El Hadji Diouf earned a dream move to Liverpool after starring at the 2002 World Cup – but his time at Anfield soon turned into a nightmare.
The Senegal forward had captured the attention of the footballing elite after steering his country to an unlikely quarter-final. His man-of-the-match performance against France was enough to convince Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier to pay Lens £10million for the forward, who was later joined by his international team-mate Salif Diao at Anfield.
There was plenty of excitement around Diouf, who celebrates his 44th birthday today (January 15), as the Reds believed he could help fire the club to the Premier League title. Houllier’s side had finished runners-up to Arsenal the season before and thought a new number nine would push them over the line. Needless to say, it didn’t turn out that way.
A brace on his Anfield debut provided brief hope, but Diouf scored just six goals in 80 appearances, proving to be a controversial figure during his time on Merseyside. Reflecting on his career, Diouf wished he could go back and sign for Liverpool’s bitter rivals Manchester United instead.
In 2018, RMC Sport asked Diouf which club he most regretted playing for. “I would say Liverpool,” Diouf said. “Because if I had the chance again I would go to Manchester United or Barcelona. At the time they wanted me also.”
After scoring on his Anfield debut, Diouf did not score another league goal until March. He failed to find the net in the Premier League the following season. The forward’s poor disciplinary record also didn’t endear him to the Liverpool faithful, receiving 13 yellow cards and a red in his final year at the club.
In a UEFA Cup tie against Celtic in March 2003, Diouf spat at an opposition fan and was later interviewed by the police. This resulted in a two-game ban and being fined two weeks’ wages. Houllier left Liverpool in 2004 and admitted that the £10m signing had been one of his biggest mistakes.
“The disappointment has been El-Hadji Diouf because he has great potential but has never shown consistency,” Houllier told the BBC. “On occasions he has not given a good impression of the club, and that has no doubt in my mind affected people’s views.”
While Diouf wished he had signed for United, who went on to win the league in 2003, Liverpool had their own reasons to feel frustrated. The Reds had failed to sign former loanee Nicolas Anelka on a permanent deal that summer, with Diouf brought in to replace the Manchester City-bound striker.
Diouf had a frosty relationship with new captain Steven Gerrard, and Liverpool icon Jamie Carragher later gave a damning verdict of the forward’s time at the club. “He has one of the worst strike rates of any forward in Liverpool history,” Carragher said.
“He’s the only no. 9 ever to go through a whole season without scoring, in fact he’s probably the only no. 9 of any club to do that. He was always the last one to get picked in training.”
Diouf was loaned out to Bolton Wanderers in the summer of 2004, where he spent four years, later reuniting with manager Sam Allardyce at Blackburn Rovers. A loan spell at Rangers and brief stints with Championship sides Doncaster Rovers and Leeds United followed before retiring in 2015 after a short spell with Malaysian club Sabah.
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