I will only believe this lad exists when I see him on the pitch. It sounded like he was ready to go pre Christmas.
Unlucky he got injured - he was highly thought of at Barca / Juve but was involved in a swap with Pjanic(?) I think
His transfer is one of the reasons Juve got 15 point deduction. they basically valued both players on the books at a crazy fee and then spread the ‘fees’ in the books over the course of contracts. No actual money changed hands though. It’s a way teams try to get around FFP.
Arthur confirms he leaves Liverpool: “I'm ready for a new challenge. I hope to say goodbye to #LFC by playing some minutes” “I want to say thanks to fans, club and Klopp who always treated me well”, told @Goal. “I feel very good now. La Liga could be an option for me now”.
I'd definetly have him in the top 3 but personally I think Aquillani was the worst we ever had. Reason being - 95% of us FORGOT we even had Melo, and we knew when he came in he hadnt really set the world on fire at Barca or Juve so he was basically a punt. Aquillani on the other hand came in with far higher expectations as he was supposedly Alonso's successor (and had a great nickname from his time in Italy - the prince)...little did we know he would go on to make Darren Anderton look like the terminator and have more loans than the Credit union
Markovic for £20m in 2014 is right up there aswell. 19 appearances, 4 loan spells and left in 2019 on a free.
I wouldn't put him in the top 20 worst transfers we've ever had,because nothing he's done has impacted us in a negative way. Obviously a bad signing on the clubs behalf, but would you rather have the Melo situation, or how El Hadji Diouf turned out as a signing? Or Charles Itandje? Or signings like Neil Ruddock who were a big part in us falling behind in standards of professionalism? You could go through tonnes of signings that objectively hurt the club more than Melo.
Keita (4th most expensive Liverpool signing ever) - we waited for this guy, spent big on him, he's probably the reason we haven't invested in midfielders since) Benteke (6th most expensive Liverpool signing ever) - Always scored against us, then couldn't score for us, great bicylce kick against United though. Andy Carroll (13th most expensive Liverpool signing ever) - Was to be the Torres replacement (thankfully we also bought Suarez with the money). Getting lads in for cheap, or free or on loans should never count as the "worst signings ever", lads we wasted fortunes on that were supposed to be the players to push us forward and did next to nothing and then left for almost nothing are the ones that hurt us the most, as they meant we didn't get other players and couldn't get other players. Interesting looking at the list of our most expensive signings, 16 of the top 25 are unquestioned hits, 4 maybes (Ox, Lallana, Lovren, Downing) depends on your outlook and only 5 real busts (Keita, Benteke, Carroll, Lazar, Keane) Liverpool FC - Record arrivals | Transfermarkt
Benteke 32.5 million 42 appearances but only started 20 games. 10 goals and 5 assists. Not great but not bad for a player who only started 20 games and most of those starts were in a team struggling for form. But the main thing that keeps him of the list of our worst signings imo,is that we recouped the vast majority of the fee we paid for him. There was an element of moneyball there because it was always highly likely we would even if he flopped. I remember getting a lot of stick on here for saying we'd recoup our money, but 27m + 5m in add ons shouldn't have been a big surprise. Players move from mid range clubs to big clubs, flop,but still maintain their value as long as you haven't gone well above a reasonable market value or paid them restrictive wages when you signed them. Clubs don't forget the form that got you the move to a big club if you struggle for a couple of seasons,especially when the narrative is that the player wasn't suited to the style of the big club he joined. And if I remember correctly he had a great season for Palace that year,his goals kept them a couple of wins above the relegation places.