Mkhitaryan a player Rogers wanted and cost in the region of 30M. Did OK under Klopp then flopped at United and Arsenal. Yevhen Konoplyanka who was labeled the next Shevchenko. Ended up at Sevilla for 40M, and hardly scored anything since.
But you can’t take El Hadji Diouf out the equation, as we didn’t make Anelka’s loan permanent due to Diouf’s signing. Plus regardless of his aloof personality, Anelka did really well for Bolton straight after, while our team with the Diouf/Diao signings signalled the beginning of the end for Houllier.
In fact, El Hadji Diouf would probably be in the conversation for our worst signing ever. The bullet dodged would have been overturning the decision between Anelka and Diouf.
Anelka was a steady footballer and got goals both before joining Liverpool and after leaving Liverpool. I would have had him in the side. Yes, He did create a fuckload of problems at his clubs but I don’t recall him creating too many disciplinary issues during his (admittedly short) time at the club.
@Rooster is recalling correctly. The first TIA crash happened when we didn’t sign Dempsey and BR said no to Sturridge. We ended up with no one and we crashed TIA for couple of days, iirc. We also ended up losing lot of posts, threads. I lost half of my posts (500+).