"Six of the worst words" - 11 controversial transfers including Liverpool raid on Everton

More than two decades have passed since Nick Barmby left Everton for Liverpool, but plenty of the wounds are yet to heal.

The former England international is one of a select few to trade the blue half of Merseyside for the Red. It's not a move which happens a lot, and the reaction of Everton's chairman Bill Kenwright - even years after the fact - gives a clue as to why that's the case.

Barmby's move, back in June 2000, wasn't the first hugely controversial move and won't be the last. Here, Mirror Football looks at 10 deals which caused quite the stir, beginning with the deal which left Kenwright furious just months after the turn of the century.

The 1999-2000 season was Barmby's fourth in an Everton shirt, and also his most productive. He ended the campaign with a career-high 10 goals, nine of them in the league, though it wasn't enough to propel Walter Smith's side to a top 10 finish.

Then came the interest from Liverpool, and a meeting which - as former Reds captain Jamie Carragher told The Athletic in 2020 - "was very cloak-and-dagger". Kenwright, who had completed his takeover just months earlier, was far from impressed.

“It was hearing he had used the six of the worst words in the English language as far as Everton fans are concerned. He had said: ‘I want to play for Liverpool’," Kenwright said. "To say I was shocked and surprised doesn’t begin to describe how I felt about it.”

As far as football rivalries outside England go, few have the potential to get as heated as the battle for supremacy between Real Madrid and Barcelona. Back in 2000, the same summer which saw Barmby moved across Merseyside, Los Blancos were in the midst of their Galactico era.

Figo, like Barmby, had scored nine league goals the