Former Liverpool player Ryan Babel has opened up on his past life and career, including the one he spent at Liverpool Football Club. Back in the summer transfer window of 2007, Liverpool agreed on a fee that was believed to be in the region of €17.25 with Dutch club Ajax for the transfer of Babel from the Dutch league to the Premier League.

Babel joined the Reds and made some reasonable impact having scored 22 goals and provided a further 18 assists in the 14y appearances he made for the Anfield club. The numbers he had at Liverpool were really encouraging for a player of that price tag but he, unfortunately, could not get his hands on any silverware during his stay at Liverpool.

He then decided to leave the club and then secured a move to Germany, joining TSG Hoffenheim in the 2011 January transfer window. He now recalls that leaving Liverpool at that time was the biggest regret of his career to date.

In an interview with The Mirror, Babel said he spent close to four years at Liverpool under managers Rafael Benitez and Kenny Dalglish but thought it best to leave the club and head to Germany. He said Hoffenheim at that time were a big club and he felt it was the right decision for him back then, but didn’t know what was coming.

Babel revealed that the singular reason he left Liverpool then was so that he could get some more playing time in a bid to retain his spot in the Netherlands team but he did not know that the difference in the style of play Liverpool had then compared to the one Hoffenheim had were totally different.

He mentioned that he was brought up with attacking football at Ajax and he met the same philosophy at Liverpool but it was an entirely different pattern in Germany and that was where things began to go wrong.