Liverpool signed best young player in world in club-record transfer

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Throughout the noughties, it was regularly rued how Gerrard remained the last graduate to become a key first-team player.READ MORE: Liverpool summer signings rated as 5/10 man worse than Florian Wirtz and one 8/10 winnerREAD MORE: 'Alexander Isak was unprofessional and naive and he's now paying the price at Liverpool'Considering how fruitful the 90s had been, mentioned alongside Manchester United’s class of ‘92, onlookers were baffled at Liverpool’s failure to unearth the next Gerrard, Owen or Carragher. After a number of loan moves, he joined Portsmouth in 2005, and had stints with Lens, Birmingham City, Atromitos, Dundee United, and AS Beziers before retiring in 2013.Skimming over the likes Arjen Robben, Maicon and Ricardo Quaresma, Milan Baros takes 21st in FourFourTwo’s list.

However, his fortunes flailed after an unsuccessful move to Sporting Lisbon.Consequently, he'd take in Russia, USA, Scotland and Thailand with spells at Rostov, Chicago Fire, Dundee United, and Chainat Hornbill, before finishing his career back in France with Saint-Pierroise in 2019.Stepping over Rafael van der Vaart in sixth, we’re now into the top five with three future Liverpool players still to feature! It’s Liverpool hero Fernando Torres!The Spaniard became the Reds’ record signing when bought for £20m from Atletico Madrid in 2007, and for three years was the best striker on the planet as he scored an incredible 81 goals from 142 appearances.

But while he’d win the Champions League, FA Cup, and European Super Cup with the Reds, having been signed by Gerard Houllier, he struggled to ever fully convince Benitez, with his first of two broken legs, suffered against Blackburn Rovers in October 2004, derailing him before he’d even had a chance to truly begin at Anfield.Recovering in time to score in the penalty shoot-out win against AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final, he also scored in the FA Cup final win over West Ham United to take his Reds total to 24 goals from 82 games. But it proved to be his last game for the club as he was offloaded to Marseille, initially on loan, in the summer of 2006.Returning to the Premier League with Sunderland and Queens Park Rangers, either side of stints with Panathinaikos and Lazio, he finished his senior career in Switzerland with Yverdon-Sport after spells with Kuban Krasnodar, Bastia, and Saint-Pierroise.He had attempted to come out of retirement with AC Vicenza and Panathinaikos Chicago, but despite a number of pleas to top-flight French sides to sign him up so he could try to score the four goals he needed to record 100 goals in Ligue 1, the 43-year-old is yet to enjoy one last hurrah.Another not to live up to FourFourTwo’s high hopes, maybe it would have been different for Cisse if not for those two horrific broken legs?So, at the end of an ultimately pointless exercise as we wait for pre-season to kick in, what have we learned?