Liverpool’s bittersweet thrill of Steve McManaman thriving at Real Madrid

Losing a star player to foreign shores has been a theme at Liverpool ever since Kevin Keegan jetted off to Hamburg in the late 1970s.

Keegan became a global icon in Germany, winning the Ballon D’Or twice and playing in a European Cup final.

Graeme Souness set sail for Sampdoria after captaining Liverpool to European Cup glory in 1984, while team-mate Ian Rush followed the same path to Italy, joining Juventus after the Reds completed the Double in 1986.

Michael Owen started his falling out of favour with Liverpool fans by heading to Real Madrid in 2004 to mainly warm the bench and, more recently, Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho have swapped Anfield for the Camp Nou.

Perception of how each move went down with the fanbase varies; to be honest, it’s an extremely individual pursuit and hindsight can play tricks.

However, it’s still a traumatic episode in the life of fan to see a best player leave and it tends to stay with you. I was a gutted teenager when Souness and Rush left, even if there remained a feeling that life would go on and a dominant Liverpool would just keep winning. And we did.

But when Suarez departed, any Reds fan who wasn’t thinking “oh shit” is lying. Worst fears were soon realised as we quickly caved in.

We all knew Suarez would be a massive hit in Barca, like a stunning ex now correctly paired with a Spanish stud while we looked on with a strange mix of envy and disbelief that we once went out with him.

To a lesser degree, such feelings were replicated when popular midfield duo Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano made their moves to Spanish giants. They left holes which we weren’t filling soon and LFC fans looked on in bittersweet admiration as both thrived.

By contrast, Owen and Coutinho’s flops were