When I first heard rumblings at the beginning of the summer that Liverpool had set their sights on Christian Benteke, I was appalled. Devastated. Flabbergasted, in fact, that the mighty LFC were pursuing someone who I saw as a fairly average striker at best, a lumbering target man without flair in a mid-table team who just cross the ball a lot. I had hoped against hope that Ian Ayre would return to Melwood with Alexandre Lacazette bound and gagged in the boot of his car, rather than the big Belgian from Villa. I had been dreaming of a Ferrari and got a Ford S-Max.
No offense, Ford-owners.
However, by the time Liverpool had signed Big Ben (for an extortionate, disproportionate fee), I was beginning to warm to the idea of having a bulldozing front man again – the transfer had dragged on for what seemed like an age, after all. Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho were ineffectual as forwards last season when deployed in the absence of the unstoppable but fragile Daniel Sturridge (most catastrophically at Stoke on the final day), and our other recognised strikers did little to ease Liverpool’s goal-scoring problem. The prospect of having someone to aim the ball at, someone who could perhaps fashion a chance for himself or his teammates from nothing, who wouldn’t be knocked off the ball or beaten in the air, was an increasingly tantalising notion.
I hadn’t been won over, though.
Even when Benteke chested the ball down and volleyed a worldie into the Swindon net from the edge of the box, I wasn’t entirely convinced. Excited, yes, but not fully swayed towards our new number nine. I had seen Rickie Lambert fail to influence games in the way Brendan seemed to have anticipated, and our other “strong” frontman from Italy remain too consumed with his own apparent ability to pass the ball to a teammate. The ghost of Suarez still loomed over Anfield.
But during the Stoke game, I saw something I hadn’t quite expected. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to expect it in my desire for a flashy signing from abroad, but it was certainly on display at the Britannia.
Benteke was doing exactly what a lone striker should do, and he was doing it well.
He muscled his decidedly-tough opponents off the ball, nodded long balls from the back into the path of his compatriots, laid it off to more creative players when necessary, and was always positioned well in an otherwise lacklustre game. He didn’t score, or even work the keeper, but he did what Balotelli had failed to do throughout an entire season. In short, he provided the focal point for Liverpool’s attack, something they had been desperately short of last season. His performance promised bigger and better things to come.
I’m not completely won over yet, but if Benteke keeps doing what he did on Sunday, and if his team mates and manager fully grasp how to get the best out of him, he’ll be a hit an Anfield this year.
I look forward to being persuaded between now and May.
