10 worst Liverpool signings in Premier League era ranked – Carroll 8th, Klopp trio make top 5
Liverpool have got it right more often than not in the transfer market in the Premier League era, though when it’s gone wrong, it’s been catastrophic.
Until the past few summers, Liverpool had never been giant spenders in the Premier League years. It’s for that reason that many of the names you’ll read in this article stuck around at Anfield far longer than they should.
Liverpool aren’t a club who can spend big money on a player, realise he’s a flop, then spend big money on his replacement one year later.
As such, a player like Naby Keita (spoiler!) makes the cut over inferior players talent-wise, such as Paul Konchesky or David N’Gog.
10) Christian Benteke
Signed for £32.5m and mercifully sold a year later for £27m plus add-ons, so there wasn’t a large financial hit in the Belgian’s instance at least.
Nevertheless, Benteke laboured and lumbered around Anfield looking like a striker from a bygone era transplanted into the 2010s.
Klopp’s arrival just a few months after Benteke joined ensured the writing was on the wall. You simply don’t play heavy metal football with a burly target man up top.
9) Robbie Keane
Only at Liverpool for half a season, and it was wholly forgettable.
Generally played out of position on the wing by Rafael Benitez and sold back to Spurs for £7m less than what Liverpool paid. Utterly pointless.
8) Andy Carroll
Many might be expecting £35m man Carroll to place higher, though it is important to remember he scored the winner in an FA Cup semi-final versus Everton and followed that up by scoring in the final too.
Perhaps softening the blow is the fact Carroll joined Liverpool at the same time as the Reds also signed Luis Suarez with the £50m collected from the sale of a washed Fernando Torres to Chelsea.
Two good deals out of three ain’t half bad.
7) Lazar Markovic
Part of Liverpool’s signing spree in the summer of 2014 back when spending £117m netted you eight new players.
Markovic falls into that shambolic category of players who made more appearances for clubs they were loaned to than for their parent club during his tenure.
He’s basically Liverpool’s Jadon Sancho in that regard, though mercifully, cost £20m not £73m.
6) Alberto Aquilani
Signed as the de facto heir to Xabi Alonso back when £20m was still a fairly high price to pay in 2009.
Broadly speaking, a nothing player and one of the reasons why Liverpool embarked on a few very dark years between 2009-11.
5) Darwin Nunez
The first of Klopp’s flops to (dis)grace this list. For all of the legendary German’s positives, talent ID in the market wasn’t among them.
The chaotic Uruguayan never lacked for effort, though was found painfully wanting in so many other areas of his play.
Couldn’t control the ball, couldn’t finish, couldn’t stay onside, couldn’t link the play, gave away silly fouls, the list goes on.
The fact he’s now spending the rest of his prime years in Saudi Arabia – and not at a big Saudi club either – speaks volumes.
4) Loris Karius
Single-handedly lost the Champions League final in 2018 with one of the worst individual performances any Liverpool player has ever produced.
The only reason he’s not higher is because he was so bad he prompted Liverpool to spend a then-world record £66m on a direct replacement, who has gone on to become one of Liverpool’s greatest ever players, not just greatest ever goalkeepers.
3) El Hadji Diouf
Despised by two of the club’s greatest players in Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard.
Diouf was a classic case of never buy players on the back of a good World Cup. Liverpool fell into that trap in the summer of 2002, signing Diouf on the back of his man of the match display for Senegal against reigning World and European champions France.
Stinker of an attitude and known more for spitting on fans than anything he did on the pitch.
Universally known in football circles as a rotten apple and that’s only because harsher words are bad for this article’s reach on google. Well deserving of a top three finish on our list of shame.
2) Mario Balotelli
Liverpool’s bright idea upon selling Suarez in 2014 was to sign Rickie Lambert and Mario Balotelli. As far as downgrades go, that’s down there with the worst of them.
Balotelli’s attitude was rancid throughout his tenure on Merseyside and speaking soon after he was sold to Nice, the Italian described joining Liverpool as the “worst decision of my life.”
The feeling from Liverpool fans was and still remains mutual.
1) Naby Keita
Liverpool paid a premium when agreeing to activate Naby Keita’s release clause one year prior to his arrival. The best case scenario would have been he never arrived at all.
Didn’t press or duel like Wijnaldum, Henderson and Milner, and didn’t provide anything close to enough from an attacking standpoint to justify selection ahead of those dogs of war.
In the end, Liverpool’s frugal spending and determination to see Keita come good saw the Reds sign just one more midfielder (Thiago Alcantara) over the next five years.
The outcome was Henderson, Fabinho, Wijnaldum and Milner all grew old together, and with Keita and Thiago perma-crocked, the final years of Klopp’s reign didn’t produce as many trophies as they could and perhaps should have while Alisson, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah were still in their primes.
Rubberstamping Keita’s selection at No 1 is the fact he then left for nothing when his contract expired.
An unmitigated disaster.
