The summer of 2015 saw Liverpool needing to sign a new striker. With Brendan Rodgers as manager, they turned to Christian Benteke.
A deal was agreed with Aston Villa worth £32.5million, and Liverpool had a new player up front with the task of scoring goals. However, little did they know that things would not go fully to plan.
The early signs were promising, though. Benteke scored an impressive goal in a pre-season match against Swindon Town, and when the real stuff began he performed an audacious overhead kick against Manchester United at Old Trafford - a goal that is often talked about by supporters to this day.
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Then came a change of manager. Rodgers was out and Jurgen Klopp was brought in.
Benteke was faced with the task of impressing a new manager just a few months into life at a new club. However, he was boosted by the fact that Klopp was already a fan of his when he was manager at Borussia Dortmund.
The player even admitted that Klopp wanted to sign him during the German’s time as Dortmund boss. "It was after my first year at Aston Villa,” Benteke told the Mail Online in November 2015.
"My agent and the manager had a meeting about maybe doing a transfer but nothing happened. But it doesn't matter that he tried to sign me before. Liverpool are a massive club and you have to fight for your place. It isn't easy."
Despite Klopp previously wanting to sign Benteke at Dortmund, the manager did not go on to use the striker that often at Liverpool. He would start just eight Premier League matches after Klopp’s arrival in October 2015.
Benteke would address the issue himself in March 2016. At this point he was still a Liverpool player, but even so he spoke out about not starting as much as he would have liked under Klopp.
“What’s annoying me the most is that I would have never signed for Liverpool if I wasn’t the manager’s first choice,” Benteke told Sport/Voetbalmagazine in March 2016.
“Since I went to England in 2012, I’ve never been on the bench for such a long period. It hurts, especially since I never was as fit as I am now.
“When a coach says he wanted to buy you when he was at Borussia Dortmund and ignores you, then it’s difficult to understand.
“Some team-mates told me I was lucky when Klopp signed, because I would be certain to play.
“But with all the things I’ve experienced throughout my career, I knew it could go fast. I wasn’t wrong.
“I’m the first to admit that I haven’t shown my worth enough for a team like Liverpool. On the other hand, under Brendan Rodgers, I knew I would get the opportunity to show my qualities, to show that I was worth the money and that I deserved to wear the shirt of Liverpool. But now....”
After just one season at Anfield, Benteke’s time as a Liverpool player came to an end. With 10 goals in 42 appearances, the Belgian was sold to Crystal Palace for £32.5m, as Liverpool recouped the fee they paid Villa 12 months previously.
A couple of months after sanctioning the sale of Benteke to Palace, Klopp would address the decision to let the player leave the club. Whilst being a fan of the striker, he admitted that it was the right thing to do for all parties.
“The most funny thing for me in the whole summer was that everyone told me we needed to sign a new striker,” said Klopp in October 2016.
“I was thinking: ‘what do they want?’ We have enough! There are a lot of good strikers here.
“It was clear that we couldn’t go into this season - without Europe - with all these boys. You have to make decisions in a specific moment.
“It’s never really nice because there’s a lot of expectation from both sides when you make a transfer like this. But in my job I can’t always be nice. I have to make a decision for the club and for the team.
“It wasn’t an easy decision but in the end I think it was right for all sides.”
Despite not being selected that often by Klopp during his time at Liverpool, Benteke would still speak very highly about his former manager. He would work alongside the likes of Alan Pardew, Sam Allardyce, Frank de Boer and Roy Hodgson at Palace, as well as Paul Lambert and Tim Sherwood at Villa.
But in May 2019, Benteke would say that Klopp is still the best manager that he played under in his career.
“Klopp is still the best manager I worked with, although I didn’t play a lot,” Benteke told Belgian news outlet HLN. “He wanted fast players up front. I understood his decision [transfer to Crystal Palace].
A year later, though, Benteke would admit that he regretted moving to Liverpool when he did. During his time at Villa, he was the star player and even knocked the Reds out of the FA Cup in the semi-final at Wembley in April 2015.
In the season before his move to Anfield, Benteke scored 16 goals in 35 appearances. A move to a new club was justified, but the player himself would say that he wishes things had gone differently.
"That was a regret,” Benteke told Talksport in May 2020. “I don't like that term but I wish I had more time to prove myself because I could have shown a better Benteke.”
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