The top 5 worst possible forward transfers

Note that these are, or were, actual targets unlike Michael Chopra, Andy Carroll, or my cousin Leroy.

5. Salomon Kalou
Salomon Kalou is a conundrum.  Is he any good? Was he ever good?  When he transferred from Feyenoord to Chelsea in 2006, he was coming off two productive years where he scored 42 goals in 80 matches in all competitions.  Interestingly enough, his strike mate at the Eredivisie club was Dirk Kuyt, who scored 61 goals in 82 matches over that same span.  Read the rest of this post here

4. Ezequiel Lavezzi
Ezequiel Lavezzi is like a fine wine, he's gotten better with age, but is he good enough to help Liverpool win?  He doesn't score many goals, he has more than his fair share of turnovers, and he's an average passer at best, though he does make his passes count.  Over the past five seasons, he has a 2.03 chances created per 90 and a chance created value of 10.67%, both above average numbers in any league. Read more of this post here

3. Jay Rodriguez
Jay Rodriguez isn't worth £1.9m, yet alone 19! That is absurd.  There just can't be any truth to Rodgers being interested in him.  If so, somebody needs to set his head right, because that's certifiable. Are these stats worthy of a £19m attacking midfielder/winger/forward? To see his stats and read the rest of this post, go here.

2. Mauro Icardi
I don't really get all the hoopla about Icardi, other than stealing fellow teammate's wives and having a decent though far from amazing career goal scoring rate of 0.5 per 90 minutes, there is nothing statistically impressive about him.  He's not a good passer (68% pass completion rate) nor creator for his teammates (0.92 chances created per 90 minutes) and he can't even dribble past defenders in the pace-challenged Serie A (0.5 successfull dribbles per 90 at a 20% success rate).  Inter want £24m for him, even if he leaves his wife in Italy, that's entirely too much for potential alone.

1. Fred
I was browsing message boards the other day, for self-esteem reasons of course, when I found quite a few 'pro-Fred' postings.  At first I thought that there must be some younger, lesser known Brazilian striker going by that same moniker, but apparently not.  (Yes, I am aware of the Brazilian attacking midfielder at Shaktar Donetsk.)  Honestly, I was shocked to see supporters backing his purchase, did they watch the World Cup? He was absolutely useless.

On top of that, even if he posted 'World Class' stats, which he doesn't (about a goal scored every other match, good but not great, and average passing stats at best), it would take a boatload of cash to get him to leave Brazil.  That's surprising considering what happened there this summer.  His stay at Lyon left a bad taste in his mouth regarding European football and made him homesick, I don't think he'll find himself in a much better situation anywhere in England.

Yer havin' a Laugh-ezzi: 29-year-old forward simply overrated

Ezequiel Lavezzi is like a fine wine, he's gotten better with age, but is he good enough to help Liverpool win?  He doesn't score many goals, he has more than his fair share of turnovers, and he's an average passer at best, though he does make his passes count.  Over the past five seasons, he has a 2.03 chances created per 90 and a chance created value of 10.67%, both above average numbers in any league.

Ironic enough, the thing he does best was the about the only thing he hasn't consistently improved upon each season.  Last season he posted career percentage highs in pass completion (79.25%), shot accuracy (53.19%), and shot on target rate (19.15%).  Unfortunately, he set a career low in assists with zero and a chance created value also of zero, despite a 1.73 chance created per 90.  His turnover rate of 12.8 was a career low, but it's still not great and at 29, how many seasons does he have left in him?  We don't need another Rickie Lambert.

What is really alarming is that he has never posted a positive goals on pitch difference for any club any season, meaning he has never been a consistent contributor (or game changer) for a positive overall result.  In fact, his worst gopd season came last year, when he posted a -0.31 despite playing for the Ligue 1 champions.

There's really nothing Lavezzi does great, he's just an all-round good second striker.  He's not a 'big' signing, despite the hype and I get the feeling Rodgers would have to drastically overpay for him, a luxury we can't afford now that we've added Lovren and Origi at exorbitant prices.  He doesn't have the pace to compete in the Prem anymore, if he ever truly did, and there's really nothing in his past that indicates he's suddenly going to be a world beater.  Personally, I think Liverpool should pass and try to get Reus, Shaquiri, or Kruse.