Perhaps the most important signing of the 2000/01 season, which definitely didn’t
appear so at the time, was the capture of veteran midfielder Gary McAllister. Marcus
Babbel, Christian Ziege and Jari Litmanen also strengthened the squad. Sadly, signs
that Gerard Houllier was starting to lose his magic touch in the transfer window were
becoming evident, as he signed a number of players like Diomede, Biscan and Vignal,
who all failed to make the grade.

For the first time since the real early days of Liverpool Football Club the players would
wear a shirt that contained a large portion of blue. Following the retirement of the
fluorescent yellow away shirt in 1999, Reebok opted to stick with yellow, albeit they
toned it down considerably. The new away shirt will always be remembered for the
2001 FA Cup final verses Arsenal.

This shirt was issued to Alan Navarro for the UEFA Cup in 2001. It is clear that the
jersey was prepared for Europe and not the English Premier League because 1) It has a
‘small’ Carlsberg logo, 2) The number on the back of the shirt does NOT have the FA
Premier League lion on it. I collected this shirt not because of the player, Navarro never
really cut it at Liverpool, but because it looks very nice signed.

This shirt was issued for both European and domestic competitions, which means that
there are both genuine large AND small Carlsberg versions. Both shirts however can
be differentiated from replicas by a rubber embossed reebok logo (replicas had
embroidered logos) and NO ‘hydromove’ logo on the right sleeve (replicas had this
logo). Premier League shirts will have the usual 27cm Carlsberg logo and the Lextra
fusion sleeve patches.

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