And he’s going to get knocked out by his former teammates at Anfield next season, too.
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Will be missed.
I think we have all known for months that he will be leaving. There is a line in a David Alan Coe song " If you re thinking about leaving , you´re already gone "
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What a strange saga. I wish him well, but the train moves on. Always loved Gini.
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Yeah, now that it is highly likely that we will miss out on it next season, he has made his choice, and it was a bit easier because of that. But even if we qualified, I’d have expected him to leave. Barca is a dream for any Dutch player, and Gini is obviously no exception to this.
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Waiting for those ‘fans’ who are trying to make him a villain and say he is leaving because we have no CL next season or because he want to much money.
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I don’t know why this is coming as a surprise, he’s been obviously running down his contract to do this for awhile. It’s a real shame we didn’t get something for him last summer so it didn’t hurt us as much financially.
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How about those who knew he was just stringing this along as far as he could while saying all the ‘right’ things but who aren’t really fussed, think he’s done a decent job, want to thank him for his service and breathe a little sigh of relief.
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I wonder if he was with another club and in the same situation would we be interested in him and how much wages we would be offering him.
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What do you think this has cost us, £45m?
Fuck him, new favourite player now required…I just hope, really hope, they struggle to get good Gouda in Catalonia.
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Realistically it’s hard to judge how much he’s worth. He can do a limited version of the number 10 role like he does for his National side (what I’ve always thought he wanted as a reason to move on) as long as he’s not got the responsibility of one of the squads main players so in that role possibly £40+m if it works? I still think for a player who was an attacker when we bought him his passing and creativity is surprisingly simple and basic. Can’t really tackle for toffee either. He’s very good at following tactical instructions, playing in a disciplined way, recycling the ball for others to use and runs all day. Almost ever available too. He can be an important cog in a CM like he has been here but you need others to provide the leadership, drive, fire as despite his experience he doesn’t. He also doesn’t provide the tackling defensive solidity although he can press all day long to balance that out. If you need creativity from midfield you’ll also need someone else providing that. I think the best bet for Barca is to use him as a hard working, high pressing, goal threat of a number 10. Not guaranteed every week but more likely to play than not. Kind of a mini Mueller. As long as they have top creators and scorers around him I think that could be a very successful set up for him and them. Not saying he’ll score loads, certainly not against top teams, but he’ll get enough for that to seem like a real success for them and him. And that would be worth about that in a precovid market certainly. Definitely think usually we should have been able to get £30m for him last summer.
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That’s what we’ll miss most when he leaves, with the likes of Ox, Keita, Hendo, Shaq in the squad. This 100% permanent and sure-fire availability is hard to replace.
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It is his biggest asset but I think it can be overstated how important it is. We’ve pretty much had at least 4/5 CMs available every game for several seasons. It’s been great he’s been so consistently available and that helps feeling’s of consistency in the match day squad but him being absent wouldn’t have hurt us anywhere near as much as Alissons does or VvDs and Hendersons do/are. Over the last few years Salah, Mane and Firmino would have harmed us far more with a long term absence from injury than Wijnaldum would have.
I’m not expecting Ox and Shaqiri to be here next season, maybe not Keita either. Klopp will have to make sacrifices within his squad if he wants to recruit. Midfield is one where we keep a large stock of players due to the injury prone nature of some of them.
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There was a point made by Rory Smith the other night on the Anfield Wrap, which wasn’t linked to Gini, but made me think of him.
Rory’s point was that clubs were generally alright with giving big contracts to older players, because their was always somewhere to move them on to when the time came - China, Russia, MLS etc.
Now these markets have collapsed, and there is nowhere clubs can punt their overpaid thirtysomethings when their legs go.
This was said in the context of a slow transfer window, but it made me think of why Liverpool don’t want to give Gini the contract he wants, and at this time ending up with a thirty three year old on a six figure weekly salary is obviously a big concern to the club.
Weird he’s off to Barca though. They are an absolute shitshow.
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I just think they prioritized some other players close to his position in very similar ages and probably both parties came to a conclusion that they can’t agree. Fabinho is our starting #6 and will remain so and Henderson is, with all due respect to Gini, our most important midfielder and one who’s absence we felt the most on numerous occasions (luckily we always had Gini fit, that’s one of the pluses he brings to the table).
One part of the story which doesn’t get mentioned enough is that Gini came here on a contract from 1 season at Newcastle who got relegated.
First two seasons he played a lot of football and was certainly part of our constant improvement back then, but he wasn’t as important as since the summer of 2018 onwards.
Generally, when a player impresses immediately, there’s almost always talk of an improved deal/new contract. There was nothing around Gini because his start wasn’t such.
His career went in a way that nobody really knew what was he. For me, he’s not a creative/attacking midfielder for the top level (international football is different because Holland can’t change players, so you have to be creative).
Klopp really squeezed the maximum out of him in a new way, as more of a hard working and safety first type of central midfielder. It took him a while to become such an important player at the top level. And still on the money since he came from Newcastle, where he only spent 1 season before those glorious numbers in Holland, which brought him… exactly Newcastle and nothing better than that (I’m not saying there weren’t better offers on the table).
As such, becoming a different type of midfielder, doing really well, probably wanting that improvement to be visible on the financial side as he’s nearing the last stage of his career, with a contract nearing it’s end, he became attractive to some clubs who can afford to buy end product players for the immediate and the next few seasons.
So I wouldn’t put all blame on one or the other side. It’s partly Gini at the start who didn’t impress as much. Maybe the talks started even then, but we couldn’t agree, who knows. But there wasn’t talk of it. And now we have to make some decisions that Liverpool doesn’t end up in a situation Barca found themselves in last years.
There’s always a danger of teams growing old together, that can’t be right unfortunately. We aren’t used to this and yes, it’s a shame to lose him. But looking at circumstances, it happens from time to time. Ideally, I would’ve kept him in a kind of a Milner role. But if he can remain a hard working starting midfielder at Barca + get nice wages + a nice signing on fee + a new challenge (let’s not kid ourselves, yes they’re not Barca from the end of 00’s/start of 10’s, but they’re still attractive and we see that every year), I totally understand him.
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On the non-contact, I would love to have a proper conversation with our sports science people about this, cos I really would not be surprised to find out that the club thinks there is something in his data that suggests Gini is going to drop off a cliff in the next couple of years.
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And where would we be without his contributions this season? Fighting relegation?
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Mo playing in midfield and Origi in the team!
Leading to mass indignation of why was Brewster let go and Minamino sent on loan.
No, we wouldn’t.
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