Christian Benteke. The powerful centre-forward who terrorized defences all over the Premier League during his three-year stint at Aston Villa, Liverpool’s not least.
That was probably what inspired Brendan Rodgers to pay as much as necessary – £32.5million – to land him in a desperate move to try and get a proven goal-scorer.
The big Belgian arrived at Anfield with much expectation burdening him, his price being one huge factor and Liverpool’s desperate need for goals another.
Still, many were surprised by the move, since Benteke, like Andy Carroll, is widely considered to be a “target man”, a stationary attacking player that needs to feed off crosses into the box in order to score goals, and one of the first things Rodgers did upon his arrival is put Carroll out of his plans, desiring fluid attacking style with the ball moving quickly and mostly on the ground. So why buy Benteke now?
That was the question.
What the idea behind it was, it’s hard to say observing from the outside, apart from the fact that scoring goals had become a burning issue.
Benteke started the season reasonably well, scoring in his first league game at Anfield to secure three points against the newly promoted Bournemouth. But most fans, being still enthralled by the attacking miracle called Luis Suarez, quickly grew frustrated by his style, which lacked any kind of dynamism. He gradually lost his place in the team during the first half of the season. The sacking of Brendan Rodgers and the arrival of Jurgen Klopp to the helm pushed him even further down, with the German desiring high-level pressing far upfield, and even preferring Roberto Firmino to Benteke in the striker position, with Daniel Sturridge, Divock Origi and Danny Ings all out injured.
All of this understandably caused a heavy loss of confidence for Benteke, with his increasingly rare appearances becoming increasingly frustrating. Two injury spells that had hit him during the season didn‘t help either.
Then, a heavily misinterpreted interview given to Belgian media seemingly sealed his fate. He was asked about his intentions regarding his situation at the club, and he replied that he intended to fight for his place to the end. When asked whether he thought himself capable of regaining it, he said:
Of course I do. If I didn‘t, I would never have joined such a club as Liverpool.
And that was the sentence that media outlets promptly grabbed onto and twisted with such a reckless, sickening desire for attention. “Benteke: If I had known I wouldn‘t be first choice, I never would have joined Liverpool!“ – this was the headline that soon appeared all over the internet. Naturally, it caused an avalanche of angry outbursts from the fans. It soon became “common knowledge“ that Benteke wants to leave the club and the club wanted to get rid of him.
However, there‘s a very different side to this story, much more sensible, though not very popular at that (or this) point. Here is a player, overpaid for, but not by his design, that tried to make it at a new (bigger) club, under one manager, then another. He came into a team that played a style very different to that he is best suited for. He dropped out of the starting XI. He had two injury spells, each lasting around a month.
In short, an ill-fitted, out of favor striker, in his first season at a new club, and yet managed to score 10 goals. Several of them match-winning, against Bournemouth, Sunderland, Leicester, Bordeaux, and some of them spectacular. Given all the circumstances, it represents a fantastic output. Still, he has more than once pointed out that he was aware of his deficiencies and expressed desire to work hard to improve.
Various reports these days claim that a deal to move to Crystal Palace is an inevitability, with the Eagles having offered close to what Liverpool had paid for him. Many fans are thrilled by this, and are therefore thoroughly shocked that his agent has played down those reports, and said that Benteke still wants to stay and fight.
When you look at it reasonably, with a cool head, it‘s perfectly normal for a player that had a relatively bad first season at a club to want a second chance to prove himself. Firstly to himself, and then to the rest of us. There‘s absolutely nothing shocking about that.
The club‘s point of view is, of course, another matter, though keeping Benteke for one more season really makes sense. Every decent football team in the world has its own playing style. Klopp has installed a promising one at Liverpool and is in the process of polishing it up. But it would be prudent to have a backup plan. Benteke can be an effective plan B, when you need to try something else, because plan A isn‘t working or you simply need to throw on an extra striker because you need to score in the last few minutes.
If he is prepared to take this role, work hard in training, and use what limited game-time he is given to display his progress, then it‘s a completely sensible solution for both club and player.
Should he fail to make notable progress in his second season at Liverpool, he can always be sold next summer. He‘ll still have three years left on his contract and will represent significant value in the market.
In the meantime, as he is already on the books and wants to stay, Liverpool might as well make use of him.
