I find it annoying when people say Gini didn’t want to leave. As far as i’m concerned he was offered a contract didn’t sign it. Ergo he wanted to leave.
Doesn’t matter if the offer wasn’t as much as he wanted, if the club just said ‘sorry, thanks but no new contract, time to find a new club’ then that’s him not wanting to leave. If club says here’s your new contract and he says no I want more money, then that’s him wanting to leave for more money.
I’m sure Nat would love to get a new bumper contract and to made 2nd choice next to Virgil, but since that’s not going to happen…he wants to leave to play more games. But nobody is going to paint that as him not wanting to leave because we couldn’t offer him exactly what he wanted.
But we’re not going to pay a transfer fee and likely higher wages than he was after before he left in order to make the deal permanent in the summer.
So January to May, on loan, is the epitome of a stop gap. The guy has a special place in this chapter of Liverpool’s story but he’s moved on a d so have we. He was a solid yet unspectacular player 99% of the time. Good, but not great.
Starting to feel like they’re more interested in buying players with a view to selling on than putting a team together to challenge Bayern.
It’s almost like they’re advertising themselves as a stepping stone to reach the big time rather a place players can actually achieve things at. Quite sad in a way that Bayern’s dominance reduces them to that kind of role.
They’ve been like that for a long long time. Just like Spanish football, German football is a funnel to the top club (s). Klopp regularly had his best players go to Bayern, it makes his achivements there all the better.
Watched the series on Amazon about Dortmund from couple seasons ago, fascinating watch (the Klopp bits are awesome). Although that was never said as the conclusion they gave all the information you needed to form the conclusion you just did. That’s basically how they have to survive as a club. Set up that way they can still get the odd cup or European run. If Bayern have a clusterfuck year its 50/50 between them and Leipzig who takes advantage to pick up the league title. May cause an upset every once in a blue moon even when Bayern are strong but not as likely. Sad but true.
There’s talk of a South American locker room clique there that pit pressure on getting the South Americans playing time and making things uncomfortable for the European rivals for the places in question. Apparently that’s something creating issues for Gini, whether true or not who knows?
I think it’s more likely that he becomes greater than the sum of his parts in a very specific set up. It was the same with Coutinho. Something that a lot of people knew but apparently he didnt. I feel for him, it’s sometimes really tough to know what the best decision for your career is.
Possible, but impossible to tell/trust from outside.
You get these slightly weird scenarios sometimes, players who should be a good fit on paper and then not quite make it.
Maybe Poch is actually wanting him more offensive than what the football public thought PSG was buying him for.
And then, I can understand if the likes of Neymar, Messi and Mbappe (or PSG in general, coaching staff who make these decisions) are not satisfied with his final 3rd quality, as that ‘first to arrive from midfield’ player. You can’t judge that by, I don’t know, his goalscoring record for Netherlands and say that’s it, he can go and combine with Neymar/Messi. There are different levels.
For me, Gini was the best Gini from the summer of 2018, he really grew then into a very good working CM.
We’ll see what happens here, perhaps it’s still early and not all lost for him at PSG (maybe it’s not Poch there anymore from next summer, who knows), but if it’s there or somewhere else, he should be able to provide those working qualities for a few more years.
That fat head Koeman turned Gini’s head… firstly for the national side playing him as a free scoring midfielder/forward, then wanting him at Barcelona when he picked up the reins there… Obviously in a similar role
Gini must have looked at the ‘slog’ he had to get through under Jurgen each game and thought “sod this for a living”…
