All eyes will be on Anfield this Saturday where, thankfully, there won’t be a David Bellion in sight.
For two of the most successful teams of the Premier League era, we’ve seen some real stinkers cross the thresholds of both Anfield and Old Trafford since the invention of football in 1992.
Presenting the Worst Ever Combined Group Of Liverpool Et Manchester United Complete Misfits Incorporated Etc.
Goalkeeper: Massimo Taibi
Four games for the signing from Venezia in 1999, each more calamitous than the one before. Taibi was caught flapping early on against Liverpool at Old Trafford but actually took the man of the match award with some decent saves as United triumphed 3-2.
However, allowing a tame Matt Le Tissier effort to squirm under his body and then conceding five to Chelsea had Fergie lighting candles throughout the cathedrals of northern England for the safe return from injury of Mark Bosnich. Mark BOSNICH, for Christ’s sake…
Left-back: Paul Konchesky
“I went to Liverpool in the summer and when you move teams you think it’s going to be a big thing for you really. It obviously didn’t work out for different reasons.”
Understatement’s Paul Konchesky with his own contribution to the lexicon of, “you think?”
Centre half: William Prunier
Topping almost every Forgotten Footballers list since 1995 makes William Prunier, ironically, almost as famous as his former Old Trafford team-mate David Beckham. He played twice for United because he was a mate of Eric Cantona’s. His first game against Crystal Palace went smoothly enough, his second saw him part of a defence that conceded four to Tottenham and he never played for the club again.
And he’s been a figure of ridicule since.
Given the fact that Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra both struggled at the beginning of their Old Trafford careers, you could say Prunier got the particularly thin end of the wedge.
Centre half: Djimi Traore
He just can’t. He just can’t. He just can’t control his feet.
The most inept Champions League winner of all time – according to Internet gospel – Traore had an almost comic ability to fall arse-over-tit at the sight of an onrushing striker.
Okay, that’s a bit harsh, and Traore did manage to play 88 times for the Reds. But that Bambi On Ice routine against Burnley in the FA Cup was reason alone for the years of ridicule that have followed.
Right-back: Josemi
Rafael Benitez’s first signing for Liverpool, Josemi actually started five times in Liverpool’s victorious Champions League campaign in 2005 but quickly lost his place to Steve Finnan. He was only marginally more awful than Jan Kromkamp, who could just as easily have made this list.
Right midfield: Antonio Nunez
Nunez joined Liverpool at the same time as Luis Garcia and Xabi Alonso as a makeweight in Michael Owen’s move to Real Madrid, but injured his knee in his first training session at the club and was out for three months.
He could never force his way into the team beyond the odd substitute appearance, his most notable contribution coming with his only goal for the club in the 3-2 League Cup final defeat to Chelsea in 2005.
Centre midfield: Eric Djemba-Djemba
Bought as the long-term successor to club captain Roy Keane, Djemba-Djemba played just 1,632 minutes in the Premier League during spells with United and Aston Villa.
The funny thing about Djemba-Djemba is that nobody remembers him doing anything particularly terrible, but nobody can recall a single positive contribution to English football either. Other than Andy Townsend referring to him as “the brothers Djemba”, of course.
Centre midfield: Christian Poulsen
Ah, Christian Poulsen. A man who made an absolute art form of being exactly where the ball wasn’t during an ill-fated spell at Liverpool between 2010 and 2011.
The Danish midfielder came with a big reputation but his powers were already on the wane at Juventus before Hodgson brought him to Anfield.
Much like Djemba-Djemba trying in vain to replace Keane, the then 30-year-old Poulsen was an inadequate replacement for Xabi Alonso and was quickly moved on by Kenny Dalglish.
Being dropped in favour of Jay Spearing meant his career in red was only ever going one way – a one-way ticket to Evian in France.
Left midfield: Karel Poborsky
Bought for a lob and a haircut and very little else.
Poborsky’s impact at Old Trafford was hindered almost immediately by the form of a young David Beckham, who scored his wonder goal against Wimbledon just a month after the hirsute Czech arrived in Manchester.
Poborsky managed only five goals in a year and a half at the club. Instead, it was his fellow new arrival Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who would achieve hero status despite never nailing down a starting place.
Striker: El-Hadji Diouf
Diouf scored three goals in an appalling spell at Liverpool, having joined the club from Lens as African Footballer of the Year. It didn’t start off badly for Diouf, scoring twice against Southampton at the start of the 2002/2003 season, but he soon expectorated his way over to the wing, on to the bench, into the reserves and away to Bolton Wanderers.
Jamie Carragher has dubbed him the worst team-mate he had ever played with at Anfield and, given the fact that Carragher once shared a dressing room with Sean Dundee, that’s really saying something.
Striker: David Bellion
Proof that pace alone is no substitute for technique, stamina, passing ability or the ability to, y’know, put the ball in the back of the net. Signed in 2003 from Sunderland with a reputation as one of the Premier League’s best young talents, the fact that Bellion had one senior goal to his name may have been an indicator of his lack of scoring nous.
Inexplicably, he was on the books at Old Trafford for three years, wheeled out for the League Cup, pre-season friendlies and not a whole lot else.
Manager: Roy Hodgson
Let nobody try and convince you that Hodgson had a better win ratio in his time at Anfield than Brendan Rodgers; mainly because that’s a massive lie. Cursed by some terrible signings of his own doing – Poulsen, Joe Cole and (shudder) Konchesky among them – he never seemed comfortable in the Anfield hotseat and left just six months after joining the club in January 2011.
Hodgson won just 13 out of 31 competitive games, losing nine. Defeats at home to Blackpool and Northampton (on penalties in the League Cup) were particularly painful.
