There will be some 1979/80 games soon. I'm not sure exactly when.

He only played in the first division for 4 years. Although his goalscoring record for Liverpool ws exceptional, it looks less good if you remove penalties (16 league goals from open play in the great 87/88 team). He was sold because Rush and Beardsley were seen as being better players and the offer of £1m+ for a 31 year old sub was too good to turn down at that time. Aldridge is certainly bitter with Dalglish about being sold, but I don't think there were issues before that.

It wasn't 'Kenny's decision' - the board decided 1 million was a huge fee for a player in his early 30's, and Kenny explained that he could stay and fight for his place, but Aldo decided to leave.

@@ChrisEvans-bf9pk that’s not quite true. John has stated in many interviews that Kenny told him that Rush would be playing nearly every game and that he would be on the bench getting splinters in his arse. There was no mention of fighting for his place. The writing was on the wall.

Also, he was very disappointed at the way Kenny and the club treated him on the way out. You can see this in interviews that he’s done recently. He was even sent to play for the reserves on a few occasions which was a bit out of order bearing in mind the goals he scored I think Liverpool let themselves down where John was concerned.

The 'fighting for his place' bit is mentioned in Aldo's book, published about 25 years ago now...and from memory Aldo was sent to play for the reserves because he broke a players jaw by punching him from the blindside on a pre season tour! He could be hard work could our Aldo!

Kenny was criticised for letting the team get old together. Assuming that a player aged nearly 31 would not have a long term future at the club doesn't seem unreasonable. Things were tight financially, so having a £1milion sub wasn't really sustainable in an era before large squads and rotation. It does seem that the club didn't handle the situation at all well, but it's hard to know exactly what the sequence of events was. To me it would seem fair enough if the club had put the decision in Aldo's hands once the offer had been received. Saying Rush and Beardsley would start the season as first choice, but that Aldo was free to fight for his place and be judged on his performances would have been reasonable. From what he wrote in his book, he was playing at least some of the games in pre-season, and doing well, but injured his own arm elbowing a player in a friendly, and was substituted and dropped as a result, never getting his place back. With hindsight, it would have been better for all concerned if he had stayed as injuries mean he would have played a decent number of games in 89/90, and he was a better player than Rosenthal (although he did very well initially to help seal the title), who ended up costing as much as Real Sociedad paid.

Villa and Leeds came in for him but he wanted to move back to Merseyside as his family were homesick. I guess moving to Everton wouldn't have been an option!

@@DaveWallerLFC Is that really true? Leeds and Villa would've paid him a lot more money and gave him top flight football and Leeds and Birmingham are hardly a million miles away from the city. Plenty of Evertonians wouldn't have wanted to see him in a blue shirt but I wouldn't have had a problem with it and we'd just signed Beardsley off you in the summer of '91, it would've been interesting to have seen them link up again. Aldridge would certainly have been a better buy than the £1.5m we wasted on Mo Johnston later that same year. Always came across as a sound bloke too when he worked as a pundit for Radio City.

They were both interested. I have just checked in his book and neither made a firm bid as they felt he was over priced at £400k. He wanted to move home so persuaded Sociedad to accept £250k from Tranmere. I guess we don't know what would have happened if another club had had a bid accepted. It would have been very strange as a red to see Aldridge and Beardsley both in blue!