It was just before the millennium that Liverpool set off on a French revolution under Gerard Houllier.
Bernard Diomede, Djimi Traore, Gregory Vignal, Nicolas Anelka all joined the Reds under Houllier’s stewardship, as did Pegguy Arphexad, a name often forgotten by Liverpool supporters. Born in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, the goalkeeper first arrived in the Premier League in 1997 when he joined Leicester City.
An impressive display for the Foxes in a 2-0 win at Anfield in May 2000 helped to deny Liverpool a place in the following season’s Champions League - but also ensured he caught the eye of Houllier who snapped him up on a Bosman-style free transfer that summer.
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“They were looking for a second keeper to challenge Sander Westerveld because Brad Friedel was coming to the end of his contract,” the former Reds goalkeeper told Planet Football when asked about how the transfer came about.
“When Liverpool come, you don’t think twice. Liverpool are a very strong team and I thought I had the ability to be the first keeper there. When I signed, I knew I was going to be second keeper, but I thought I could be the first one if I worked hard.”
Before he continued: “It feels great when the fans back you. You’re very pleased because it means you’re doing a good job.
“I had a great time in Leicester, and I would have loved to have stayed longer, but I had the chance to go to Liverpool. If Martin [O'Neill] had told me I would have been the first keeper I would have stayed.”
Although Arphexad, who on this day back in 2001 joined Stockport County on a month’s loan, in which he played three times, conceding five goals as they only picked up one point, displaced Brad Friedel – who joined Blackburn Rovers the following November – as the main competition to Westerveld at the club, he was unable to displace the Dutchman as number one that term.
The following year, Houllier brought in two keepers in the space of 24 hours in the shape of Jerzy Dudek and Chris Kirkland which saw Westerveld sold to Real Sociedad in acrimonious circumstances. At the time, it was believed that Arphexad would follow suit.
However, the now 49-year-old stuck around for another couple of seasons to warm the bench in the 2003 League Cup final win over Manchester United, just as he had done in the trio of cup final successes of 2001 plus the UEFA Super Cup and Charity Shield that year.
“You have to concentrate and work as hard as all the other players because the day you’re called upon, you have to be ready,” Arphexad said when asked about the role of back-up goalkeeper.
“You can’t be thinking, ‘Why am I not playing? Why am I not playing?’ You just have to work hard and expect that one day you’ll be called upon, or you’ll have the chance to be the first goalkeeper.”
He then added: “It was very frustrating because I think, personally, with my ability, I could have been the first goalkeeper somewhere else.
“Maybe I made the wrong decision and should have gone to a smaller team to be the first goalkeeper before going to a strong team like Liverpool. I don’t know. But I thought at that time that I had the ability to be first goalkeeper at Liverpool.”
Arphexad made his Reds Premier League debut in the 2-1 win over West Ham United back in January 2001. He went on to make five more appearances in all competitions for the Anfield club before being released at the end of his contract in the summer of 2003.
Arphexad became good friends with Emile Heskey, who he played with at both Leicester and Liverpool, and speaking back in 2020, admitted he often felt that the striker’s impact for club and country was often underestimated.
He said: “I got on really well with all of the players, but mostly with Emile. We spent most of the time together and he was my room-mate on away trips.
“He was a top player and a top guy. He had a lot of ability. He was strong, quick, powerful. He was a very good player. I don’t know how many caps he got, but it should have been even more.
“Emile worked so hard for the team. Maybe it was his mistake to work so hard because he could have worked less and scored more goals.”
Following his release by Liverpool, Arphexad spent the 2003/04 season on loan at Coventry City. He would make five appearances for the Sky Blues, as well as three for Notts County during a loan spell at Meadow Lane.
During the 2004/05 season he was on the books of Marseille but he failed to play in a single league match for the French south coast club. Arphexad then made the decision to call time on his playing career in 2005.
“In France, if players are out with an injury they don’t get paid. They only get paid for 90 days and after that they get nothing. But we cover them,” he said when asked about his decision to retire.
“The guy who runs the company called me when I finished my career and asked me if I would be interested in this. I passed my badges to be a coach, and after that I said, ‘Why not?’ I’m still involved in football because we insure the player and we insure the club.”
A spell as a pundit then followed for the former goalkeeper, who then hit the headlines back in March 2016 - when he was forced to deny rumours that he went on to become an adult movie star after retiring from football.
Rumours had spread that Arphexad had entered the pornography industry as a male actor, and was alleged to have started to forge a career in front of the camera under an alias of 'the stopper', but he was quick to shut them down when asked about them by the Leicester Mercury.
He said: "Look, this is a bad rumour. It's been going round a long time. One English guy wrote on the internet years and years ago that I was doing this and now people say to me: 'Hey, are you making porn films?'
"I haven't made ANY porn films, okay. I don't do that. I work for a sports insurance company. That's what I do. Put it in your paper – I don't do porn films, just insurance, okay?"
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