Gary Lineker has surprisingly agreed with a suggestion that former Liverpool forward Iago Aspas is ‘one of the most underrated strikers of our generation’.
The 34-year-old Spaniard, who joined the Reds back in 2013, made just 14 Premier League appearances for the Reds with nine of those coming from the bench, but the Match of the Day host believes Aspas shouldn’t be judged off his time in the Premier League.
Replying to tweets during a session with Joe Football (via Liverpool Echo), one tweet read “Iago Aspas is one of the most underrated strikers of our generation for real.”
To which Lineker replied, “well, he certainly has been a really consistent goalscorer hasn’t he? For a long time. What is he, about 34 now? Brilliant for Celta Vigo over such a long period of time, so I would probably say that he is underrated and deserves a bit of credit.”
“Obviously he had that little spell at Liverpool where things didn’t really go for him, but I’m not going to argue with you on that one.”
The former No. 9 does have a great record since returning back to the Spanish top flight – in 230 appearances for Celta since 2015, Aspas has netted 117 goals.
He just never got going in a Liverpool shirt, but he was at the club and competing for a spot in the starting XI alongside the likes of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge.
He’s probably remembered by many fans for the wrong reasons.
Towards the final moments of our league clash with Chelsea in 2014, the game in which Steven Gerrard famously slipped and allowed Demba Ba to score the opener, Aspas attempted to take a quick corner kick but instead passed the ball straight to Willian in a blue shirt.
The Brazilian went down the other end and, after exchanging passes with Fernando Torres, doubled the lead and ultimately ended Liverpool’s title hopes.
It’s always nice to see one of our former players doing well, though, but the comments from Lineker are rather surprising.