Seven players who were only really good for one club, including FIVE former Liverpool stars

Michael Graham
22 March 2022

Andy Carroll, Robbie Fowler and Wilfried Zaha - players who only did it for one club

Sometimes footballers appear destined to succeed at just one club, despite trying their luck at plenty of others.

'One-club men' in football are a celebrated bunch - top professionals who dedicated their whole career to a single cause.

There is another kind of 'one-club man,' though, and they aren't quite as impressive. They are the players who played for many, but only really performed for one.

They are considerably more common that their more glorified category-cousins, and we have picked out our favourites.

Andy Carroll

It's crazy to think about it now, but there was a time when Andy Carroll looked every inch the real deal as a world-class centre-forward.

He was incredibly dominant in the air and had developed a thunderous left-foot. His goals helped Newcastle to promotion in 2009/10 and he started the following season in red-hot form for his hometown club too.

His 11 Premier League goals in 20 games persuaded Liverpool to pay £35million to lure him to Anfield, but it never worked out. It didn't really work out for him at West Ham either.

Indeed, those two years with Newcastle were the only seasons in his entire career in which he reached double figures for goals.

It's easy to mock him now, and his is definitely a story of a career very much wasted, but that shouldn't detract from just how brilliant, albeit briefly, he was for the Magpies.

Robbie Fowler

England had an embarrassment of riches in the striker department back in the 1990s. There was Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand, Teddy Sheringham, Ian Wright, Andy Cole, Matt Le Tissier, and there was Robbie Fowler.

For many, Fowler was the best of a brilliant bunch and it's not difficult to see why.

From the moment Fowler broke through for Liverpool he looked like he had it all. He scored 30+ goals in all competitions for three years running and he only ever looked like he was getting better.

As a few injuries took hold, he moved on to Leeds and then to Manchester City, but he never looked even remotely like the same player he was in a Liverpool shirt again.

Nigel Clough

Given the pressure of his name and the difficulties of being the manager's son, we probably don't give Nigel Clough enough credit for how good he was at Nottingham Forest.

Clough played for his iconic father for nine years at Forest, racking up more than 300 games and scoring more than 100 goals. There was often speculation that he was the beneficiary of nepotism, but his record holds up to the toughest of scrutiny.

Certainly, it wasn't Brian Clough who capped him for England more than a dozen times, and it definitely wasn't his father who paid a then very chunky fee of £2.25million to take him to Liverpool.

Sadly, Nigel never replicated his Forest form, which has perhaps added to the myth that he owed his career at the top to his father.

He flopped at Liverpool and then again at Manchester City before turning his attention to management.

Robbie Keane

It might seem a little harsh to put Robbie Keane on this list, and fans of Wolves and LA Galaxy will probably disagree with any assertion that he was only good at Tottenham.

The fact is, though, you think of Keane and you absolutely associate him with performing for one club and one club only - Spurs.

Yes, he was good at Wolves, although that was in the Championship. He was okay at Coventry and Leeds too in the Premier League, and he was prolific in the MLS.

However, there was only one club that saw Keane anywhere near his best, and that was Tottenham. He leveraged that into a big-money move to Liverpool, but he just couldn't do it there and returned to White Hart Lane less than a year later.

Wilfried Zaha

One of the most exciting players in the Premier League, in some regards it is surprising that Zaha is still with a relatively unfashionable club like Crystal Palace.

However, his long association with Palace can be explained by them being the only club to have been able to get a tune out of him.

Zaha's first spell at Palace was so good it earned him a move to Manchester United, but it just never happened for him there. In fact, he only managed four appearances in total before being shipped out to Premier League strugglers Cardiff on loan.

Things didn't get any better for him in Wales either, as he was unable to prevent the Bluebirds getting relegated.

Of course, that all worked out lovely for Palace, who were able to re-sign Zaha for about half of what they initially sold him for. Back in the familiar surrounds of Selhurst Park, he went right back to being brilliant and, if anything, keeps on improving.

Aaron Ramsay

This list is a celebration of players who have been a big success somewhere more than it is a name-shaming exercise for those who flopped, and that is probably never more true than it is with Aaron Ramsey.

Hindered by a horror leg-break, Ramsey took a little time to properly get going at Arsenal, but once he did he was a powerhouse for them.

The Welshman hit double figures in goals from midfield three times while at Arsenal - and that in a team that were a long way from being a Premier League force.

The fact he impressed enough to earn a move to Italian giants Juventus says everything about how well he did at Arsenal. That he is now plying his trade in Scotland tells you all you need to know about how it went for him in Italy.

Christian Benteke

Who can remember when Christian Benteke was a genuinely consistent one-in-two striker in the Premier League? Aston Villa fans can.

Bentake has been playing in England for nearly ten years now, and the last five of them have been largely dismal in terms of his goals return.

When he first arrived, though, he was exceptional for Aston Villa. He played 101 games for them in all competitions, scoring 49 goals - 42 of them coming in the Premier League.

That persuaded Liverpool to spend more then £30million on him and it never quite worked out. He only lasted one season at Anfield before moving to Crystal Palace, where he has been chasing his Aston Villa form for six years now without any semblance of success.