Erik Meijer – After having a successful spell in theBundesliga, the Dutchman failed miserably when he moved to Liverpool in 1999. His failure to make an impact in the first team meant he was loaned out to Preston North End before eventually moving quickly back to Germany with Hamburg in December 2000. He will always have a special place in many Reds hearts though after he drank and sang with Reds fans in Dortmund before to the 2001 Uefa Cup Final against Alaves.
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Fernando Morientes – There were high hopes when Fernando Morientes moved to Anfield in 2005. His time at Monaco on loan during 2003 saw him score the goals that helped the French side to the final of the Champions League. Bought as a direct replacement for Michael Owen, Morientes was expected to provide the goals Liverpool were desperately missing. The goals never materialized, and bar a great goal against Charlton in February 2005 which briefly ignited hopes, Morientes never realized his undoubted talent at Liverpool. ——–
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Robbie Keane – When you buy a player for such a large fee and sell him sixth months later, back to the same team you bought him from, it has got to qualify as a bad signing. There is nothing wrong with Keane as a player; it was just he didn’t fit into the system that Benitez wanted to play. Rafa didn’t believe Keane could play Torres’s role when his star striker was injured, and he gave little opportunity for Keane to play alongside Torres. With Keane unhappy sitting on the bench, Benitez sold him in January as quickly as he’d bought him in the summer of 2008. ——-
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Nigel Clough – After scoring 101 league goals in 311 league appearances at Nottingham Forest, Clough was purchased by Graeme Souness for £2.75million in 1993. He scored twice on his debut and once again four days later but a five match barren spell in front of goal also coincided with the emergence of Robbie Fowler. Clough was out of the side and he left three years later for Manchester City for £1.5million after scoring just seven league goals, three of which came in the first week of his first season.——-
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Doritos Presents: Professor Green
erm… about keane. he was NOT bought as a replacement for torres’s role. he was bought to provide support for torres but rafa let gerrard do it that season. the problem was keane would not come deep enough to get the ball but gerrard would. you can’t teach an old keane new tricks- not adaptable enough. still a bad buy.
Insightful. Thx.
I would say Cisse,Morientes and Heskey were a waste of money!
I remain unsure about so-called flops. Heskey provided plenty of assists, as did Cisse (plus pace). I see Morientes more like Berbatov and do wonder what would’ve happened if we’d stuck with him like SAF.
I agree about Morientes, he flopped miserably but Im not so sure about Cisse and Heskey. Cisse scored 26 goals in 83 games in his two years at LFC and he also scored the opening goal in the FA cup final win as well as scoring in the penalty shootout in the UCL final win in 2005. I would say that injuries cost him during his time here and if he stayed fit he would have been a great asset with his speed and finishing ability. Emile Heskey surely wasn’t a prolific goalscorer but he added another dimension to our attack and Houllier did say “Some people like to criticise Emile, but I can produce plenty of facts and figures to back up how important he is to us, and how many goals we have scored that he has been involved in.” So I have to say I disagree that Cisse and Heskey were a waste of money.
I believe if Robbie Keane was given more time and if he was allowed to play in the role just behind Torres more regularly he would have been quite a useful player. Rafa stuck with the Torres-Gerrard partnership after their successful first season and in a way Keane just didn’t fit in but I do believe that Keane would have been the perfect foil for Torres. I do like Keane as a player but sadly he did not fit into our style of play but I think it’s crazy to say he was one of our ‘worst ever’ Liverpool striker signings cause I honestly don’t think he was. About Diouf, he was very unpopular and he still is but I don’t think it’s right to say he was one of our ‘worst ever’ striker signings. His unpopularity has prejudiced him and that’s why we often say he flopped miserably during his time at L4 but if you think about it, if Diouf was a popular English guy who worked hard in every match but still flopped, we wouldn’t brand him as one our ‘worst ever’ striker signings. However, I do have to admit that, like many fans, I hate Diouf but that doesn’t mean that he should be branded as one our worst every striker signings.
Errrrr nobody remember Salif Diao and Bruno Cheyrou
worst ever STRIKER signings, are you another one of those who can’t read
they are not strikers.
neither were strikers you muppet
Diouf is the only liverpool #9 in the history that not scored for a season ..And Houllier selected to sign Diouf instead of Anelka ..what a joke .
Dundee wins hands down. He was that bad we didn’t play him when we had no fit strikers. My ‘scout’ told me they wanted to sell him but didn’t want to expose him because potential buyers would see how bad he was !!
Voronin was free and scored a few goals at a time when Liverpool had zero money for sigining. He wasn’t great but you can’t call a free transfer at that period in our history one of the ‘worst siginings’ dumbass. I bet you bellamys chances to goals ratio was way way worse and I liked Bellamy.
We got Voronin in the same summer we signed Babel and Torres.
Morientes and Voronin, were total waste of time and money, Both strikers were the wrong type of striker at the time and the former needing alot of service and pace around him and the second was only suited to a lesser league.
Keane had done a great job with Berbatov and I could see the logic behind the signing. I don’t think he got enough time, I’m not sure if Rafa bought him or not, he didn’t appear to be a Rafa signing. Veronin arrived as a kind of extra ‘something for nothing’ in that sense I don’t think he was a failure. He left Liverpool and went to Hertha Berlin were he ended the season all be it in a poor Hertha team as top scorer. The fans loved him but the club couldn’t afford his wages.
The most disappointing for me personally was Morientes, I read all the stories about him being a typical ‘dare i stereotype’ spanish mummys boy and he badly missed Spain. He looked like a real class act and he had been consistently good in Spain, so I couldn’t wait for him to put on the red shirt.
I fear Andy Carroll will be included in this list shortly.
Morientes and Robbie Keane were complete flops and waste of money in my estimation.