Aquilani, Aquilani, ole, ole, ole

Here he is folks. Alberto Aquilani, all £19m worth, finally pulled on a Liverpool shirt last night, in a reserve team outing against Sunderland. Never has a player had so much pressure piled on him before even pulling on a club’s jersey, as the Italian midfielder is expected to save Rafa, get the best out of Steven Gerrard, and be as good as Xabi Alonso.

Not that we expect Aquilani to be around for long. The injury-prone midfielder managed a colossal 102 appearances in seven seasons for Roma. Across the same time period, Steven Gerrard played 335 games for Liverpool.

Aquilani’s sass mouth earns him a decking

Instead of helping their side lose 1-0 to Juventus this weekend, Christian Panucci and Alberto Aquilani warmed the Roma bench. At training yesterday, Panucci was telling teammate Philippe Mexes about a new tattoo he was planning, when Aquilani interrupted with one of the wittiest comments ever to fall from a footballer’s lips:

“Maybe you should get a tattoo of yourself sitting on the bench in Torino.”

Instead of firing back a witty retort, or pointing out that Alberto was also on the bench at the weekend, Panucci resolved the situation with fisticuffs, and three teammates had to pull him off of his sharp-tongued teammate.