Serial spitter El-Hadji Diouf always came across as being a few stickers short of a Panini album, but now he’s gone even further with bizarre claims of how good he believes he is.

According to the Manchester Evening News, Diouf, now of Bolton, wants people to think that he’s too good for the white shirt of Bolton, and instead should be playing in the white shirt of Real Madrid.

Laughable really. The paper quotes him saying: “I think all the time about playing for big clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona. I tell myself that it will happen one day. At present I am with Bolton and devoting all my energies to them. But if I have a good season I will get my reward in the future.”

Maybe we’re being harsh on him by saying he thinks he’s good enough to play for the likes of Real and Barca. He says he dreams of playing with them, and we all have dreams. I used to dream of one day playing for Liverpool, but then I realised that I wasn’t even good enough for the school team. Dream over. The gap between my school team and the heights of playing for the European Champions (as we invariably were when I was at school) is quite some gap. The gap between playing for Bolton (after being kicked out by Liverpool) and playing for the top sides in Spain is also quite some gap. And even now, twenty years after leaving school, I’d say I’ve more chance of realising my “dream” than Diouf has.

No other former Liverpool player fills me with as much anger as Mr Diouf. A lot of our former players are legends thanks to their part in bringing us one piece of silverware or other. Other former players still get respect because of some redeeming quality. They might have been an awful player who tried hard every week. They might have been a good player who missed out because we had someone even better in front of them. Just the fact they used to wear our shirt tends to get most former players at least a round of applause if they return to face us in some game. If we had a song for them when they played for us they might even hear it sung.

Not Diouf.

Michael Owen got a bit of a frosty reception last season when he returned to Anfield dressed as a barcode for Newcastle, but that was only some sections of the crowd. Owen’s problem was that although he brought us a lot of victories we’d have otherwise missed out on he upset some of our fans for years by making it seem his priority was England not Liverpool, something that ultimately cost him the chance to come back to Anfield. Had he been prepared to forget about the World Cup of 2006, the one he hardly played in anyway due to injury, maybe he’d have got a move to Anfield. It doesn’t excuse anyone jeering him though, he deserved better treatment than that.

The reason Owen deserved better treatment was because he’s probably one of only a handful of players booed on their return to Anfield. He never deserved to be lumped into a category that includes El-Hadji Diouf, the player who brought shame onto the club when he spat on a Celtic fan.

And if Owen, ten times the player Diouf is, struggled to get as many games as he deserved at Real Madrid then what chance has Diouf got of being looked at by Real?

Sorry Diouf, but Bolton are as big a club as you’ll ever get to play for in the future. Time to stop dreaming.