August 19 - Sky Blue Keano

WELL folks another exciting new season has now begun and for Liverpool fans that means waiting to see how long it takes before their team falls away from the title race, or even if they get in to it in the first place.

Nearly 20 years have passed since the Reds last won the title and this season will be no different, in our humble opinion, with or without the midfield genius that Gareth Barry must be for someone apparently worth £18m. No matter though Kopites, £20m has been spent on Irishman Robbie Keane. Rafa Benitez is hoping Keano will form a partnership with Fernando Torres that is a lethal as one of the imaginary arrows or bullets Keane fires into the crowd after he scores.

Keane’s move to Anfield takes his combined transfer fees to around £58m, through the course of his career, and today in 1999 he made his first big-money move when he signed for Coventry City from Wolverhampton Wanderers.

As a youngster Keane had the chance to join Liverpool but decided to go to Wolves where he thought he had a better chance of first-team football. After breaking into the first team in 1997 aged 17, he established himself as a major goal threat and it was clear there would soon be Premiership clubs huffing and puffing at Wolves’ door to take the Irishman from Molinueux.

Speculation about his future was rife, and despite Alex Ferguson claiming he would pay no more than £500,000 for the player, Aston Villa and Coventry were soon battling it out with Coventry eventually signing the 19-year-old for £6m - a British record for a teenager at the time.

He scored twice on his debut against Derby County and looked at home in the top-flight immediately playing under Gordon Strachan at Highfield Road. His stay in the midlands was to be a short one however when less than a year after he arrived, Keane joined Internazionale in a £13m deal - more than doubling his value in one season.

His Italian sojourn did not work out after Marcello Lippi, the manager who had signed him, was sacked soon afterwards. A move to Leeds and then to Tottenham followed, before he signed for Liverpool this summer.

In Nick Hornby style, here are Robbie’s top five goals. More from us tomorrow, but click here to find out which Scottish pundit was making an absolutely shocking prediction on this day in 1995.

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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