Alberto Aquilani once claimed he could have stayed at Liverpool for 10 years but one game changed everything

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Liverpool should have been in a good place during the summer of 2009.

Having just ran Manchester United to within four points in the Premier League title race, the Reds were poised to go again.

Rafael Benitez‘s team were at the peak of their powers and just needed to take that last step towards immortality.

Unfortunately, that is not exactly what unfolded at Anfield. Instead, fan favourite Xabi Alonso was sold and the Reds stuttered in the transfer market.

Glen Johnson was brought to replace Alvaro Arbeloa in a potential upgrade at right-back, but it was going to be difficult to find a successor as silky as Alonso.

After much deliberation, Liverpool settled on Italian schemer Alberto Aquilani. Ultimately, Aquilani was something of a disaster, staying only one full season with the Reds. But according to the man himself, he could have had a decade-long career at Anfield.

Alberto Aquilani rued bad luck at Liverpool

There was excitement when Aquilani was signed for around £20m. This was an Italian international who had starred for years at Roma in Serie A, after all.

However, injuries badly affected the then 25-year-old, meaning he didn’t play for Liverpool until October. By then he was already on the back foot, although he did find some good form once finally getting himself fit.

This culminated in an excellent performance, and a goal, in the Europa League semi-final against Atletico Madrid. Liverpool were knocked out that night, but speaking to the Liverpool ECHO in 2021, Aquilani suggested that things could have been different for him had the Reds got through.

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“Imagine if we got to the final of the Europa League, and I’d scored in the semi-final,” he reflected. “Maybe it would change my life there. Maybe we go to the final and maybe we win and maybe I stay at Liverpool for 10 years. I don’t know.”

“But we lost this game so the season was bad because we were out of top four, out of the Champions League and lost the semi-final. A little bit sliding doors.”

Aquilani wanted to stay at Liverpool

When the summer of 2010 came around, Benitez was clearly on borrowed time. Nobody had expected Liverpool to drop as low as eighth, and failure in the Europa League meant no Champions League for 2010/11.

Benitez left and in came Roy Hodgson, comfortably the worst manager in Liverpool history in the eyes of many.

And, according to Aquilani, this was another case of bad timing for him, with Hodgson and new sporting director Damien Comoli not interested in giving him a chance.

“Rafa was gone and in came Roy Hodgson. In came a new sporting director, Damien Comolli, and obviously they wanted to bring in their players” he said. “I was there, I was contracted but I was not their player.”

“This is football. You have to make the right decisions and you have to believe. And I believed I could be good there but it wasn’t like this. One year is not too much.

“What I don’t like is that it was too short,” Aquilani despaired. “Too short a time at the club, too short the time on the pitch. My time in games, it had to be more. That was probably the problem.”

Had the conditions been right, it would have been interesting to see Aquilani at the peak of his powers with Liverpool. As it happened, it was perhaps a case of right player, wrong time.