“Alberto is available to play and has been for more than a month. He feels good and the injury has cleared up, and now the only way he can get truly fit is to play more and more minutes. He is desperate to get his career in England up and running. He has been very frustrated, first at being injured, then at not being chosen to play for so long.”
Claudio Aquilani (Alberto’s dad, who happens to be a paramedic at AS Roma, his son’s previous club)
Two ways to see this:
1) Rafa Benitez is doing the right thing, easing Aquilani into English football very, VERY slowly so that the player is much less likely to pick up repeated injuries, a la Fernando Torres.
2) Benitez has had a good look at Aquilani and doesn’t fancy him.
Either way (I’d guess No.1 – Rafa has been burned before and is naturally an ultra cautious man), it’s all very frustrating for the Aqualini family, as well as Liverpool fans who are dying to see what £20m is worth in today’s market. However, getting your dad to pick your fights is not a good look, though perhaps Claudio spoke up without his son’s approval.
1) or 2) – what say you?
Fletch says:
“… Ma favourite Star Wars figure was the Gamorrean guard, but I played with it so much one of the arms fell off. Gutted. Oh, and that Aquilani radge looks like a diseased bush baby.”