On Thursday, the surest sign that Liverpool were ready to blow their financial wad for the second time this summer was confirmed by reporters far and wide, when news broke that the release clause has been triggered for 2015’s number one target, Christian Benteke.
Rarely does a player sign for a club for such a high fee and it separate a set of fans as much as this one will. It is worth remembering, at present Benteke is an Aston Villa player. Liverpool have met the release clause, but the structure of payment is still to be confirmed before the player can have a medical and sign for the club. Saying this, the Belgian international does look like he will play in Liverpool red sooner rather than later, so this is what I will presume for the rest of the article.
I, for one, am not someone who views this signing as a negative. Quite the contrary. I am for the most part massively excited for the club to sign a player that genuinely strikes fear into the heart of any defender. He can dominate any midfielder and can outscore most forward-lines. At a time when the in-thing is to have smaller, more technical players and ball playing defenders coming out through defence to do the job a, for example, Steven Gerrard used to do in his final years, it is to our advantage that we are about to sign a striker who can protect the ball from most players in the league. But this is not all Benteke offers. At all.
The laziness in opinion that has come with this prospective transfer during the weeks and months past is pretty absurd. I have seen professional writers claim that this transfer will mirror that of Andy Carroll’s when he arrived at Liverpool. Well first of all, let’s break that one down. Because this, as you may be able to tell, did my head in.
Before signing for Liverpool, Andy Carroll had scored 11 goals for Newcastle whilst playing in the top flight (including cups comps). He was a young, unproven player that Liverpool had merely planned to consider making a bid for the summer following the transfer window we eventually signed him from. A solid plan if I ever saw one, this would allow us to keep tabs of the lad, checking both his form, fitness and attitude from a far. As we all know, once the Torres bid was received, JWH and the guys across the sea in Boston wanted to make a statement, and the club decided to press ahead with plans to sign the player earlier than anticipated. With no pre-season to help him bed in to a new team and style of play, coupled with learning how to play in a new league that was coming to terms with his talents, the player struggled. The price tag may not have helped, but the naivety of everyone involved with the club at the time helped this signing become a failure.
In comparison, Christian Benteke has had 145 games worth of top-flight experience (in all competitions), 94 of these coming in the Premier League with Aston Villa. During these games, he has scored 77 goals (49 scored for Villa), a far cry from Carroll and, evidentially, in a different league in terms of ability. In regards to the scouting of Benteke, it is common knowledge that Rodgers wanted the Aston Villa forward to join the club last year only for that idea to be shelved because of a serious leg injury. This hints towards genuinely extensive scouting of the player and even this injury did not put our manager off the idea of signing Benteke. Besides, since coming back from injury, he has scored 13 goals, a figure that is more than Carroll had in the season leading up to signing for the club, but also proves that the player is over his injury woes.
Stepping away from the rather lame argument that Benteke is Carroll mark two, there is the common argument that although the comparison of levels of ability may not be correct, the mould of the two players are similar. Whilst I will never try and deny that Christian Benteke is a powerful presence, his pace and tenacity creates a completely different problem when defending against him than Carroll.
Having watched many games featuring Benteke, and one too many games that he’s scored against Liverpool in, it is clear to see that the player does not offer strength alone. He has a grace and quickness of foot that traditional ‘big’ players don’t have. He may not be well known for running in behind the opposition’s defensive line, but he is a player that moves with the play rather than ball-watch once he has passed to a team mate. Once an attack is started, the player busts a gut to be in-and-around the action, multiple times scoring from an attack started at is feet further towards Villa’s own half. One example of this was during the recent FA Cup semi-final, which saw Villa win 2-1 against an average Liverpool side.
Benteke, seeing that an attack was taking place, moves at pace to join in whilst also holding back and creating enough space for the pass to be made to him from which he eventually scores.
This is only one example, but there are plenty of others. Being able to hold the ball up is only a negative when that is by far your greatest attribute. Benteke, however, knows how to handle the ball and move into space, with the ability to pick out a pass to his team mate also making him a different proposition. It is his desire to keep the ball and move around the pitch that sets him apart from other players with an ability to defend and head the ball.
Upon Brendan Rodgers’ arrival at Anfield, he regularly spoke about keeping the ball, keeping possession and killing the game through owning the football. In his previous seasons this hasn’t – very effectively – ever been the case. During his first year, we did this well, but we were pretty crap. During the following season and last year we counter attacked (or didn’t attack at all) but never looked to stifle opposition with our ability to keep hold of the one thing that could win – and lose- you the game. Players like Joe Allen have been bought, and whilst he can keep the ball, there is an argument to be made that keeping the ball ineffectively is a pointless waste of time and effort. Yet with the likes of Benteke in our frontline, it is entirely feasible that he is the final part of the puzzle of what a ‘Brendan Rodgers side’ looks like. Holding up the ball effectively whilst still moving, waiting for other players to join the attack sounds, to me, like a brilliant way of playing. This mixed with his ability to get involved in the play when he doesn’t have the ball could be a fine way to play the game, and a way that resonates with the Rodgers ideas of old.
Changing tactics compared to previous seasons does seem to be a movement that has happened a lot during this off-season. It is important to remember that Rodgers has spoken of a change in direction when making his changes to the backroom staff, whilst Pep Lijnders has also stressed how all of the backroom staff now have the same idea in mind: keep the ball, keep our ball. These quotes have often been taken by Liverpool fans as a sign of an all-encompassing exciting brand of football which they support. Yet, this seems strangely at odds with the idea that a lot of our fans aren’t happy that we now have an attacking player with the ability to keep the ball (our ball) and join in attacks when he doesn’t have our ball. Odd.
When signing players previously, Liverpool’s manager has stated that he does not look for ability alone, but the mental strength and toughness of mind to play on the biggest of occasions. Too many times have we signed players who go missing in big games, who have an off day when things aren’t going their way. Trawling through the stats of who Benteke scored against, I found that four goals throughout his career have come in derby games, whilst thirteen have come in the Premier League against either Liverpool, Spurs, United, City, Chelsea or Arsenal. Bearing in mind that most of these games ended in the forward being on the losing end of the result. I think this goes to show that not only does he thrive in big games, but his effort rarely wanes when taking on the bigger, usually tougher, opponents.
The final argument is indeed that of the fee. My opinion is that it isn’t my money, so I’m not arsed. Yet I’m also of the opinion that if this is who our current manager wants (and we know he is) then this is exactly what we need. We went with Balotelli last year, a player not favoured by our coach and look how that turned out. We now have a manager who is clearly being backed to make his changes and put his individual stamp on the team and we have people moaning.
If Christian Benteke gets the goals that we need as a club which I believe he will, then the fee will be unimportant.
Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning that the 24-year-old’s strongest foot is his right foot, with most of his goals coming from here, which is at stark contrast with forgotten man Daniel Sturridge, whose left-foot has a fan club of its own. Could the thinking be that this partnership could terrorise defences for years to come? If Sturridge can stay fit and healthy, I reckon it will.
I’m delighted that we’re going to sign Christian Benteke, and though I admit he wasn’t the option I would initially have gone for (come to think of it, I don’t know who I would have gone for) I have warmed to the signing an awful lot since I have opened my mind and decided against being automatically negative about a lad who scores goals. At a time when what we need is just that. A lad who scores goals. It seems common sense to me, and I can’t wait to see him in Liverpool colours.
And if all else fails, at least he is cheaper than Carroll.
