Well 'that' as they say is that! One small mercy we can be grateful for this coming season is that Alberto Aquilani is no longer a Liverpool player. As you’re no doubt aware by now the silky skilled Italian with the velvet touch will be supplying impeccably timed through-balls for Montenegrin Stefan Jovetic and not his fellow countryman Fabio Borini, having signed on full terms with Fiorentina over the last few days. The club's President Andrea Delle Valle has signed an Italian thorough-bred at a nag's head price; an offer that both the Trotter's and Corleoni's would find difficult to refuse. Although it has finally drawn a line under a story that was threatening to eclipse The Mouse Trap as the world’s longest running saga.

Personally, I was in the “I want to see Aquilani be given at least until January” camp, because we all have to belong to a certain faction these days don’t we? and the “I want to see Aquilani shot in the head, and his lifeless corpse dragged through the streets of Anfield” camp seemed a little too extreme for my liberal tastes. There were many reasons I felt Aquilani was worth a shot in the non-fatal way. Firstly and most importantly was the evidence of my own eyes; these ocular miracles of evolution are the same pair of peepers that saw a player in Lucas Leiva when many were berating him through his first, second and many even his third season at Anfield. I saw that same quality and innate footballing prowess in the Italian as I had his Brazilian team-mate, and I was convinced he had that little bit of magic that could potentially have made all the difference in the last three disappointing seasons. An intelligent play-maker, who seemed to glide along with the ball who, like the brilliant Basque he was brought in to replace, could pick a pass that few in the crowd could see, let alone those on the pitch; so my second argument is that he was arguably the most creative player on our books. 

The final reason is for Alberto, Rafa and my own sake. It would have been nice to have been able to say I told you so to all those so quick to judge someone on a sporadic injury plagued first season in a new country, and ready to right off a player who two of Italy's biggest footballing names were quick to take on loan, and play as much as they could up until loan stipulations would legally oblige them to make the deal permanent, and along with it the likely-hood of having to meet the midfielder's allegedly astronomical salary. I won't be able to say that now, unless he leads Italy to another World Cup final in two years time, scoring and creating a glut of goals on the way, but even then the cries of too light-weight for the premiership would be heard from those who never like to admit they're wrong.

I'll admit that I've conveniently forgotten these same optical wonders are the ones that saw me confidently announce in the pages of the Liverpool Echo for all to see that Bruno ‘Zinedine’ Cheyrou’s forty yard pile driver against Fleetwood Town in a pre-season friendly showed that despite the minnow status of the opposition, it was clear evidence of what the former Lille man had in his “locker”, unfortunately it seemed he left whatever 'it' was in that Lancashire dressing room. 

I was surprised while filming last week's episode of the Redmen TV hearing the statistics on how Aquilani stacked up against our current midfielders. It was a fascinating insight and so I won’t spoil it for you, it's on last week's subscriber's show but needless to say the results were pretty gobsmacking. Of course statistics aren’t everything, and I'm going to labour the point that the Italian made his appearances in Rafael Benitez’ ill-fated final season, so the quality of football was Hodgson-esque to say the least, okay not that bad, but pretty fuckin' bad nevertheless. Then again it could also be argued that the players he had alongside him were of a superior quality to what we’ve had since then. 

As you can probably figure out from a footballing perspective I’m absolutely gutted that someone I would consider as our most creative player has left the club. There’ll be arguments over wage considerations, and if it’s true that he was on £125k per week as postulated then it’s a fair bet we’ll still be paying a chunk of that for the next couple of years, going on past evidence, and personally I can’t see the Tuscan club being able or willing to stump up that amount of money can you? It raises the question of whether the club is not prepared to pay that high a wage for Aquilani’s services specifically or whether we’re simply not prepared to pay that high a wage for any player? But that’s for another discussion, and another time. 

No matter how you feel about the Aquilani debate, At least we can finally be agreed on one thing; THANK FUCK IT’S OVER!

David Gill

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