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There are a lot of former Reds that I spend way too much time thinking about. Christian Benteke isn’t usually one of them. Benteke’s didn’t spend very long in a Liverpool jersey: Brendan Rodgers signed him back in 2015 but once Klopp took over, his appearances became less frequent and he was eventually sold to Crystal Palace in 2016.
He’s had an excellent season with Crystal Palace so far and scored two goals against Liverpool in the most recent loss for the team. In a conversation with Sport Foot, Benteke made it clear that the goals had nothing to do with showing Klopp what he’s missing, however.
“I can’t be annoyed with [Klopp],” Benteke said. “I was frustrated at the time, but in any case, it’s not a person who’ll manage to destroy what I have built or what I will build. In my head, I’m the sort of person who says, ‘If it doesn’t work here, it’ll work elsewhere.’”
I’m pretty sure if Benteke embroidered that into a pillow, it would sell well.
Introspective needlework aside, Benteke was also keen to talk about the fact that he definitely does not consider his stint at Anfield a failure, mostly because he wasn’t given enough of a chance to demonstrate what he was capable of.
“People make me laugh when they [repeat] that stat that I scored almost as many goals against Liverpool as for them. But with Liverpool, I almost never played. And despite that, I still scored nine league goals.
“In my opinion, a failure is when you start at job, you finish it and you fail. But I didn’t have the chance to express myself enough to talk of a failure.”
In the end, Benteke didn’t get a chance to live up to his full potential at Liverpool, and probably wasn’t the right fit in Klopp’s grand plans. But it’s his incredibly philosophical attitude that I appreciate the most — if I don’t think about him much, it’s probably because his time at the club isn’t tainted with bitterness or regret. Instead, I remember him as a consummate professional who scored some killer goals for us, and then moved on.