Liverpool have just signed midfielder Alberto Aquilani from Roma, for a reported fee of around £20million, and it’s believe his salary to be around £80,000 per week.

I have to be honest I’ve not seen this guy play much, but looking at the stats it seems like a pretty big gamble by Liverpool manager, Rafael Benitez.

Aquilani is 25 years old, so not that “young” any more in football terms.  At 25 you’d expect a player to be reaching the peak of their career.  He has only ever played in Italian football; so will need to make a big transition to the Premier League pace.  He does have a lot of experience at international under-21 level and below, but only 11 full international caps.

The biggest question mark is his injury status.  During the last three years he has only managed an average of 24 games per year, which for a team competing in Europe is pretty low.

To top if off Liverpool have just announced that Aquilani will not be fit for another 4-8 weeks as he is still recovering from an ankle injury.

Rafa could prove me wrong, but £20million for a 25 year old, injured, untested player is a big time gamble, only time will tell if it pays off.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 1:04 am and is filed under Player Focus, Transfers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.