Liverpool's strangest ever signing? Davies departs without playing a single competitive game

Farewell, then, to one of the most curious signings in Liverpool's recent history. Reds fans never really got to know Ben Davies, who this week completed a transfer to Rangers. The 26-year-old leaves Anfield after 18 months, having failed to play a single minute of competitive football for the club.

Liverpool will feel they got themselves a good deal, Rangers paying a guaranteed £3 million ($3.5m), with a further £1m ($1.25m) in add-ons relating to appearances and team performance.

That represents a smart profit on the initial £500,000 ($593,000) the Reds paid to Preston in January 2021, although part of Rangers’ fee will be owed to Davies’ former club as part of a sell-on clause negotiated in the original transfer.

For Davies, too, it looks a positive move, a fresh start and a chance to put a strange period behind him.

He is joining a good side – Europa League finalists, no less – with a huge fanbase, and should find himself competing for trophies in the coming years. 

Rangers, GOAL understands, beat off a lot of competition to land him. Middlesbrough, in particular, were keen, while Blackburn are understood to have made a strong effort.

Stoke and Burnley made loan approaches, but none, in the end, could match the attraction of Rangers, whose sporting director, Ross Wilson, negotiated directly with Julian Ward, his Reds counterpart, during a face-to-face meeting in, of all places, Blackpool.

And so Davies departs, his Liverpool ‘career’ amounting to two pre-season appearances as a substitute – a total of 40 minutes – last summer.

He featured eight times on the bench during the 2020-21 season, but never managed a competitive outing in a red shirt. Hardly the “wonderful story” Jurgen Klopp spoke about when he joined.

In fairness, Davies’ signing was born out of necessity more than anything else.

As Klopp said: “It’s probably clear that in a normal transfer window, without any issues, we would not look at Preston [to see] if there’s a player for us. It’s not really likely.”

But Liverpool, at the time, were in a remarkable situation in which all of their senior centre-backs, as well as the midfielders moved back to cover for them, found themselves injured. They needed bodies and fast, and so Davies and Ozan Kabak were signed in the last 24 hours of the window.

Davies’ career, to that point, had been spent in the lower leagues, encompassing nearly 150 games for Preston and loan spells at the likes of York, Tranmere, Southport, Newport and Fleetwood.

He was respected as a solid, left-sided centre-back with a solid temperament but even Preston, in truth, were surprised when Liverpool’s call came. 

Davies had, in fact, been expected to sign a pre-contract agreement with Celtic, after a proposed move to Bournemouth had failed to materialise earlier in the window, yet on February 1, 2021 he was talking about his “incredible opportunity” at Anfield. 

Klopp, meanwhile, was speaking about his new signing’s “potential”, and how his versatility and passing ability made him a “really interesting” option.

“We believe 100 per cent in development,” the Reds boss added. “It’s all about Ben and me to make sure this story will be really great.”

Davies was on the bench a few days later for a home defeat against Brighton – Jordan Henderson partnered Nat Phillips at centre-back – but his adaptation process was difficult.

He picked up a hamstring issue which Liverpool believed was due in part to the step up in training intensity, and was then unable to displace Phillips, Kabak and Rhys Williams – who, ironically, as a Preston fan, counts Davies as one of his inspirations – in Klopp’s starting line-up.

He didn’t even make the bench as Liverpool finished the Premier League season with five wins and a draw, securing third place and qualification for the Champions League.

Williams and Phillips were the unlikely heroes, with Klopp citing “a muscle issue” as the reason for Davies’ absence.

That summer he featured in a 30-minute pre-season game against Austrian second division side Wacker Innsbruck in Salzburg.

Then, a few weeks later, came a 10-minute substitute appearance at Anfield in a friendly against Osusana, in which he replaced new signing Ibrahima Konate. 

A week later, he was on the move, joining Sheffield United for the season. The perfect move, said club sources, with Davies likely to slot in nicely to the Blades’ three-man defence.

Getty/GOAL

Liverpool recouped the £500,000 ($600,000) they had originally paid to Preston, with another £500,000 payable if Sheffield United earned promotion to the Premier League.

They missed out narrowly in the end, beaten on penalties by Nottingham Forest in the play-off semi-finals. Davies didn’t feature in those games, having lost his place to Jack Robinson, a former Liverpool trainee, but he finished the campaign having played 23 times at Bramall Lane.

He was among the first batch of players to report for pre-season training at Kirkby earlier this month, but was not named in Klopp’s 37-man squad for Liverpool’s two-game tour of Thailand and Singapore.

With Phillips and Williams still at the club, and Sepp van den Berg back from his loan spell with Preston, Davies knew his time was up. 

He leaves with the Reds’ best wishes, viewed as a hard-working and popular figure, a model professional who just wasn’t able to turn his unexpected opportunity at Anfield into something long-lasting.

No shame in that, given the levels Liverpool have set in recent years. Davies joins the likes of Steven Caulker, Kevin Stewart, Rickie Lambert, Tiago Ilori, Dominic Solanke, Oussama Assaidi, and Adam Bogdan as a low-cost gamble which failed to pay off, in terms of first-team impact.

Most of those players, at least, went on to enjoy success elsewhere after leaving. Rangers will be hoping Davies can do the same.