Stewart Downing
Birthdate: 22.07.1984
Birthplace: Middlesbrough England
Other clubs: Middlesbrough, Sunderland (loan), Aston Villa
Bought from: Aston Villa
Signed for LFC: 18500000 15.07.2011
International debut: 9 February 2005 vs. Holland
International caps: 32/0 (5/0 at LFC) - 29.02.2012
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Liverpool debut: 13.08.2011
Last appearance: 13.05.2012
Debut goal: 06.01.2012
Last goal: 18.03.2012
LFC league games/goals: 36 / 0
Total LFC games/goals: 46 / 2
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Player profile
As with Charlie Adam, Liverpool needed more than one attempt to secure Stewart Downing’s services. There were strong rumours about a move to Anfield following Middlesbrough’s relegation in 2009. Eventually the then 24-year-old elected to join Aston Villa. Halfway through a four-year contract with Villa the rumours resurfaced. In early July 2011 Liverpool made a bid believed to be £15 million. This was immediately rejected by the Midlands club and their new manager Alex McLeish declared that the winger would not be leaving Villa Park. However, History shows that every player has his price and Downing was no exception. When Liverpool came back with a higher offer, Villa allowed Downing to leave.
Downing was born in Middlesbrough in 1984, supported his local League club as a child and graduated from Boro’s Academy with glowing reports. He flourished under the managership of Steve McLaren and played in three Premier League matches towards the end of the 2001/02 season. His opportunities were limited in the next season but in 2003/04 he made 27 League appearances, seven of which came during a loan spell with Sunderland. He was also that season an unused substitute on the day Middlesbrough Football Club finally ended its long wait for a major trophy by defeating Bolton 2-1 in the Football League Cup final played at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.
Downing became much more of a regular first-team player once his loan spell on Wearside was over, only once failing to make over 30 Premier League appearances in each of the next five seasons. The exception was the 2005/06 season, when a knee injury caused him to miss five months of football, although he had recovered in time to take his place in the UEFA Cup final of 2006, in which Middlesbrough were comprehensively outclassed by Sevilla in Eindhoven. McLaren left to take on the England job but his replacement Gareth Southgate had similar faith in Downing, who had by this time become a full England international player. Even when McLaren left following England’s failure to qualify for the 2008 European Championships, Downing continued to be a regular member of the squads named by Fabio Capello. At the time of his move to Merseyside, Downing had been ‘capped’ on twenty-seven occasions.
Even though he was under contract to Aston Villa, Stewart Downing had become one of the footballers most expected to move on during the summer of 2011. The Guardian’s Barney Ronay referred to him as “the most undervalued of English footballers: intelligent, scuttlingly forceful and with some refined touches in his versatile left foot.” If Kenny Dalglish was prepared to return early from Liverpool’s tour of the Far East with the purpose of finalising the Downing deal, that should tell us all we need to know. With his 27th birthday occurring the week after he passed his Liverpool medical, Stewart Downing has potentially the best years of his career still to come as he takes his place in the revival that Kenny Dalglish has brought to Liverpool Football Club following the short and unhappy reign of Roy Hodgson.
Stuart Downing's first season as a Liverpool player can hardly be hailed as a success. Although bought to provide goals more than to score them, no goals and no assists from the 36 Premier League matches he appeared in was not the form he had shown at his previous clubs. Given an opportunity to open his League account for the club in the last home match, he placed a penalty-kick against the woodwork, something he and his team-mates had really bad luck with during the whole season. Downing had better luck in the F.A. cup, netting against Oldham Athletic in the third round and then scoring the winner in the sixth round against Stoke City. But on the whole it was a season the winger will look back on with only regret, even though he picked up his second League cup winners' medal. There is surely plenty more to come from a man who should at 28 next birthday be reaching his peak. Despite his disappointing club form, Stewart Downing was picked by new England manager Roy Hodgson as a member of his country's Euro 2012 squad.