When Transfer Rumors Raise Red Flags: Raul Albiol To Liverpool.

By: chris | March 4th, 2009

Sometimes transfer rumors are little more than a siren for impending disaster, and the Raul Albiol to Liverpool rumors top that list. Now make no mistake, Raul Albiol is an incredibly gifted defender who has the potential to be something special – but quite often the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts, especially when it’s worth less. You see, that’s the case with Raul Albiol and his potential defensive partnership with Jaime (pronounced ‘Hi-may’ once this deal goes through) Carragher.

Two great defenders, yes, but two great defenders with an alarming propensity for putting the ball in their own net. Beware the rise of Own Goal FC.

Carragher’s wolf-in-sheepies clothing exploits are well documented – he may even have an Everton tattoo and/or a butterfly on his bikini line – as he’s scored nearly twice as many own goals (7) as he has goals (4) in his Liverpool career. The only way he could be less subtle is if he pulled up at training in a Trojan horse car kit.

Albiol? At this pace he might overtake Jaime’s totals by the time this campaign is over. In Valencia’s last five games Albiol has been credited with two own goals and a third, Artem Milevskiy’s goal in Kiev, originally went up on the board as an Albiol faux pas before being sympathetically credited to the team which was actually attacking. Let’s call that 2.5 OG’s in 5 games – and that against one goal for Valencia on the season – which cost a swandiving Los Che three needed points and may have aided in their UEFA Cup dismissal (twas hard to determine whether Milevskiy’s “goal” came off his elbow or Albiol).

Now think about veteran Jaime aiding in the development of a young – by defender’s standards – and still developing Raul Albiol? International disaster relief organizations are already going on alert.

This is one of those things that will never make Rafa think twice about purchasing Albiol nor make us think twice about the quality of either Carragher or his potential Spanish playmate, but still….it’s got to be raising a few red flags somewhere. Most likely on the blue side of the Mersey – which is something in itself.