Liverpool are flying ever so high this season, but form is built upon a house of cards in football and there is plenty of action left to play this term.
Arne Slot has won 12 of his 14 matches across all competitions and now turns back toward the Champions League, having won all three fixtures so far. Now, though, a different test altogether: Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen travel to the Reds’ home.
Earlier in the year, if you were told that Alonso would be returning to Anfield after the summer, you’d be washed through with excitement, for the Spaniard was touted as Jurgen Klopp’s successor for a short while, before pledging his loyalty to Leverkusen for the 2024/25 campaign.
He does indeed return to Merseyside, but as Slot’s opponent for the evening in a hotly-anticipated Champions League clash.
Xabi Alonso returns to Anfield
Alonso produced absurd results last season, leading Leverkusen to their maiden Bundesliga title as invincibles, also winning the DFB-Pokal and reaching the final of the Europa League, losing 3-0 against Atalanta in what was the agonising sole defeat of the campaign.
Naturally, Liverpool were interested in bringing their former player back to the city, but the 42-year-old wanted to continue his journey in Germany, and you can’t begrudge him for that.
Maybe one day, eh? Alonso was once a centrepiece of Liverpool’s first team, completing a £10.5m move from Real Sociedad in August 2004 and featuring 210 times for the club, crucial in the historic Champions League triumph over AC Milan in 2005.
The links are strong, and the love runs deep. The maestro of a midfielder was one of the finest to perform in a Liverpool shirt, and when he was sold to Real Madrid for £30m in 2009, replacing him with a top player was imperative.
That didn’t happen, for Alberto Aquilani – described as the player ‘to fill Xabi Alonso’s berth’ by the Guardian – endured a torrid time on Merseyside.
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Liverpool’s Xabi Alonso successor
Liverpool signed Aquilani in the wake of Alonso’s departure having been impressed by his performances with Roma in Italy. It was a deal worth £20m, a pretty penny for the club at the time.
Rafa Benitez praised the Italian for his “winning mentality” and “good experience” in the Serie A and in the Champions League, but he didn’t impress and lasted only one term at Liverpool, a season which was full of adversity and difficulty.
“Alberto has a winning mentality and great experience in both Serie A and the Champions League. He has long been recognised as a top-class talent in Italy.” – Benitez
Sometimes you just have to accept that things didn’t work out. Aquilani is one player among many who failed to impress throughout a tough point in Liverpool’s history, but the club’s astute business over the past decade has put such woes firmly beyond the background.
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Alberto Aquilani: Stats for Liverpool |
|
|---|---|
|
Stats |
# |
|
Appearances |
28 |
|
Starts |
14 |
|
Goals |
2 |
|
Assists |
6 |
|
Yellow cards |
1 |
|
Stats via Transfermarkt |
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A talented and dynamic midfielder, the Italian’s one campaign at Liverpool was marred by fitness troubles. Most often found in the infirmary, his time was that of disappointment, with an ankle injury precluding any chances of taking Alonso’s baton.
The 40-year-old spent his second and third seasons as a Liverpool player on loan in his homeland, with Juventus and AC Milan respectively. He did not have that indefinable quality that served him so well before the whole ordeal, however, and was sold to Fiorentina for just £6m in 2012, ending a wholly forgettable deal.
Signed to fill an Alonso-shaped hole, Aquilani fell heavily by the wayside. Had fitness been his friend, it might have been different.
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