Riera Aims to Show His Liverpool Quality

Liverpool's transfer deadline day signing, Albert Riera, has insisted he should not be pre-judged on his Manchester City career given his vast improvement since a brief and undistinguished spell in the Premier League three years ago.

Riera, the ultimate answer to Rafael Benitez's exhaustive search for a new left winger this summer, made 19 appearances at Eastlands under Stuart Pearce only for City to decline the opportunity to turn his loan spell into a permanent transfer. Since then, however, the 26-year-old has played an integral role in Espanyol's rise, became a Spanish international under former coach Luis Aragones and was Benitez's preferred candidate for Liverpool's midfield once he was refused the £18m to complete Gareth Barry's transfer from Aston Villa.

Riera, therefore, believes Liverpool have secured a much different player to the one last witnessed in English football. 'When I was at Manchester City, I found out what the Premier League was like and I'm now prepared for it. I'm prepared to do the tackling and not just be the one being tackled!' the Spaniard said yesterday. 'Experience in football is very important, and the last three years have been important in my development. I've been in an Espanyol team that have been playing for big things. We reached the final of the Uefa Cup and had a good first half to the season last year, and I've managed to get into the Spain squad. I felt that now was the right time to make the jump up to a bigger club.'

Riera added: 'When I came to Manchester City it was in January. The team was in the middle of the table, so it was a little bit different to how it is now coming to Liverpool. I was only 22, and I'd only had one year playing in Spain and two in France, which is not as competitive a league as in England or Spain.'

The 26-year-old has signed a four-year contract at Liverpool having resisted Espanyol's attempts to sell him to Everton for £12m. Instead, he will cost the Anfield club an initial £5.5m after Steve Finnan traveled in the opposite direction to Barcelona, with the Spaniards entitled to a significant sell-on fee.

'Espanyol knew that I wanted to come to Liverpool. Liverpool made a big effort to get me here so I am very pleased with that,' he said. 'It's true that Espanyol had better offers but they knew I only wanted to come here, I had repeated that 100 times. They were fighting for themselves to get a better fee and I was fighting for myself to get the move I wanted. That's normal in football. It was a difficult fight, yes, and it was only until the last day that it was done.'