5 players who were lucky to play for Liverpool

Sometimes we see a couple and think within our minds, “that guy is lucky to get that girl,” or vice versa. This is actually the case in almost everything in life. If there is a mismatch between two things, we almost always bring the ‘lucky’ concept to wrap it around with.

So in this regard, when a player is too good for a club, the fans are quick to claim that the said club is lucky to have that player. The same is true when put in the opposite way.

Sometimes… actually many a time, clubs make mistakes when it comes to recruitment. There is a history of not-so-good players playing for historic clubs and one of the most iconic clubs in the history of the game are Liverpool.

While they might be a source of ridicule among the fans, what can’t be denied is that they are the most successful English club in Europe – but that doesn’t make them immune to bad choices.

In fact, if anything, Liverpool are among the most prone to make transfers and bring in players that are actually lucky to even play for them – and here are 5 such cases…

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#5 Paul Konchesky

Ah, the good ol’ Roy Hodgson days, except that those weren’t good days for the Liverpool fans at all. Those were the days when the Merseyside faithful would go to offices and do their stressful jobs, come home and have arguments with their spouses and then watch Liverpool matches in hope to remove all the pain.

Instead, they had to witness Paul Konchesky play for Liverpool – and just feel like… giving up.

If someone does a research on Liverpool fans and depression at that time, she/he might find a higher rate than normal, such was the pain of seeing the Englishman run up and down the left flank.

In the summer of 2010, Konchesky was signed from Fulham for million and given a four-year contract. On his debut, he got injured and had to be replaced in the 77th minute. This is basically where I stop and say that he was, well, terrible for the Merseyside outfit.

Such was the dislike for him that fans actually cheered when he got substituted out. He lasted only 6 months and 15 league games as he sent out on loan to Nottingham Forest and that was the end of his career at Anfield.

#4 Christian Poulsen

Poulsen was terrible for Liverpool

More of some good ol’ Roy Hodgson days. It is actually unbelievable how bad Liverpool’s managers back then were when it came to signing players. While Rafa Benitez himself made a lot of terrible signings, Hodgson took it to another level with his incompetence at finding decent players.

Back then, Juventus were going through their banter era and had Christian Poulsen in their team. If you choose a player at random from the current Juventus team, there is an 80% chance that the said player would be a good.

Back then, though, it wasn’t the case. Indeed, if you randomly chose one back then, there would be an 80% chance that the said player would be below-par – and that was precisely the case with Christian Poulsen.

Signed for £4.5 million from Turin, the midfielder lasted just the one season and played 12 league games in the process. He was sold off to Evian for an undisclosed fee – which means it wouldn’t be surprising to see Liverpool the other club to get rid of him.

#3 Milan Jovanovic

Jovanovic was Benitez's last Liverpool signing

Enough about Roy Hodgson, let’s get a little back in the past and focus on Rafa Benitez. The Spaniard might have been one of the best managers in Liverpool’s recent history and was the only one in this millennium to get Liverpool a manager title, but he also had his shortcomings.

For one, he wasn’t entirely great in the transfer market. While some of his best signings might be the likes of Fernando Torres and Xabi Alonso, he has also erred with the likes of Alberto Aquilani and Andriy Voronin.

However, none of them were worse than Milan Jovanovic. One could almost say that this was Benitez’s parting gift to Liverpool – someone who the coach couldn’t even manage because he was sacked before Jovanovic joined in the summer after the signing was apparently completed on a pre-contract deal in January 2010.

The Serbian winger lasted only a year and played in only 10 games during his one-year tenure at Liverpool.

#2 Sean Dundee

Sean Dundee

I initially wanted to write Dejan Lovren in Dundee’s stead, but the Croat’s recent good run of form has made me reluctant and, as a result, I have refrained to put him. And now, let’s talk about Sean Dundee. The young Liverpool fans might not know him, but a quick Google search will reveal a lot of things.

One, he is South African and two, he played for Liverpool during the late-90s. And three: he was, well, too damn lucky to play for the Anfield club.

Signed as a cover for Robbie Fowler, the South African soon found out that Liverpool was way too ahead of his calibre. Such was his inability in front of the goal that then-teenager Michael Owen was preferred over him.

He lasted for only 3 games for the Merseyside outfit and was soon let go of. He joined Stuttgart in Germany and that was it from the South African.\

#1 Fabio Borini

Borini against Real Madrid

There are some players who don’t really have the ability to play for top-level clubs and are best with lower-mid table clubs. But for some reason, some of the biggest clubs in the world show interest in them and go on to sign them – and Fabio Borini is one such player.

I, for one, think that Fabio Borini is actually lucky to be playing even the game of football. How this man has played for clubs like Chelsea, Roma, Liverpool and now Milan – let alone football – is something that is beyond the grasp of understanding.

In his career as a striker, he has only ever hit double figures in a season twice: once with Roma (10 goals from 26 games) and once with Sunderland (10 goals from 40 games) – and both of them were loan spells.

Apart from this, his only credit is to play for some of the biggest clubs in the world. For Liverpool, he played in 25 games in two seasons with as many league goals. Yes, two goals in two seasons – this is how Borini fared in Anfield.