Topic: Djibril Cissé

[El Lobo]

Absolutely loved Cisse, but I actually can't remember if he was particularly good or not - when he played for us I was of an age that I don't really fully understand what good football meant, or if a team was playing well or not in a match beyond the scoreline 

He was alright, scored some good goals. All a bit unlucky though really, we agreed the signing under Ged and when he arrived he'd been sacked. Then the leg break quite early on. Certainly didn't live up to the hype, when we signed him he was a proper coup. Shame he didn't fancy playing on the right because he did well there the season we won the cup. Annoyingly we seemed to sign quite a few strikers at that time who ended up playing on the right

[afc tukrish]

I was on holiday in Kos in August and Lord Frodsham was doing a DJ set in one of the local bars.

Just have fun reading that sentence. How cool is that? 

[Corkboy]

Absolutely loved Cisse, but I actually can't remember if he was particularly good or not - when he played for us I was of an age that I don't really fully understand what good football meant, or if a team was playing well or not in a match beyond the scoreline 

He wasn't that good. A shoot on sight speed merchant.

[Crosby Nick]

He wasn't that good. A shoot on sight speed merchant.

Definitely not a Rafa signing, so was that an example of our slightly amateurish approach back then to sign a player for a record fee (I think?) that was wanted by the manager we were about to, or had just sacked.

He was also unlucky with the horrific leg break and his return at the end of the season gave us a boost. He had some good moments in 05/06, think he got around 20 goals including a vital one in the cup final.

One of the most famous images of his time here is Rafa giving him a bollocking for a dreadful cameo in the FA Cup semi final against Chelsea when he just continually ran offside.

[El Lobo]

Was that not the CL semi against them, or did he do it in both? I remember he seemed to have about six one-on-ones in the CL one but maybe that’s a slight exaggeration

[Crosby Nick]

Was that not the CL semi against them, or did he do it in both? I remember he seemed to have about six one-on-ones in the CL one but maybe that’s a slight exaggeration

Probably both! In the CL I think once or twice he latched onto balls over the top but just blamed shots from distance/bad angles rather than hold it up and kill some time.

Fairly sure it was the Old Trafford semi where Rafa took him to task.

[Keith Lard]

Absolutely loved Cisse, but I actually can't remember if he was particularly good or not - when he played for us I was of an age that I don't really fully understand what good football meant, or if a team was playing well or not in a match beyond the scoreline 

Quality player on his day.

But overall, he was bang average. Watching Wenger, Henry, Vieira, Petit and Pires tear it up at Arsenal, I always felt envious that we had to make do with the second fiddle frenchies of Houllier, Cisse, Cheyrou, Traore, Pongolle, Diomede, Le Tallec and Vignal 😂 in the main, a conveyor belt of turds … and hilariously, even despite that we still win in Europe multiple times and Arsenal won fuck all. That’s the power Liverpool and the power of Anfield. Only the super clubs can do this stuff fielding turds on the pitch like this.

[darragh85]

I'll never forget quotes from Guy Roux when Cisse was a highly rated youngster at Auxerre and Roux was his manager.

Basically said that Cisse can be a great player but only if he improves his left foot and heading. He did neither. Although injuries didn't help either

[stoa]

Definitely not a Rafa signing, so was that an example of our slightly amateurish approach back then to sign a player for a record fee (I think?) that was wanted by the manager we were about to, or had just sacked.

He was also unlucky with the horrific leg break and his return at the end of the season gave us a boost. He had some good moments in 05/06, think he got around 20 goals including a vital one in the cup final.

Agree with both those points. The leg break definitely made it much harder for him to become part of the team missing almost his whole first season with us. What made it even harder afterwards that he wasn't a Rafa player, but also didn't really buy into what Rafa was doing. I think Rafa would have been prepared to give him a chance to develop into a player that would fit in our team, but I don't think Cissé ever really wanted to do that. He wanted to be the player he always used to be and it showed when he was asked to play on the left. It's the opposite of what happened to Gerrard. He might not have been happy with how Rafa was using him, but he went along with it and in the process became an even better player. It could have been the same with Cissé (on a lower level) had he been a bit more open to Rafa's ideas, but he wasn't and then was let go.