Free Full-back Confirmed

Liverpool FC have today announced the new signing of Philipp Degen. He has come on a free transfer signing a four-year contract and will join us on the 1st July after his current deal expires. He is 25 years old, plays in the position of right-back and hails from Borussia Dortmund who play in the Bundesliga of Germany. His comments regarding his move to Merseyside: "When I received the offer from Liverpool, there was no doubt I would accept it. They are one of the biggest clubs in the world and I am looking forward to the challenge of playing in the best league there is."
Degen is a Switzerland international, most recently losing to Ukraine on penalties in the last 16 of the 2006 World Cup (they didn't concede any goals all tournament) and will partake in Euro 2008 (held in Austria and Switzerland) if he recovers from his current injury. He joined FC Basel at youth level in 1996 and was promoted to the first team squad in 2001. At FC Basel he experienced Champions League football in the 2002/03 season, alongside his twin brother David Degen who currently plays at the club, on loan from Borussia Monchengladbach.
He has been billed by Benitez as an "offensive player with great energy and a winning mentality." Physically he has an athletic build, is tall at 6ft1in and is a very fast runner (like Skrtel) with a mean cross. He will provide competition for Steve Finnan and Alvaro Arbeloa on the right side, potentially improving both of them due to him, and is the older player Benitez alluded to a month ago: "We have some signings for the next season done. They are senior players for the first team and young players for the first team and reserve team. Two of them are really close, young players, and one senior player is done. He talks good English, but is not English."
There are 3 comparisons I would like to make with Degen. Firstly, I hope, no, I beg that he will not be as bad a signing as the last free agent we snared from the German league: Andriy Voronin. He has been a monumental flop, and the only flickering chance of an exit is a tenuous link back to the Bundesliga for him.
Secondly I would like to highlight the overwhelming disparity between Liverpool FC signing a 25 year old right back, and Chelsea signing a 25 year old right back. Liverpool FC manage to identify a suitable player, for a position of weakness currently in the team, for a Bosman transfer and ward off interest from other clubs. Chelsea try to find the best right back in the world (after spending £5.5m on Juliano Belletti from Barcelona last season) but end up latching onto targets of other clubs (Liverpool FC, Manchester United) and then pay an extremely inflated price for the player: £16million to Porto in exchange for Jose Bosingwa. I'd like to see how these players perform over next season and see if Bosingwa is x16 the player Degen is.
And the final comparison was immediately thought of, as when seeing an image of him, what struck me first was his resemblance to Xabi Alonso.