Frustrating Fabio

 

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The enigma that is Fabio Aurelio has frustrated me and many other Liverpool fans because when he does play he provides solid defensive cover down the left side of our team.

But most of the time he has to pull out during or before a game with another injury – we should have seen the signs all those years ago arriving on these shores from Valencia having previously played for Sao Paulo,

Throughout his 14 years as a professional he has encountered many injuries the first major one being in season 2003-04 when he broke his leg whilst playing for Valencia which meant he missed most of the season only playing 2 league games all season.

During his six seasons at Valencia he played 96 league games scoring 11 goals -on average that is just 16 league games a season.

After falling out of favour with Valencia after the departure of Rafa Benitez he then followed Rafa to Liverpool signing on a free contract in July 2006 to become the first ever Brazilian to wear the red shirt.

During his time at our club Liverpool the amount of regular injury problems are as follows:-

Oct 2006 - Injured: Out for 1 month 
Jan 2007 - Injured: Out for 6 weeks 
Apr 2007 - Injured: Achilles tendon. Out for 5 months 

Apr 2008 - Injured: Adductor muscle - Out for 4 months 
Nov 2008 - Injured: Out for 5 weeks 

Jul 2009 - Injured: Playing football with kids - Out for 2 months 
Oct 2009 - Injured: out for 4 weeks 

Feb 2010 - Injured: out for 5 months 

March 2011 - Injured: Hamstring. Out for 5 weeks 
April 2011 - Injured: Hamstring. Out for 5 weeks 
August 2011 - – Injured: Achilles. Out for ?

He has mainly had John Aarne Riise, Emiliano Insua and now Jose Enrique as his direct competition for the left back role but every time it seems he is ready to cement his place in the team another injury comes up.

Once Rafa decided not to renew his contract at the end of season 2009/2010 we all thought that would be the last we saw of the Brazilian in a Liverpool shirt not knowing that within a few months Rafa would have left the club and our then new manager Roy Hodgson making the odd decision to bring back a player with such a poor injury history.

In his first season since re-signing he managed only 14 league games, the rest of the time he was out injured.

His whole Liverpool career so far reads 85 league games scoring 3 goals – on average that is just 17 games a season.

He played the last pre-season friendly before the season 2011-2012 started , coincidentally against his former club Valencia , but is again got injured and was unable to start the season, therefore forcing us to rush our new left back Jose Enrique into playing literally straight after signing.

In summary Fabio is wonderfully technically gifted and whole-hearted left sided player but is just one of those guys that will always be tainted as injury prone and shouldn’t have been given a new contract last season by Roy Hodgson.

There is no room for sentiment we need players that are available to play at any moment in the season and sadly, Fabio is not one of those players you can rely on – I think this will be his last season with us so I hope he can leave a positive mark with the club by aiding us get back into the Champions League.