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Iago Aspas of RC Celta de Vigo celebrates qualifying for the UEFA Europa League after his team's victory following the LaLiga match between Getafe CF and RC Celta de Vigo at Coliseum Alfonso Perez (Image: 2025 Quality Sport Images)

Iago Aspas might have flopped at Liverpool, but the former Reds striker looks set to be rewarded with a statue by another one of his clubs.

The Spain international joined the Reds in a £7m deal from Celta Vigo in the summer of 2013.

However, he would last just one season at Anfield before being offloaded on loan, having failed to establish himself at Anfield.



The striker made just 15 appearances for Liverpool, starting six times, scoring only once and failing to find the net in the Premier League.

Admittedly, he was not helped by finding himself behind Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge in the pecking order as the pair both enjoyed remarkable individual campaigns to nearly fire the Reds to the Premier League title.

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With his only goal coming against lower-league Oldham Athletic in the FA Cup, Aspas is best remembered at Anfield for an awful low corner late on against Chelsea as Liverpool infamously fell to a costly 2-0 defeat.

Spending the 2014/15 season on loan at Sevilla, the La Liga outfit signed the forward permanently before immediately selling him back to Celta Vigo in a €5m deal in June 2015.

Already a Celta club legend, having led their promotion charge in 2011/12 before scoring the goals to keep them in La Liga in his final season with the club, he hasn’t looked back since.

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Now 37 years old, Aspas has scored 214 goals from 524 appearances across 16 seasons with Celta Vigo.

And while he has previously scored the goals to avoid relegation multiple times, this season he helped the La Liga outfit qualify for Europe for only the second time across his two stints with the club.

Last competing in the Europa League in 2016/17, Aspas scored five goals from 12 European appearances that season as they reached the semi-finals - only to be eliminated 2-1 on aggregate by Manchester United despite drawing at Old Trafford.

“I'm sure we'll return.

I will do what I possibly can to make it happen,” Aspas vowed after their semi-final exit.

Eight years later and he has now delivered on that promise.

The veteran - who is also Celta captain - scored 10 goals from 29 La Liga appearances this season to help the club finish seventh and qualify for the Europa League again.

Celta Vigo president Marian Mourino has since hailed Apas as ‘the best player in the club’s history’, while the mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, has revealed he intends to honour the forward with a statue outside the Estadio Abanca Balaidos.

"You'll receive the tribute you deserve,” Caballero declared when the Celta squad visited Vigo town hall.

“When we were in Manchester, there was a statue of Bobby Charlton in front of the stadium.

"When I was a kid, he was the genius of the football world; the same thing will happen here with Iago Aspas.”

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The Royal Spanish Football Federation had proposed Estadio Balaidos as one of its host stadiums for the 2030 World Cup, but they are currently set to miss out as their inclusion would have exceeded FIFA's maximum of twenty stadiums.

While supporters from all over the world will seemingly miss out on taking in Aspas’ statue in five years’ time as a result, Vigo’s efforts to honour the forward will ensure his lasting legacy in football soon far exceeds one poorly-executed corner.

Aspas is not the only former Liverpool player to have been promised a statue this season.
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