Ryan Babel: ‘For a lot of different reasons I didn’t fulfil my potential’

The former Liverpool winger believes he has unfinished business in the Premier League and wants to help Fulham survive

In the week that social media users have been busy comparing pictures of themselves to those taken a decade ago in the #10YearChallenge, the return of Ryan Babel to English football feels timely. Signed from Ajax in 2007 by Rafael Benítez’s Liverpool for £11.5m after he had become the youngest goalscorer for the Netherlands in almost seven decades, the 32-year-old joined Fulham this week on a short-term deal until the end of the season following a nomadic and sometimes controversial career that has taken him to Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Spain and Turkey since leaving Anfield.

Babel has certainly aged well in the intervening years, having revitalised his career with Besiktas and won back his place in Ronald Koeman’s Netherlands squad that will face England in the Nations League semi-finals this summer.

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