When Liverpool (finally) bought Christian Benteke and confirmed his capture, the Belgian took his first pictures with a blank kit. Everybody knew he was waiting for Rickie Lambert to vacate the number nine shirt.
Ah, the famous Liverpool number nine shirt. Names such as Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler, Fernando Torres have donned the number.
Since Torres has worn the shirt, however, it’s been much more infamous than famous.
Benteke will hope to take the pressure associated with the number better than the likes of recent memory and bring glamour back to the number.
Rickie Lambert: Lambert grabbed the shirt last summer after his predecessor went on loan thus losing his shirt number privileges. He’s a great servant to the club, albeit one disappointing season. He loved the shirt, and the fans loved him.
Lambert has continually surpassed expectations and logic prior to his move back to Liverpool after being released as a youth member, so he deserved one year of wearing the legendary shirt, irrespective of his relative failure. He scored just three goals in 36 appearances, heavily weighted with limited minutes off the bench. Lambert signed for West Brom earlier this summer.
Iago Aspas: Liverpool fans don’t love this man as much as they do Lambert. Aspas was slightly worse on the pitch, but finds himself as the punch line of many more jokes. He started just seven matches for Liverpool Football Club in his solitary abominable season.
Aspas’ lasting memory must be his corner against Chelsea as the Reds were chasing the game hoping to claw back a draw and keep their Premier League title dreams alive. WHY WAS HE ON THE FIELD AND WHY WAS HE ALLOWED NEAR A DEAD BALL?!
He left for Sevilla on loan that summer but has since made the move permanent.
Andy Carroll: On paper, Carroll was the perfect strike partner for Luis Suarez, as they arrived within a few days of each other in January 2011 under the management of Kenny Dalglish. In reality, Carroll was anything but. He wasn’t aided well with support, but, he was clunky, awkward and all-around just not good enough.
In 58 appearances he scored 11 goals, an awful return for a striker who set the club record fee at £35million, a record that still stands. Liverpool recouped a decent amount of money off West Ham from the terrible business decision to take him off Newcastle for such an astronomical number. The Hammers secured his services on loan for £2million in 2012 followed by a fee around £15million the following summer to make it permanent.
Fernando Torres: Is it time to forgive El Nino? For me, it is. He’s no longer at Chelsea plus Liverpool stole £50million for a player that gave the London club a slightly higher rate of disappointment than Liverpool’s with Carroll. He left ungracefully and went to another English club, fueling hatred for the man.
But when he was in red, man, was he nothing short of magical to watch. Liverpool has seen better days since Carroll, Aspas and Lambert wore the shirt but when it was on Torres with Steven Gerrard, Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano behind him at times, it was incredible football. Liverpool signed Torres from Atletico Madrid for somewhere between £20-25million and was worth every penny. In 142 appearances the Spaniard netted 81 times.
Dijbril Cisse: Liverpool signed the man with 100 haircuts from Auxerre in 2004 for £14.5million and the Frenchman endured an up and down spell at Liverpool, hitting 24 goals in 79 appearances. When Cisse’s name is mentioned, an association with a gruesome leg break is the first thing that comes to mind. Against Blackburn in October, Cisse went in for a challenge and his cleat got caught on the ground. His body went in one direction and his leg the other, snapping his tibia and fibula. Cisse went as far as to say had the medics at the stadium not been so prompt and effective, he would have lost his leg below the knee. They told him his best case scenario would be a 6-9 month recovery, worst case was 18 months. Cisse shocked the world and made his return in April of that season against Juventus in the Champions League.
Cisse left the club on the same day he broke his leg again in 2006, this time on international duty, yet this didn’t hinder Liverpool’s agreement with Marseille to sell the striker.
