Apparently beggars can be choosers.
The snobbery of some Liverpool fans is insulting. It’s moronic. It’s typical.
They’re too good for Christian Benteke. They already have Borini, Ings, Origi and Balotelli, you see. Why would they want to throw a decent player into that mix?
News spread last night that Brendan Rodgers was upping his chase for a striker who is clearly playing at a level much higher than Aston Villa. And yet Reds fans met it with disdain. They spat at the suggestion that Christian Benteke was good enough for Anfield.
The crux of the argument? He’s a big man.
Anyone criticising the Belgian or even remotely pondering the idea that he wouldn’t fit Liverpool’s style of play – that style of play that was so damn effective last season – they haven’t watched Benteke at all. They couldn’t have.
Yes, he’s a big, big lad. Yes, he’s bloody brilliant in the air. And, yes, Tactics Tim says they’ll feed him crosses – Aston Villa will. But, as 24-year-olds go, he’s one of the most complete front men in football. Anyone laughing right now, please tell me how many Villa games you have actually watched in the last three years.
Oh, sure his record under Sherwood is as good as Sergio Aguero’s in the same space of time but they weren’t the right kind of goals. No, no, Liverpool aren’t a long ball team. Liverpool don’t need the help of an Aston Villa player either. Or someone who, you know, scores.
In reality, all the Scousers have to do is look at his five goals in just six games against Brendan Rodgers’ side and they’ll see every type of finish being clinically put away by Benteke.
Look at his semi final dismantling of them in this year’s FA Cup.
Look at the fact that the majority of his goals are not with his head or from crosses – not that even bloody matters anyway.
All they have to do is just watch Benteke and see what he brings to a team in every facet of play; see that he starts up front for Belgium with men like Hazard and De Bruyne playing off him. Not because he’s a big man. Because he’s a player.
And, do you know what else? All they have to do is look at their own striker list at the minute. Look at Daniel Sturridge’s glass body getting wheeled back into the physio room. Look at Ings and Origi and that Italian fella and please explain how a player like Benteke couldn’t improve them. Look at someone like David N’gog, someone who was hung onto for what felt like forever out of nothing but pure, pointless hope in that one day he might come good.
They have a player here in Benteke, an established player who has a real shot at becoming a top forward and they’re turning their noses up at him. Because Liverpool are above that.
They get excited about Roberto Firmino though, Hoffenheim’s finest. As if any of them have seen more than a handful of the Brazilian’s games.
They get more excited about 28-year-old Carlos Bacca – as if any of them have seen more than a handful of his games.
Venezuelan, Rondon – as if any of them have seen more than a handful of his games.
These lads are coming from foreign leagues, they must be better. They must suit the Liverpool style of play better.
The more reasonable will argue that Benteke’s price tag is just too high, that he’s not worth the £25m Brendan Rodgers is recklessly throwing at him.
Not only is that in itself – based on the player’s merits – completely unfair, but Liverpool themselves are setting this precedent.
They’re the ones splashing £29m on Firmino.
They’re the ones responsible for Andy Carroll-gate.
They’re the ones turning down ludicrous offers for Raheem Sterling when a player like Benteke is not only more effective and more proven, but worth much, much more than an English hotshot with just one good season to his name so far.
What’s worse is that, if Benteke does go to Liverpool, he will improve the team. He would take them forward and, one by one, fans will jump on him and laud him as one of their own as if they never met him at the Shankly Gates with knives and pitchforks. As if they really are the most educated of football fans.
But they don’t deserve Benteke.
No, they don’t deserve a player who is the heart and soul of one team right now, the only reason they are somehow staying afloat in the Premier League. They’re taking a hero from one club and they’re taking him with sheer resentment. Because he’s big.
And because they think that they’re bigger than they are.
If Benteke stays one more year at Villa though, if he keeps up his form and hits 20 odd goals next year like Sherwood has promised him, Liverpool fans will turn on Rodgers anyway for not getting the deal done in the summer – the same deal they have written off before they’ve even thought about it.
But, by then, Benteke will be the only one turning up his nose. By then, Benteke will be the one looking down on those fans.
Because, by then, Benteke will be moving on to bigger and better things than Liverpool Football Club.
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