Sunday, 19 June 2011

The age old Alberto Aquilani debate

Aquilani has had a difficult start to his Liverpool career.
When Rafael Benitez signed Alberto Aquilani in the summer of 2009 he was widely touted as the next big player to grace the Anfield turf. Since then, he has had a stop start beginning to his career which ended up in him being sent on loan at Juventus last season. Having spent £20 million on him, most Liverpool fans were extremely disappointed in his performances during this first season at the club. 


But not everyone adjusts to a foreign climate easily. Especially when going from somewhere such as Italy with Roma to somewhere in England. Even great players like Carlos Tevez have taken time to get used to it all. However, unlike some of the players who struggled, Aquilani was never given a fair chance to adapt his game and bring his greatness through to the English game. My prime example of this is a time in March 2010, when Aquilani managed to earn a first team place for the visit of Portsmouth. Liverpool were totally dominant, with Aquilani running the show, coming away with a goal and an assist to show for his efforts. He was easily man of the match, despite a certain Fernando Torres bagging 2 goals, and some of the Liverpool fans decided his time may be about to arrive in a red shirt. Later in the week we visited our old rivals, Manchester United. So my question is, why was Aquilani on the bench for that game? Just when he was adjusting to the English climate and getting over a virus ridden first few months, he was barely given another chance at our great club.


The first mistake in Roy Hodgson's short spell at the club was to send him out on loan, meaning that in the first part of the season we lacked the final ball Aquilani could have provided whilst Raul Meireles was acclimatising to the Premier League. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Hodgson's time at the club was so short. The class and flair Alberto could have offered would have pushed Liverpool further up the table and made life so much easier. As it is he spent the time at Juventus, where he impressed and broke into a competitive first team, but did not do enough to impress the change of management, therefore a transfer there looks unlikely. 


Although Liverpool now have Jordan Henderson, Raul Meireles, Steven Gerrard and Lucas Leiva - who has proved his worth through winning LFC player of the year 2011 - I would suggest that keeping Aquilani could effectively be, one of the best signings of 2011/2012. And there has never been anything wrong with several players fighting over one position, as long as they are all motivated and given fair chance to prove they are the right player. Aquilani has lacked this chance since he has been at Liverpool, will King Kenny be the man under which he can prove his worth? 

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