Liverpool have had to make some very difficult decisions on some big-name players in recent years in terms of letting their stars leave.
Sadio Mane left Liverpool to join Bayern Munich back in 2022, while Fabinho and Jordan Henderson both left the club in 2023.
Liverpool don’t hold much sentiment when it’s time for a player to leave, and often, players can regret leaving Anfield.
Daniel Sturridge regretted leaving Liverpool when he did, while Ryan Babel also regretted leaving Liverpool.
Liverpool have never been overly sentimental when it comes to shifting players who need to go, dating all the way back to the pre-Premier League era.
Speaking on the Blood Red Podcast, John Aldridge has been discussing his departure from Liverpool back in 1989, and he says that he actually never wanted to leave Liverpool, claiming that he was forced out of the club by Kenny Dalglish at the time.
Photo By Matt Browne/Sportsfile via Getty Images
Photo By Matt Browne/Sportsfile via Getty Images
John Aldridge never wanted to leave Liverpool
Aldridge spoke about his departure from Anfield.
The striker says that he actually wanted to stay at Liverpool forever, but due to the presence of Ian Rush and Peter Beardsley, he had to go.
Ian Rush is an all-time great Liverpool striker, and, unfortunately for Aldridge, he got the nod.
“I wanted a new contract. As I’m saying about Darwin, the gloves were off with me because three really top players, and I’m putting myself in that category, Rushy and Peter (Beardsley) and myself, three into two doesn’t go,’ Aldridge said.
“So the first game was the Charity Shield against Wimbledon, and we went 2-1 and I scored two. Then the first league game’s away at Charlton, we went 3-0, I scored three, because it’s game on. I want to play every single game.
“Anyway, that year I scored 31 goals in all competitions and about 40 starts. And that’s me wanting my place, that’s the hunger that I want to play for my club, who I adore and love. But then the pre-season starts and the manager basically pushed me out the door, Kenny.”
“He was looking when we had to go and talk, because I was after another three-year contract, I wanted to stay at the club forever. But he said, no, he’s changing things around, he’s going to go with Peter and Ian, and if we want to play, then when I said, and he said, so he said, come in here, if you want to play, that’s it. And I got that because Liverpool, I respect Liverpool didn’t want me to go to a club that could bite them on the backside.
“I respect that, because we’ve always done that, like Kevin Keegan went to Hamburg, and such all the great, Graeme Souness went to Sampdoria and all that. So I got that, and it was a great move for me, financially and everything about the best people I loved and adored. But I was willing to stay and state my claim.”
John Aldridge stats after leaving Liverpool
Aldridge was a top striker in his day – he scored 436 goals in his career in all competitions for club and country.
Aldridge was an elite goalscorer, but, he was 31 years old by the time Liverpool sold him to Real Sociedad.
However, even at that advanced age, Aldridge didn’t stop scoring goals.
|John Aldridge stats for Real Sociedad|
|---|---|
|Games|75|
|Goals|40|
Aldridge had a remarkable record during his two years in Spain, and after that, he would return to England with Tranmere Rovers.
The goalscoring didn’t stop with Tranmere either as Aldridge dominated the scoring charts up until almost his 40th birthday.
|John Aldridge stats for Tranmere Rovers|
|---|---|
|Games|294|
|Goals|174|
Of course, during that period, a young striker by the name of Robbie Fowler was coming through, so perhaps it was for the best that Aldridge left Liverpool when he did because it cleared the pathway for Fowler to become a star on Merseyside.