Ok, hands up…
Who’s honestly heard of Lorenzo Melgarejo?
We hadn’t and will probably forget him soon after writing this article as well!
But the 26-year-old Paraguayan has blamed his career deteriorating on the fact a loan deal to Liverpool never came to anything in 2013.
He said (cited in the Echo): “From Benfica I was about to go to Liverpool, but I ended up going to Russia.
“My head was already at Liverpool, everything was, and it collapsed in the last moment.”
Instead, the forward moved to Kuban Krasnodar before a switch to Spartak Moscow, where he can’t get in the side…
In fact, since 2013, he’s scored 19 goals in total – not the kind of form which convinces us we made a mistake in not signing him.
Back in 2013, we actually acquired Iago Aspas instead, who was a monumental flop. Not that it particularly mattered at the time, because Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge formed the best frontline in European football!
The Spaniard only stayed a season, but is now tearing up trees for Celta Vigo and is consistently in the Spanish national side.
So perhaps there’s hope for Melgarejo yet!