At FIRST glance, Liverpool's pursuit of Brad Friedel looks like an attempt to improve their ex-players' Masters five-a-side team.
Offering a two-year deal to a 40-year-old represents one of the stranger decisions of a new regime which, not so long ago, was supposedly intent on recruiting only young players.
But once you get beyond Friedel's age, the fact Liverpool have been linked with a decent back-up goalkeeper who will play rarely should be a cause for hearty celebration at Anfield.
The number two stopper has been one of the most criminally neglected roles at the Merseyside club for over a decade. It is a position directly responsible for costing the club the chance to win trophies.
Certainly since Pepe Reina demanded an understudy, there has been a who's who of the inept, the ineligible and the downright idiotic.
Should he sign, Friedel will represent a return to some kind of stability whereby an injury to Reina will not cause an inevitable downward spiral.
Some of the keepers entrusted with the role have been comical.
The current incumbent is Brad Jones. A likeable enough chap it seems, but his first duties were against Northampton Town in the Carling Cup last season, when each shot at Liverpool's goal prompted masterful displays of agility in the art of avoiding the flight of the ball.
In fairness to Jones, he looked like Ray Clemence compared to some of his predecessors.
One of the worst Liverpool transfers... actually, scratch that, one of the worst transfers in the history of English football was the purchase of French keeper Charles Itandje.
Itandje had gone for a trial at Everton in the summer of 2007, where David Moyes watched him fail to make a save and politely informed him he would not be pursuing any interest.
The player's agent promptly offered him to Liverpool, who were short of cover. With remarkable haste, Itandjje was handed a four-year contract.
Mild concern about the justification for the deal turned into full-blown bewilderment when Itandje turned up for his first day's training without any gloves and had to request a set of football boots.
His last two appearances for Liverpool were in the FA Cup. He made the Havant & Waterlooville attack look as potent as Lionel Messi on turbo power.
The warning was not heeded when he was selected against Barnsley in the next round. Every visiting shot was as good as a goal and Liverpool went out of the cup.
Had Reina, or even a keeper of Conference standard competence, played that day Liverpool would have won.
A week later, Itandje was dropped for good, with Rafa Benitez citing the "psycholological damage" of the severe Press criticism he'd received ("Itandje isn't just an accident waiting to happen, he ought to be wearing an ambulance siren on his head," was how the News of the World reported his performance).
Itandje, remarkably, was still on the Anfield books until his contract was finally paid up last January. He was last in the news when he was disciplined for fooling around at the service commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.
Incredible as it sounds, while Itandje represents the height of incompetence at least he was, unlike one of his predecessors,(sadly) eligible.
At the height of the war between Benitez and Rick Parry about whether every single deal recommended by then trusted chief scout Eduardo Macia should be sanctioned, Nikolay Mihaylov was signed first and the club board asked if it was OK to buy him later.
The first problem was that the Bulgarian had no work permit and, at 19, no pedigree which suggested he would get one in England.
The second problem was that his medical, held AFTER he signed, suggested he had problems with his vision.
Club doctors reported scenes of giddy euphoria during their eye tests with the Bulgarian shouting "I can see, I can see" as if he had been cured of a lifetime's affliction. The miracle cure? A pair of contact lenses.
Sadly, after one half in a pre-season game in 2007, fears about Mihaylov's eligibility proved well founded. He was sent on loan to FC Twente and never returned.
Add to these lists keepers of the dubious calibre of Patrice Luzi (a keeper who during Gerard Houllier's reign was so erratic Liverpool succeeded in securing an emergency loan for Paul Jones when Jerzy Dudek was injured), Pegguy Arphexad, Diego Cavelieri and the now forgotten Daniele Padelli (one dreadful game against Charlton before disappearing for good) and it becomes clear how bereft Liverpool have been in an under-rated department.
Friedel's possible Anfield comeback does not represent a long-term vision. But in demonstrating the here and now is often as important as the what may be years down the line, it could prove one of the wisest transactions Liverpool make this summer.
