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Italians in the Premier League - something about it just isn’t quite right, but Liverpool are willing to try again.

talkSPORT understands that the English champions have agreed a £26million deal for Parma’s Giovanni Leoni, with the 18-year-old centre back set to bolster their defensive options.

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Leoni is set to arrive at Liverpool and is hoping for more success than his fellow Italian redsCredit: Getty

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One other arrival from Rome could have been great, but ended up leaving quicklyCredit: Getty

The Reds certainly need support in that area given Ibrahima Konate and Joe Gomez’s injury histories, but filling a crucial gap with a Serie A signing hasn’t ever worked out before, despite seven attempts.

The likes of Fabio Borini, Mario Balotelli and Andrea Dossena have all previously arrived at a time of need, only to be shipped out of Anfield at the next possible opportunity.

Yet it was one of Leoni’s fellow Romans who brought the most hope, only to be left shattered by injuries and pressure.

Liverpool came close to winning their first title of the Premier League era under Rafael Benitez in 2009, but fell four points short to rivals Manchester United and had to gear up to go again.

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Matching Sir Alex Ferguson’s Red Devils wouldn’t be easy, but they quickly snuck in the signing of one of Europe’s best right backs at the time - Glen Johnson - adding more consistency to an already excellent squad.

Yet sadly for Benitez and Liverpool fans, a seed the Spaniard sowed a summer earlier came back to haunt him.

The club’s best player during the 2008/09 title challenge, Xabi Alonso, had been told to leave ahead of the campaign, and made sure he did so the following summer.

Benitez denies such a demand to this day, but with both Alonso and midfield partner Steven Gerrard both corroborating it in their autobiographies, it’s a hard one not to believe.

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Whatever the cause of Alonso's departure, the outcome was still the same, in the other way came £22million Alberto Aquilani from Roma with the pressure of living up to a club legend.

The midfielder later claimed the comparisons were a ‘journalists’ thing’ but as far as we can work out, Gerrard wasn’t one.

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In hindsight, maybe Alonso was irreplaceableCredit: Getty

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Gerrard was clearly a big fan of his new midfield partnerCredit: Getty

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The club captain piled the pressure on the newbie

“The boy is a player, he sees a pass and he can dictate the tempo of a game,” the Reds captain said. 

“I don’t want to tempt fate, but he’s very similar to Xabi.”

Yet before that pressure could even break Aquilani, he was already feeling the strain on his ankle.

An injury that dogged him in his last season in Italy carried over to England, and Aquilani was hopeful that was it.

"At Roma my worries were linked with injury,” he said.

“But when I came to Liverpool, the doctor highlighted exactly the problem I have.

"We now have a very good picture and I hope it will be solved so that I will not be absent again. 

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Aquilani had three very brief cameos in the first team before finally making his breakthrough four months after signingCredit: Getty

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It turned out his lack of minutes wasn't unusual for a Liverpool Italian

"It is a shame I cannot play straight away but it is important to get better, then play well.

I am focusing on that."

Sadly for Aquilani, he didn’t debut until the end of October, playing just 13 minutes, and then just eight in the following six.

Liverpool were seventh in the table by this point and pressure was piling on Benitez, while disastrous owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett were causing every distraction possible off the pitch.

Aquilani did eventually emerge, and started to have some impact, recording six assists and two goals in barely a quarter of a season, showing the talent that Benitez and Gerrard clearly knew was there.

In fact, one of those goals put Liverpool on course for glory, and it’s one the current Catanzaro manager in Italy’s Serie B still looks back on.

1-0 down against Atletico Madrid from the first leg of their Europa League semi-final, Aquilani put the Reds ahead at Anfield with a neat striker before Yossi Benayoun gave them the overall lead on aggregate with a second.

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Anfield thought Aquilani had fired them towards another European finalCredit: Getty

However, Aquilani’s teammates let him down, with Diego Forlan’s late strike winning the tie on away goals.

“If we had won we would have played Fulham in the final and so had a big chance of winning the Europa League,” the Italian would later recall. 

“It would have been a first trophy for me and changed my luck – my life – at Liverpool.

“But we lost and suddenly everything was different for me.

My goal, the way I played – it was forgotten.

“This is the life of a footballer – it can all change with one episode.”

In fact, one of the men responsible for that Forlan goal that wiped Aquilani’s from memory - Jamie Carragher - would later prove his point.

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Forlan was left all alone to break Liverpool hearts on away goalsCredit: Getty

“Alberto Aquilani would have to be up there [as a worst ever signing],” the pundit said.

"We spent a lot of money on him.

He was signed injured, he left injured and I can't remember him not being injured.”

Benitez, though, never agreed, later saying: “The problem was his fitness. 

“In truth, he was only within our price range because he had suffered an ankle injury the previous season and had been forced to undergo an operation to fix the problem.

“We decided that we would go ahead with the deal because we had enough cover in midfield to allow Aquilani to recover his fitness before he was introduced into the team, but sadly, all three of the experts we had consulted were proved wrong.

“It would be four months before he was truly ready to play, and even then, it was impossible to push him too much in training as he was still hampered slightly by the after-effects of the injury.

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There were far bigger problems at Liverpool with owners Hicks and GillettCredit: AFP

“He is often dismissed as a failure at Liverpool but I am confident that, given time, he would have shown his quality, once he had fully recovered from his injuries.”

Sadly those plans came to an end after just a season as Benitez was replaced by Roy Hodgson.

“I met Roy – he spoke to me in Italian and was a gentleman, but he told me he wanted to buy Joe Cole and make the team more English,” Aquilani recalled. 

“It was obvious I would not get many chances to play so I decided it would be good for me to go back to Italy.

“Really, as soon as Rafa left I knew my time at the club was finished.

I was his project and the project ended after only one year.”

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Aquilani would go on to have a respectable career back in Italy and also Portugal and Spain, but particularly at Fiorentina where he scored 15 goals in 105 games, consisting of one season which brought 44 appearances.

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Aquilani wasn't English enough for HodgsonCredit: Getty

Still remembered fondly in Tuscany, as well as Milan and Lisbon, the same can’t be said for Liverpool, where, if things had turned out slightly differently, he’d easily be remembered as the club’s best-ever Italian.


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