liability in respect to injuries and even though I wasn't convinced about it so far, we may need to get in another striker in the summer to at least make sure we have our bases covered.It doesn't have to be a huge name though. With the likes of Coutinho, Suarez and Gerrard already at the club and if we sign someone like Eriksen or Mkytharian, there will be plenty of chances for anyone who plays as a targetman. I'm not saying sign that guy from Southampton everyone is in love with all of a sudden but we don't need Falcao either. Although it would be nice of course :-)
ReplyDeleteJamie, who are you referring with Ayala when you are mentioning Benitez' abysmal transfers summer of 2009? Surely it can't be Daniel Ayala since he arrived already in 2007.
ReplyDeleteOf that summer of 2009 you forgot to mention sale of Arbeloa which IMO was generally a bad move. Arbeloa was always underappreciated player in Liverpool and judging by his performances and a regular starting spot at Real Madrid, we sold him too cheaply. Though, we got Johnson to cover him, I feel that Arbeloa is way more consistent and lacking only a bit in ability when compared to GJ. However, with the inclusion of Arbeloa in the bad moves list of summer 2009, I do agree with you that summer 2009 was still not as bad as Houllier's 2002.
Too early to judge Borini and Allen as gpod or bad transfers imo.
ReplyDeletecoutinho will be a good signing he has skill and vision sturridge the juries still out borini complete waste of money will never make it and allen is not good enought assidi another whos to lightweight and will be out soon thats my opinion of rodgers signings
ReplyDeletenot in mine borini will never be an anfield regular and hendo will be a lot better player than allen ever will
ReplyDeleteKK II's spending is horrendous, regardless of the trigger happy spin on Rodgers' to date.
ReplyDeleteKyrgiakos (you've thrown an extra 'i' in his name in the article) was a good signing. He wasn't a world beater, but we paid a pittance and he had some nice games for us.
ReplyDeleteHe was probably our best player under Hodgson.
That summer under Houllier will live long in infamy though. What made it worse than Kenny's one was the way it dashed hopes. Kenny's one ended up going a bit sour, but we weren't in a great state before hand.
kennys regime overpaid for players but to say there bad is questionable...enrique was good value....and henderson is being tipped on all liverpools websires as a future liverpool and england captain....carroll is being considered for an england call up and downing has played well all year in fact kennys signngs have kept rogers in a job this year ....adams was average as is coates ....what annoys me is when it comes to kenny there is no mention of money bought in which totaly negates the carroll transfer......in rogers we trust 30m assadi,allen, borini
ReplyDeletedont forget kenny was on the verge of signing diame for nothing and wanted to take sturridge as part of the toress deal but like everything with kenny history rewrites itself
ReplyDeleteJk they have played a couple of games in a season which is winding down ...they look good but its way to early..i dont question eithers ability but it will be purely down to how these two cope mentally which will determine there success
ReplyDeleteAllen will have to be sold ..if he keeps being played he will cost rogers his job....
ReplyDelete"Dutch Star" is slightly pushing it .... 4 caps..
ReplyDeleteHodgson signings were terrible.
ReplyDelete'....with kenny rewrites itself....' depending on what side of the fence you like to spin with. Yep, don't forget that too. Ifs and buts but I don't really care about what players a manager tried to unsuccessfully sign as all managers go through that. Had enough of Rafa moaning about how he tried to sign player X, Y, Z, etc, so no thanks, that excuse for KK II won't cut the mustard either as like I imply, its part and parcel of the game, missing out on players, instead you are judged on what you did sign.
ReplyDeleteHeskey has 60+ England caps. Downing has 30+ caps. So I wouldn't rely on being considered for a England call up as a compliment as it doesn't take much, regardless of how much the English media hype him up. After all, Jay Bothroyd has a cap. Scraping the barrel. Leave that to the English media, when it comes to hyping up English players to hilariously high levels. To resort to using England call as a compliment, now that is what I call be-musingly questionable. If it was Spain, you would have had a point but its England! Carroll will probably get 50+ caps but that doesn't make him a good player.
ReplyDeleteHendo being tipped as future Liverpool and England captain by all Liverpool websites? Right, ok. I don't believe that and even if its a little bit true, I think some are getting carried away with hype of a player that plays for their own club. As outside of the English media and LFC bubble, I don't see much love for him. Optimistic tribal waffle.
Downing has played well....compared to the rubbish standards he put in last season but for the money he was signed for and the ambitions of the club, he has been average at best this season.
All three of them have definitely not proven yet that KK II was justified in signing them, let alone paying that much money for them.
Nothing like playing rubbish for a season and then improving to a level that is no better than average to get loyal fans all excited and to get those loyal fans sensationalising their performance.
They are players who are not worthy of a club that wants to get into the top 4, to date. Its embarrassing, absolutely embarrassing that Carroll's name is up there in the list of highest transfer fees in football. I absolutely hate it that we bought him. Embarrassing episode for the club.
Outside of KK II's loyal brigade, there is hardly anyone out there that rates his transfer expenditure in his second spell at the club (and to be honest, I wasn't a fan of quite a few players he bought in his first spell too).
So what if people don't mention income. As we aren't taking about net spend, we are talking about expenditure. Two very different things. So no need to get upset about people not mentioning money bought in, when the debate is about the expenditure. Expenditure.
when hendo lifts the world cup as captain of england i hope you remember this day lol
ReplyDeleteplayer xyz is one of rogers favourite players according to jk ...fsg are planning a 30m bid...anyway..as a manager your judged on what you win as far as im concerned everything else is immaterial
ReplyDeletethey wernt even that good
ReplyDeleteUltimately, yes, in the long run, I agree with such a generic line, its what you win that matters but in relation to signings and short term, a manager is partially judged on their signings, not by signings they couldn't make.
ReplyDeleteOh I will lol
ReplyDelete