‘Wasn’t convinced’: Ian Graham says Brendan Rodgers never wanted to sign £7m player at Liverpool

Liverpool’s recruitment model is one of the best in world football.

Indeed, the Reds’ recruitment team are incredibly clever, and they have a knack of finding gems that nobody else does.

Joao Pedro has stood out to Liverpool’s recruitment team recently, while they’ve made some brilliant signings over the years.

Mohamed Salah proved a lot of people wrong when he signed for Liverpool, while Virgil van Dijk was one of the best signings ever.

However, in the early days of this new recruitment drive, there were a few hiccups.

Players such as Rickie Lambert, Fabio Borini and Lazar Markovic really didn’t work out, and according to Ian Graham, speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Brendan Rodgers wasn’t keen on two signings in particular.

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Brendan Rodgers didn’t want Iago Aspas or Mario Balotelli at Liverpool

Graham spoke about Rodgers and how he worked alongside the recruitment team at Anfield.

According to Graham, Rodgers often didn’t see eye-to-eye with his colleagues over certain transfers, claiming that Rodgers wasn’t convinced by Iago Aspas or Mario Balotelli.

Aspas joined Liverpool for £7m and he ultimately flopped on Merseyside.

“The owner’s idea was a good one, which was the manager’s got a lot to bring to the conversation as well. And the manager has to be convinced about the quality of the player. So in the early days, we did bring players like Aspas, for example, who went back to Spain and ended up having a great career in Spain, but brought players that, you know, the manager wasn’t convinced by,” Graham said.

“Like who, for example?

“Well, Iago Aspas would be a great one. So many players,’ Graham said.

“So Balotelli would be… So Balotelli was an interesting one because he was an unusual case of the data being brilliant on Balotelli. It’s like, how is this player available for any fee, let alone the fee that Milan wanted?

“To be fair to Brendan, he wasn’t anti the Balotelli signing. The problem was, because we’d argued so much and spent so long trying to get to an agreement on a forward to sign, it was too late. There was no one left in the market except for Balotelli.

“And so I think Brendan wasn’t necessarily against the signing. But also there was kind of like, there was a ready made excuse in that ‘it’s Balotelli, what did you expect?’”

Iago Aspas stats after leaving Liverpool

Aspas didn’t quite make it at Liverpool, but, Liverpool’s recruitment team can rest easy knowing that they did pick out a gem here.

For one reason or another, Aspas didn’t work out at Liverpool, but after leaving Anfield, he became a truly top player.

Indeed, Liverpool’s recruitment team clearly picked out a talented footballer here, even if it didn’t work out at Liverpool.

Aspas has scored over 150 goals since leaving Liverpool, and he will undoubtedly go down in history as a legend at Celta Vigo.

Who knows? Perhaps if Aspas worked under a different manager at Liverpool he’d have become a star at Anfield.

Instead, the striker played just 15 games for Liverpool, scoring just one goal in that time.

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