Rafa boots “£1.3m per goal” Kewell out of Liverpool
Harry Kewell’s Liverpool career is over. His final game will be recorded as the FA Cup defeat to Barnsley. An ignominious end to the Anfield career for which the Aussie Kewell sacrificed so much.
Rafa has had enough of Sicknote Kewell and he will be available on a free transfer - we said Kewell’s Liverpool career was over last October.
How different from his arrival at Anfield when he was valued at £15m but Kewell and his “agent” engineered an infamous deal where Liverpool FC just paid £5m of which Leeds received just £3m.
He refused a move to Old Trafford because “he was a Liverpool fan” - coincidentally, Manchester United would have met the £15m valuation that Leeds wanted but the signing-on fee that Kewell received would have been dramatically less. Kewell unsuccessfully sued Gary Lineker over comments Gary made about the propriety of the deal.
Kewell was one of the young stars of the O’Leary team that promised much but was broken up after the consequences of Peter Ridsdale’s financial ineptitude became clear.
The way Leeds lost out on the value of Kewell at a time when the club was desperate made him a hate figure amongst many Leeds fans and there will be a few wry smiles at the news that the “bargain” Hairy Cruel actually cost the Scousers nearly £150,000 a game - and that generously includes the 30 games where he was named as a sub. In the 2006-07 season he played just three games - all in May and still managed to be sub in the European Cup Final defeat. But by the start of next season he was injured again and didn’t play until October!
He scored a pitiful 16 goals for Liverpool FC at a value of £1.3m per goal!
During his tenure as Liverpool’s number 7 he has played barely half the number of games that he played for Leeds United over a similar period. So few in fact, that he started in European games, in the white shirt of Leeds, in nearly twice as many games as he did in the red of Liverpool, despite Liverpool being in Europe every season.
So there will be no tears shed in Leeds for the departure of one odious Australian from these shores to the sunnier and more lucrative environs of Juventus - or more accurately their physio’s bench!
But the Italians needn’t worry, if they get anywhere near a cup final Kewell will somehow manage to make a brief cameo appearance in the final itself before departing again, injured.
If Kewell was a star at Aintree rather than Anfield they’d have shot him by now.
Once described as the “worst referee in the Premiership” by an unnamed Premership manager (per Paul Jewell), Dowd, nonetheless, spends most of his time refereeing top flight matches. You will have seen him on TV this season; he reffed the Liverpool 5 v 2 Havant match in the FA Cup, the Chelsea 4 v 4 Aston Villa game and Everton’s memorable 7 v 1 Sunderland win.
