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Liverpool £20m midfielder was 'angry' at manager after reluctantly making transfer
“A lot of people think they spent too much money and never played me so I was a flop. They are right. It’s right. But a lot of things happened behind that.” Alberto Aquilani is under no illusions about his Liverpool career. Signed following Xabi Alonso’s £30m exit to Real Madrid, the Reds parted with £20m to bring in the Italian from AS Roma in the summer of 2009.
Injured at the time of the move, Rafa Benitez had to wait until the end of October before finally being able to turn to his new signing. But thrown into a team in turmoil, Aquilani’s time on Merseyside inevitably ended in tears with Benitez's dismissal in the summer of 2010 after a poor campaign the beginning of a long goodbye for his final big-money signing.
Liverpool bosses wasted no time in attempting to cast the midfielder away as it became clear his Anfield adventure was over barely after it began, as he became an easy target to blame for the Reds’ collapse.
And, unsurprisingly, Aquilani feels rather mixed emotions about his time in England, admitting in an exclusive interview with the ECHO, if he’d had his way, he’d have never left Roma in the first place.
While Aquilani might have preferred to stay in Rome, when it became clear the Serie A outfit wanted to sell him then he was happy to embrace a new challenge in England. Having spoken to former Red and Roma team-mate John Arne Riise, he needed little persuasion that Liverpool was the place to be.
And then there was the prospect of partnering Steven Gerrard in midfield, a player Aquilani adored. His mind was made up. “For me, it was a dream,” he said. “Liverpool, everybody told me it was the paradise of football. It was the right move.
Unfortunately for Aquilani, a serious ankle injury suffered in his final season with Roma ensured he faced an uphill battle. “The problem was I was injured,” he admitted. “I told Rafa Benitez, ‘Rafa, okay I’ll come, I’m really happy to come, but I am injured’. ‘No problem, we’ll do the deal for five years. Not for five months or five days, for five years so you have recovery’.
But Aquilani’s Liverpool career was not the disaster it might have been painted as since, with the former Italy international feeling he has been harshly done by as he passionately defended his Reds record, once he had been able to prove his fitness and was utilised further forward.
He finished the 2009/10 season with 26 appearances, scoring two goals and registering six assists as he started to find his feet in England. And while the expectation might have been for him to deliver as this ‘Alonso replacement’, Benitez made it clear to him from the start that that was never the case.
Aquilani would have liked to have played more times than he did during his first season at Liverpool, admitting his frustration with Benitez as a result. But heading into his second year at the club, he was determined to make up for lost time and prove his worth once and for all. Then the Spaniard lost his job.
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