Should Rafa Benitez avoid relegation with Newcastle, he will be handed full control of transfers at the club. Newcastle fans might be worried about this, given the volume of flops he signed at Liverpool. That said, for every Mark Gonzalez and Jan Kromkamp signed, Benitez would often unearth a gem.
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As Rafa prepares to bolster the Newcastle squad, we decided to check in and see how his early Liverpool signings were doing:
Josemi
Josemi was Benitez' first signing at Anfield, and is remembered for doing largely nothing before nudging himself to the front of the Champions League trophy presentation. Josemi, draped in a Spanish flag, took up prime location beside Steven Gerrard, as Jamie Carragher retreated to the back owing to an onset of cramp. (Something Carragher caustically remembers in his autobiography).
Having failed to dislodge Steve Finnan, Josemi was swapped for Villareal's Jan Kromkamp in January 2006, before going on to play for Mallorca, for whom he scored his only senior professional goal.
Josemi then spent two seasons in Greece - with Levadiakos and Skoda Xanthi - and was last seen playing in the Indian Super League with Atletico Kolkata, where he played alongside the next man on this list...
Luis Garcia
Unlike Josemi, who is remembered for doing nothing. Garcia enjoys cult status among Liverpool fans, and 'Luis Garcia Drinks Sangria' is still heard regularly around Anfield (although this may be down to the fact that it's just a very good song). Garcia was signed from Barcelona in 2004, and proved critical in the 2005 Champions League run, scoring against Bayer Leverkusen and Juventus, and he might have scored against Chelsea in the semi-final. In fact, five of Garcia's 18 Liverpool goals came in the knockout stages of that competition.
Garcia left Liverpool for Atletico Madrid in 2007, having missed the 2006 FA Cup final through suspension. Stints at Racing Santander and Panathinaikos followed, before playing alongside Josemi in India with Atletico Kolkata. Garcia is one of the few men on this list still playing: at 37, he is turning out for Australian side Central Coast Mariners.
Antonio Nunez
Nunez arrived at Anfield as part of the deal that took Michael Owen to Real Madrid. The high point of Nunez' Liverpool career was a goal in the 2005 Carling Cup final defeat to Chelsea. Nunez left the club after just one season, joining Celta Vigo, where he was a relative success, playing 97 times. (The flop at Liverpool to shine at Celta path is one since taken by Iago Aspas).
Nunez then joined Real Murcia in 2008 for a season, before then heading to Apollon Limassol in the Cypriot league. Nunez is now 37 and is also still playing: with Recreativo Huelva in the Spanish third division.
Xabi Alonso
There was once an idea among a section of supporters that nobody leaves Liverpool to enjoy more success elsewhere. Xabi Alonso has since provided an emphatic rebuttal of this idea. Liverpool fell apart following Alonso's 2009 transfer to Real Madrid, where he won the Champions League along with La Liga and two Spanish Cups. He also won the World Cup in 2010, Euro 2012 and the 2015 Bundesliga title with Bayern.
Gareth Barry has not been as successful.
Mauricio Pellegrino
Pellegrino (not Pelligrini) was a stalwart at centre-back for Benitez at Valencia. He joined his former manager at Liverpool in January 2005, where he greatly struggled to adapt to the pace of the Premier League. He was sadly ineligible to play in the Champions League triumph. The club offered him a contract extension at the end of the season, but Pellegrino chose to leave the club. He went on to play 13 times for Alaves, the side otherwise known as Liverpool's vanquished opponents in the extraordinary 2001 UEFA Cup final.
Pellegrino retired at Alaves and went into coaching, returning to be part of Benitez' backroom staff at Liverpool between 2008 and 2010. Following Benitez' dismissal, he assisted him at Inter Milan, a brief stint which also ended in Benitez being sacked. Pellegrino then went out on his own, taking the reigns of former club Valencia, where he was sacked after six months. (Eerily similar to Gary Neville's current plight).
He then returned to manage Estudiantes in Argentina for two years and is now the manager of Independiente.
Pellegrino's greatest contribution to Liverpool may have been apocryphal. The story goes that after Milan's defeat in Istanbul, they left their runners-up medals in the dressing room. Pellegrino apparently swiped them and gave them to those not involved in Liverpool's matchday squad on the night. If it's true, we have never been happier for Anthony Le Tallec.
Fernando Morientes
Morientes was signed from Real Madrid in the same window as Pellegrino. Morientes had spent the previous season on loan at Monaco and oddly was permitted to play against Real Madrid in the 2004 Champions League quarter-finals. He had struggled to break into the Madrid squad upon his return, ironically due to the signing of Michael Owen.
Anfield beckoned, but Morientes scored just eight times in 41 appearances for Liverpool and was sold to Valencia in 2006, where he spent three years before ending his career at Marseille in 2010. Last year, he came out of retirement to play three games with local side DAV Santa Ana.
Morientes has since pursued a coaching career, and was widely tipped to join Benitez as assistant at Real Madrid last summer. Instead, he was appointed manager of CF Fuenlabrada in the Spanish third division, where he is reminded of a much more successful Fernando to play with Liverpool: the side play in the Estadio Fernando Torres.
