Many players came and went under Rafa's stewardship of the club. There are those who were successes (Alonso, Torres, Mascherano, Crouch, Bellamy) and those who failed (Babel, Jovanovic, Ngog, El Zhar, Paletta) -Its not a comprehensive list, I know... But one player never got a chance to show us what he might be capable of. Sebastian Leto. Signed by Rafa as a pacy, promising left winger, he never appeared for Liverpool in the league due to work permit issues (he had been issued an Italian passport in 2007 which was then revoked), was limited to appearances in the League Cup, CL and reserves, and was ultimately sold (at a profit) to Panathiniakos, after having spent a season on loan at Olympiacos. After two solid season playing out on the wing, (25 apps, 6 goals, 6 assists; 22 apps, 2 goals, 3 assists) following the sale of Djibril Cisse (another old boy), he's been switched to a striker's role and scored 11 and created 5 in just 10 appearances. If only his passport hadn't been an issue... Does anyone know if he's eligible to play for English teams yet? He'd certainly be one I'd want to take another look at...
Well its a 5 year residency requirement in the eu. so I don't think thats met at this point. but we must remember where he is and guys can look stellar in the greek league and be pretty average when the make the step up. Thats not to write him off. I can see why he'd make that swtich as he was a big powerful lad rather than your nippy winger type. Overall..... I was glad we made our money back on this deal, like mark gonzalez at least we put the bigger moeny down so we were backing the buy rather than taking a punt like some of the names on your list. I've found that genderally when rafa "took a punt" it was a disaster (with the noteable exception of arbeloa) but when he put the money down they were generally ok (with noteable exceptions like pennent) I mean insua was 500k and wasn't great, lucas was what 5-7mil and porved worth it. hopefully we have a guy in charge of procurement who is looking more pobjectively and rationally and not taking many punts. Sterling = rational decision for example
