6 of Liverpool's Most Overhyped Players of the Last 10 Years
When you play for Liverpool, there's a level of expectation immediately bestowed upon your shoulders.
The late, great Bill Shankly once said: "For a player to be good enough to play for Liverpool, he must be prepared to run through a brick wall for me, then come out fighting on the other side."
Some, however, fail to come out the other side of that wall. Representing the Reds brings added pressure, and some struggle to cope in the Anfield spotlight.
Whether a highly touted youngster coming through the ranks or a big-money recruit, supporters find it hard not to get carried away by obvious potential.
With that in mind, Bleacher Report has looked back at the past decade at Anfield to pick out six players who never quite lived up to the hype while with Liverpool, albeit not always due to their own shortcomings.
Joe Allen
1 of 6
"He's the Welsh Xavi."
Former manager Brendan Rodgers' quote during the documentary Being: Liverpool in 2012 was the millstone Joe Allen had to carry around his neck throughout his time at Anfield.
A pivotal member of Rodgers' Swansea City side that impressed all during their debut season in the Premier League, the midfielder followed his manager to Merseyside, as Liverpool forked out £16.15 million to secure his services.
However, Allen struggled to justify both the ridiculous comparison and the sizeable transfer fee during a debut season that was cut short by a shoulder injury.
Yet somewhere during his four-year spell with Liverpool, the Welshman flipped from major disappointment to fan favourite.
Rodgers' departure in October 2015 even seemed to give him a new lease of life, even if he wasn't a regular under the Northern Irishman's successor, Jurgen Klopp. Forget the Welsh Xavi—Allen became the Welsh Pirlo instead after growing his hair out.
"In something of an ironic twist, [Allen] actually went up a further gear without [Rodgers] around—almost like the child growing up who plays with more freedom when their dad is not pressurising them from the sidelines," Henry Jackson of This Is Anfield wrote.
Liverpool made the vast majority of their money back when Allen joined Stoke City last summer for £13.18 million.
Having struggled to leave a lasting legacy with the Reds, he quickly impressed for his new club when deployed as an attacking midfielder.
Ryan Babel
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"I never got the chance to develop as a striker." Ryan Babel's quote to Melissa Reddy of The Independent suggests he felt harshly treated during a largely frustrating spell with Liverpool.
The Reds paid £14.66 million in July 2007 for a forward who had made his debut for Ajax at the age of 17.
Part of the Netherlands squad that triumphed at the European Under-21 Championship prior to moving to England, Liverpool were so confident in Babel's talents that they made him the third-most expensive signing in their history.
"I have met [then-manager] Rafael Benitez, and my conversation with him was the moment I knew the deal would get done," he said at the time, per BBC Sport. "He is like the ideal father-in-law. He has a lot of football know-how, and he told me that I would be challenging with six other players for four positions. I have a good feeling about things."
The thing with father-in-laws, though, is they can quickly change their opinion of you depending on what you get up to.
Benitez never seemed convinced by Babel, who was most often used on the left side of midfield. If he wasn't on the bench, the player's starts were repeatedly cut short, as he was hooked off early.
There were flashes of his obvious talent, most notably in the UEFA Champions League quarter-final with Arsenal in April 2008. Babel not only won a crucial penalty, which Steven Gerrard converted, but he also scored the final goal to seal a thrilling 4-2 triumph at Anfield.
"Babel was not short of pace but made it easy for defenders to predict his next move as he was basically a one-trick pony, and even that trick was nothing to write home about," his profile on LFC History reads.
That talent flashed as a teenager never matured into much more than a peripheral figure at Liverpool, and he has since experienced a nomadic career.
Jordon Ibe
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Jordon Ibe promised so much at Liverpool yet flattered to deceive.
Good enough to start for Wycombe Wanderers before he reached his 16th birthday, the winger joined the Reds for an initial fee of £510,000 in January 2012.
He made his Premier League debut in the final game of the following season, setting up Philippe Coutinho's winning goal against Queens Park Rangers.
Loan moves to Championship clubs Birmingham City and Derby County furthered his football education, and he impressed former England manager Steve McClaren during his stint with the Rams.
"Jordon is still learning, but when he puts it all together, you can see what he is capable of doing," McClaren said after a 4-0 win over Birmingham City in December 2014, according to Steve Nicholson of the Derby Telegraph. "At times he is unplayable."
Just over two years on, those words still ring true.
Pacy, powerful and possessing a trick or two, the England under-21 international has the tools required to trouble opposing defenders. The problem, however, is the lack of end product—he tends to deliver about as often as a postman on strike.
Per Transfermarkt, Ibe managed four goals and seven assists in 58 games for Liverpool before he was sold to Bournemouth for £15.3 million last summer.
Liverpool installed a buy-back clause in the deal, although it looks unlikely they'll trigger it.
"He hasn’t been a regular in the team, and that will be a disappointment for him and for us," Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe said in January after an FA Cup third-round exit at Millwall, per Paul MacInnes of the Guardian.
Robbie Keane
4 of 6
After Liverpool finished fourth in the 2007/08 season, Robbie Keane was widely viewed as a key addition to close the gap on champions Manchester United.
A smart footballer with an eye for goal, the Republic of Ireland forward looked the ideal foil to play alongside—or even just behind—Fernando Torres.
Liverpool spent £20.4 million to prise him away from Tottenham Hotspur in 2008, forking out a hefty sum for a proven goalscorer in the English top flight.
Here was a boyhood Red of high pedigree arriving to tip Rafa Benitez's squad over the top. Or at least that's what everyone thought.
Instead, Keane's dream move quickly turned into a disaster.
It took him until his 11th game to break his duck for his new employers, and he had to wait until November to bag his first Premier League goal.
He managed just seven in total before being shipped back to White Hart Lane in the next transfer window. After fighting so hard to get him out of Spurs, Liverpool were happy to let him leave for £14.2 million.
"It was a difficult decision to leave Tottenham in the first place, and it turned out it was not the right move for me," Keane said on his return to White Hart Lane, per Rory Smith of the Telegraph.
Smith also pointed out in a separate article how the player wasn't totally to blame for his struggles. You see, poor Keane was viewed as a pawn in the power struggle between Benitez and then-chief executive Rick Parry.
Keane could argue his Liverpool manager incorrectly used him, but the numbers show he never hit the heights expected during his surprisingly short spell on Merseyside.
Dani Pacheco
5 of 6
Signed from Barcelona's famed youth system, Spaniard Dani Pacheco lingered around Liverpool's first team without making an impact.
Small in stature but big in potential, the forward signed professional terms at Anfield in 2007 after the English club paid a compensation fee to prise him away from the Catalan giants.
Yet despite impressing in friendlies and also playing consistently well for the reserves, Pacheco never made the grade.
"Dani is a player with quality who has played really well for the reserves," Benitez told Liverpool's official website (h/t Zack Wilson of Goal) after handing the player his league debut in December 2009. "He was going forward and is not scared to go against the defenders. It was a real positive because he has shown he has quality."
Despite Benitez's positive words, Pacheco's career with the Reds followed a familiar pattern.
After training and featuring with the first-team squad in pre-season, he would then be sent out somewhere else on loan.
There was a stint with Norwich City in the Championship, then a season back in his homeland with Rayo Vallecano via Atletico Madrid, who opted not to sign him on a permanent basis in the summer of 2012.
Another temporary spell in Spain, this time with Sociedad Deportiva Huesca, followed in 2013 before AD Alcorcon took him on a permanent basis later the same year.
After arriving as a precocious teenage talent, the Spain under-21 international left at the age of 22 having made a grand total of 17 Liverpool appearances.
Martin Skrtel
6 of 6
Having previously missed out on Nemanja Vidic—who joined Manchester United instead—Liverpool hoped they'd found a suitable alternative when paying £8.5 million to sign Martin Skrtel from Zenit Saint Petersburg in January 2008.
Fearsome-looking and with many, many tattoos, he appeared to be a no-nonsense centre-back willing to stand firm in the face of the opposition, someone who would take no prisoners.
Instead, he was a prime example of why Liverpool consistently fell short in their pursuit of the Premier League title.
"[Skrtel] is a man who epitomises [Liverpool's] failings: their inconsistency, their set-piece frailties, their tendency to get bullied, their lack of authority at the back," Richard Jolly of ESPN FC wrote in January 2015.
While he scored the odd goal at the right end during his time at Anfield (18 in 320 appearances), Skrtel also had the unwanted habit of converting chances for the opposition too.
After he was sold to Turkish side Fenerbahce in the summer of 2016, Henry Jackson summed up the Slovak's career with the Reds perfectly for This Is Anfield:
"There are plenty of Liverpool supporters who always thought very highly of him, seeing him as the heroic rock at the heart of the defence, who put his body on the line for the club.
On the flip side, there are those who saw him as an erratic presence in the back line, with desperate lunges, theatrical diving headers and a few goals helping mask his many deficiencies.
"
Committed but careless, some fans will remember Skrtel with great fondness.
Was he good? On his day, yes, particularly when paired alongside Daniel Agger. Yet no Red should forget the player's shortcomings when looking back on his time at the club.
All transfer fees mentioned in the slideshow are from Transfermarkt unless otherwise stated.
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