Jamie Carragher has revealed that he never understood why Liverpool signed Robbie Keane from Tottenham – because the striker never fitted into the system without disrupting the partnership of Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, who at the time were at their peak.
Keane signed for the Reds in the summer of 2008 – exactly 11 years ago tomorrow, in fact – but only made 19 appearances, scoring five times, before he went back to Spurs in the January of the same season.
The Republic of Ireland legend didn’t quite fit in at the club, and Carragher has outlined the reasons why.
Via the Liverpool ECHO, Carragher said: “I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t understand why we bought Robbie in the first place.
“Robbie was a top player for Tottenham but the season before, Steven was playing up alongside [Fernando] Torres as the number 10. We had done it for the second half of the season, and I think Stevie set-up 20 goals. I was like, ‘why would you break that up?’
“It was a surprise to be honest when he came in. Him and Benitez just never clicked, straight away. Under a different manager, it would have worked.”
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Even under a different manager, the problem of already having Gerrard and Torres playing so well together would have existed. Keane was just the wrong man for the time.
It was just one of those deals that sometimes happens, where it doesn’t quite work out as planned. Thankfully, there haven’t been too many of those in recent times.