‘Liverpool paid 120% more for me in transfer fees than I thought I was worth’

Emile Heskey joined Liverpool in 2000 for £11million, which was a club record fee at the time, but the striker himself believes the Reds massively overpaid for his services by over double

Former Liverpool striker Emile Heskey thinks the Reds paid over double his worth when they signed him for a then-club record £11m in 2000. The forward played over 200 times for Liverpool and scored 60 goals.

Having emerged as one of the Premier League’s brightest young striking talents for his boyhood club Leicester City, Heskey had long caught the interest of top sides before his hotly anticipated Anfield switch 25 years ago.

Many questions were asked about the then-club record £11m that was paid for Heskey in light of his inexperience, and though his time with Liverpool was far from disappointing, his price tag loomed over his head and he suffered from homesickness. Now, Heskey actually believes that his former employers overpaid by 120 per cent when signing him from the Foxes.

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“The fascinating thing with the actual fee and stuff like that, we speak about this all the time. I had nothing to do with that. I couldn’t change that,” Heskey told the Beast Mode On podcast when asked about his Reds switch.

“I’ll give you an honest opinion on the fee, my honest opinion, I thought I was worth about £5m. But I went for £11m. You know, when you look at the transfers that are going on at the time, and you put yourself in a situation and say, ‘Ok, where would I put myself, what would be reasonable.’

“I said £5m. But they went £11m. It is what it is. They’re not gonna get less out of me, I’m gonna give more. But that was it. I never looked at that as something that I could say, ‘Oh, it is pressure.’

“To be fair, I only started to think about it more when everyone kept on saying it. For me, it was like, ‘Well, they paid that, it would be nice if I got a little bit of that, but I’ve got to go out and play. I’ve got to go out and perform.'”

Yet, though Heskey believes his price tag was inflated by over twice the price it should have been, as an England international who had already made his debut in a 1999 friendly against Hungary, the striker insists he was confident heading to Anfield with such expectations.

“I was in the national team, so I was training with all the national team players, and I was holding my own,” Heskey elaborated. “You’ve got club football and then you’ve got national team football.

“Club football: Everyone is at it, but you can have a little bit of a laugh. National team: Everyone’s looking to impress. You go from this tempo to now, your tempo’s up here.

“You go from just sweating to now wringing your top. You go from having sore muscles to now having painful muscles. It’s another level.

“I was never promised anything [at Liverpool], so it didn’t really bother me. I was confident in myself that I would make a difference, knowing what I’d done and what I was doing at that time. So I was going into there very, very confident.”

Heskey left Liverpool in 2004 to join Birmingham City, and spells with Wigan Athletic, Aston Villa, Newcastle Jets and Bolton Wanderers followed before his retirement in 2016.

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