So will we live to regret the decisions made over our midfield in the summer? With Juventus getting the best out of Aqua and us struggling to fit together a working midfield, it seems that we got the raw end of the deal. Certainly, there is a big case to be made that the Italian wasn’t given a fair chance by Roy Hodgson to prove himself in the Premier League. There were signs by the end of last season that Aquilani was adapting to the pace of English football and that he had finally recovered from his long term ankle injury. There is every chance he could have started this season like a house on fire and helped the Reds move up the table with some class displays.
On the other hand though, there are aspects of Aquilani’s game that, for me, are not suited to the Premier League. Although a graceful passer of the ball, he is lightweight and would always be exposed to injuries by the physical nature of the league. That is not to say he couldn’t have coped as his excellent passing ability could have complimented Steven Gerrard very well. His best performances however came further up the pitch for Liverpool when playing behind the main striker, suggesting he was more comfortable out of the firing line of the central midfield area. What we need however is someone who can pass the ball from deep providing a supply for Steven Gerrard to play further forward. Meireles combative nature and good passing range in my opinion are more suited to this but if Roy Hodgson persists with him playing out wide, I believe our midfield strategy will continue to flounder.
With Liverpool being on a sound financial footing now though, there is no need to sell Aquilani to Juventus on the cheap. Now without injury and on form, his asking price should have been a lot higher than the £13-14million quoted. We paid more than that and he was injured at the time, so we shouldn’t be held to ransom. If Juve can’t meet the asking price then I would welcome Aquilani’s return to Anfield, giving us added squad depth and giving him the chance to show once and for all if he is good enough for Liverpool FC.
Follow us on twitter @live4Liverpool
Live4Liverpool is recruiting columnists. For further info contact the site editor at editor@live4liverpool.com
Lemmy and his band Motorhead at a French bar
CLICK ON THE IMAGE OR HERE TO SEE THE GALLERY OF LINDA PIZZUTI!
Sell him for 13 mill if they can cough it up Liverpool needs to spend money on players who want to be there.
sigh the price is allready agreed in is contract if they want to make it permanent they pay this price and its cant be stioopped. end of
he was shipped out because he was moaning about the training in pre season and indeed faked an injury this was brought to light by dalle valle and he was shipped out soon after roy obviously hates sneaks and phonies
Good point David. We should not have sent him on loan anyway – and giving Juve the option to buy him for less than what we paid confounded this mistake further.
Letting Aqua go on loan was madness, as was letting Insua go on loan.
Keeping these 2, and promoting Spearing and Gulacsi (better than Poulsen and Jones) would have meant we could have used the £22m ( we spent on Meireles, Konchesky, Poulsen and Brad Jones), in areas that did need strengthening.
I would not trust Woy with another bean.
bang on sib, agree totally!!
aqua was loaned because his game doesnt suit hodgsons style..hodgson likes players with very good work rates and who can defend as well as attack..his main tactic is defensive organisation and attacking opponents on counter attacks,set pieces ect
Aquilani does have a really good work rate and he has the guile and creativity to change a game as well.
What I would like to know though is which of our current players are at this moment fitting into Roy Hodgson style of play.
I’ll guess, NONE OF THEM.
Aqua was loaned because he’s too fragile and not suited to the English game. He was loaned with the hope some team would take him off our hands and help us recoup the completely MAD outlay Rafa made and to take his wage bill off our books.
It was a good loan out as it looks like Juve may take him, had he stayed, he would most likely have got injured and be worth 50p.
Juventus may try to get him on the cheap but if he is playing well sell him to Inter or Roma -or pretend their dead keen – its all bluff with football anyway but LFC need to let him go – too fragile by half.
Loaning him out to Juventus does not make any sense at all, the same implies to Insua. As David says, the decision is a lose-lose situation for us and the only party that benefits from this is Juventus. We lose a player for free for a season and Juventus get him for free for a season. In the summer, if they decide to buy him, we lose out because we’d only get 13m and if they decide against buying him, we lose out cause we just lost a quality creative midfielder for an entire season.
If aqua is happy coming back then we can hav him to prove himself bcos I don’t c any sense in holding onto an unhappy player. But my concern is does Roy spend such huge million on meireless without having a position he wants to play him in mind?
All these guys who say players are “too fragile” for the English might be able to explain then why the English teams fear them the most on Euro competitions? If they are “fragile” then EPL teams should be able to simply bulldoze them aside – something that does happen but not that often!