Why Alberto Aquilani's Villa performance merely confirmed his status as a £20million flop

By Oliver Holt in Mirror Football Blog

Published 22:22 29/12/09

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It was hard not to feel a tinge of sympathy for Alberto Aquilani at Villa Park last night.

Not just because he made only the third start of his Liverpool career in a Midlands blizzard.

But because, no matter how well he had played against Villa, nothing will alter the fact that he was a failure before he kicked a ball for his club.

Aquilani cost £20million when he joined Liverpool from Roma in the summer and so far at least, he has to be the worst signing of the season.

It's not his fault he was injured for the first four months of this campaign but the fact is that by the time he was fit, Liverpool had already been knocked out of the Champions League.

By the time he was fit, Liverpool were already too far adrift in the Premier League to harbour any realistic ambitions of winning the title.

And everybody, not least Steven Gerrard and his teammates, had begun to realise exactly how important Xabi Alonso had been to the balance of the side before he was sold to Real Madrid.

So Aquilani is a symbol of everything that has gone wrong in this awful start to Liverpool's season and all that is left for him is a prolonged exercise in damage limitation.

He has to attempt to show that even if his signing was a gamble that backfired in the short term, he might yet be a success for Liverpool in the long term.

The signs last night - the ones that could be glimpsed through the driving snow anyway - were not particularly promising.

Sitting deep in midfield alongside Lucas, Aquilani sprayed a couple of decent passes out wide to right and left.

But mostly, he was anonymous. His influence was strictly limited, his contribution peripheral at best.

There is immense pressure on him, of course. Liverpool fans waited for his debut for so long that by the time he finally ran out for the club, they had built him up into a cross between Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness.

And he also has the most difficult job of any midfielder in any team in the Premier League: trying to fit into a side ruled by Steven Gerrard.

Gerrard dominates the Liverpool midfield more completely than any player dominates any department of his team and Aquilani has to fit around him.

A couple of times last night, he hovered hopefully over free kicks only for the inevitable to happen when Gerrard ushered him away and took the kicks himself.

Upright and lean, Aquilani has a similar gait to that fine former Liverpool midfielder, Jamie Redknapp, but he was unable to show last night that he has anything like Redknapp's passing range.

The only cheers he got were from the Villa fans when he sliced an attempted cross deep into the North Stand.

Aquilani did at least manage a faint smile at that point but he seemed to grow less and less sure of himself as the second half progressed.

In one break in play, Glen Johnson even felt the need to jog up to him and give him a quick lecture on what he should be doing.

A couple of his misplaced passes were met by gestures of disgust by Yossi Benayoun.

Then, for a moment, it seemed as if Aquilani had made a significant breakthrough. Midway through the second half, Gerrard signalled that he would step aside and allow him to take a free kick.

Aquilani took a couple of deep breaths and bent down to pull up his socks. Then he curled the free kick a couple of feet over the bar.

When he was substituted 15 minutes from the end, he was serenaded again by the Villa supporters.

"What a waste of money," they sang..

What did you make of Alberto Aquilani's performance? Let us know by leaving a comment below...

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