5 Jan 2015

I May Quit: 'Outstanding' LFC star admits he might leave Anfield & 'go somewhere else'

Will Kolo Toure still be a Liverpool player next season? The Ivorian international doesn't seem to think so, and with the African Cup of Nations (ACN) just around the corner, Toure fears that he is in danger of permanently losing his place in the team.

Speaking to the Liverpool Echo today, Toure - recently outstanding">hailed as 'outstanding' by Brendan Rodgers - reaffirmed his commitment to 'amazing' LFC, but hinted at his disappointment that the club hasn't approached him about a new deal. He explained:

“If I get the chance to stay I will be happy but it’s not up to me. If I was going to stay I would maybe have expected to hear something by now. I will keep giving 100%, but if I need to go somewhere else to keep playing then I will.”

The ACN comes at the wrong time for Toure. After Rodgers' recent formation change, Liverpool regularly start with three central defenders, which means Toure has plenty of opportunities to play himself into a new deal.

When he heads to the ACN, though, Lovren will come back into the reckoning, and if he plays well, then that will almost certainly be the end for Toure.

From his comments, it sounds like Toure expected Liverpool to be offer him a one-year extension to his current deal, but does he deserve it?

In my view, Toure absolutely deserves a new deal. It's no coincidence that the club's defensive performance has coincided with the 32-year old's run in the team, and with Gerrard leaving, the experience level in the squad (in terms of winning trophies, playing in Europe, and leadership ability) will be practically non-existent.

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36 comments:

  1. let him go a long with others ...the playing staff in general needs upgrading in quality

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  2. Agree
    Mignolet,Jones,Lovren,Johnson,Enrique,Toure,,Allen.markovic balotelli,Lambert,Borini,Suso all out


    None have shown their quality i would give time to Markovic but Lovren but maybe lfc don't ahve time anymore


    maybe sell
    Skrtel,Sakho,Lucas, none of them seem totally in favour with management


    the only good players that we have are:
    Sterling,Coutinho,Can,Moreno,Henderson,Sturridge,Flanagan


    we need to reach levels of Sterling and Coutinho or they will leave to chelsea or city


    a major clear out is in order

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  3. Maybe we should offer him a player coach role?

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  4. Adam Lallana out for month with calf injury

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  5. Keep him - valuable experience .
    Going to be interesting to see how much Migno is bullied by Akinfenwa tonight ......

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  6. He still has another 3-4 years left of playing football. Doubt he will be interested to quit right now.

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  7. Tragic just as he is playing well . Sterling is going to miss him and needs someone else alongside now

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  8. Yep who else ? But will Brendan get it....

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  9. Lambert is who he will go for. Even Borni is a better option right now for Sterling.

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  10. Got to get Ibe back now

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  11. Moreno not good enough defensively, Lallana injury prone, can't compete physically against strong teams and can't play 90 minutes a poor man's Yossi Benayoun and a Peasant's Peter Beardsley!! Coutinho shows flashes of becoming a good player in the future and has brightened up some garbage performances all season long, Sturridge permanently on the sick bed but can do it when he ever gets on the pitch . Then there is the list of Crap Robo talks about and they represent about £130 million. We are mid table for a reason and that is because B Rod keeps signing Shi.....!! His teams cannot defend and we are desperate for someone to come in and score goals, what about OJo, Ibe and Sinclair instead of signing another midget Johny come lately from Bayern.

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  12. Finances say we should keep him sell Skrtel or Lovren use the money to buy players in positions we need as urgently.
    Theres not a lot in the kitty but a great many needs across the park.

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  13. right so Stirling should become a journey man, a mercenary, just go to winning clubs and if things aren't going well move on, well if I was his dad I'd like him to show a bit more loyalty and character than that....and as for him going nowhere but down under Brendan Rogers and liverpool Steven Gerrard I think would desagree with you on that, he just said he" would have loved to have work with rogers when he was 24, I would be looking back at a lot of titles won"

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  14. but what would Gerrard know....he's wasted his career at Liverpool

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  15. Gerrard was being kind to rodgers
    so liverpool fans dont turn on him
    agger doen same he said he was feeling weak to give rodgers excuse

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  16. You talk crap. Someone outthere is ready to give him 120k a week because they know his worth and you're here talking about loyalty. Can't a club be loyal to their players too? Liverpool FC should be loyal to Sterling by giving him what he is worth which is 100 or more if not, Madrid will call him and pay him 120. YNWA boy.

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  17. "Well, now that he's bled the club dry for £5.2m a year, there's nowhere to hide. It's time to deliver."



    There is a true supporter getting behind the team - Or Not?


    Comments like that are why players decide to move elsewhere. Whatever happened to the fans who got behind those who chose to be Liverpool players? I read articles day after day here and the vast majority are negative ending with a (get out of jail) question mark ate the end of each headline for some reason.


    Recently an article here, targeted at BR made a false statement which inferred that he had said something that he had not. Everyone has the right to an opinion but, I find here time and time again that the opinion of the author is steering people.


    I guess that if people are willing to believe everything that they read, more fool them.


    I guess I look forward to being banned again for having, like the author, an opinion

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  18. Id say Sterling has an agent and a team of people around him telling him what to do and say, if you are just 20 playing for liverpool and your agent says your worth 100k a wk and he can get it for you are you going to say no i dont want it ? dont blame Sterling blame the the agents and the way teams are allowed to be held to ransom by them, blame the rules and regulations of modern football . Just my opinion.

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  19. This concept of loyalty among football players for a club is largely dead.


    In the past, players barely earnt anything from the club and had a day job, whether it was mining or some other blue-collar trade. Playing for their city team was about pride.


    In this modern era it's a lucrative salary, earning more in a week than most see in a year. It separates them from us, more often than not. Add the globalisation of cultures, with players shifting continents, and you have transient pride and loyalty. It's either prolonged with each contract or reset with a move to a new club.


    The likes of Gerrard, Carra, Scholes, Giggs, Maldini (and a few others I am sure I have missed) are the throwback to a bygone era. There will not be as many exceptions to the rule as clubs themselves set the conditions by poaching players at younger and younger ages. Just see what's happening with Martin Odegaard.

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  20. He's marketable. It'd be interesting to know how much Madrid have made back on him

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  21. It can, but with the lightweight team we're putting together, with Hendo as Captain Timid, I'd say the domestic cups might be the extent of glory.


    I believe Rodgers is increasingly proving himself out of his depth as time goes by. Possibly its forced upon him by the Transfer Committee, but I simply have no faith in his ability to spot a player.


    This current situation seems worse than having a DoF, especially when the Committee includes money men and scouts who have yet to show any inclination that they know talent when they sign it.

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  22. I wouldn't be surprised if agents use high release clause figures to negotiate higher wages "if you don't want my client to leave for less than £XXm then you'll have to increase the wages in line with your assessment of his worth".

    I don't think I've seen anywhere that Sterling himself actually declined an offer. It's more likely it's just negotiations on a first draft of a contract between the club and Sterlings agent, fairly normal really, but then the press put a "different" angle on it and it becomes a more sensational story that we all want to read about.

    More than likely, a 20 year old kid who is focused on football says to his agent "you deal with it". The agent has just as much incentive to increase the wages of his clients, increasing their overall value. "Player power" is a bit of an over used term, IMO, for situations like this but it's one we all recognise and fits the way the media want to portray it.

    Personally I think "agent power" is just as much ruining the game as any of the other big issues miring it in controversy

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  23. Reins was always loyal, right up till ... every summer when he publicly daydreamed about Barca

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  24. Yes Kolo has earned an extension (IMO) but is it a high priority? not really.
    I get the idea of playing Can at CB and think in the long run it will be great for his development but i think with our current position we need to play kolo

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  25. Being reported that Suso has agreed a 4 year free transfer to AC Milan at the end of the season, Good luck, its a shame it didnt work out

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  26. Perhaps we over-step the mark as fans, thinking that we know what a player "deserves" to be paid. I certainly understand that higher wages are a tax on fans in quite a direct way, after all it's our interest in the game that pays for basically everything, even the advertising and sponsorship. But at the end of the day these players have a career and they get paid for what they do. We can suppose that they have a cushy life and that everything is easy and wonderful but I don't think that's always the case. What each player is responsible for is themselves and the notion that a player wouldn't try and maximise his income is a bit fanciful. No one here would take less money in their salary out of the goodness of their hearts. Rarely would you find employees volunteering to take a pay cut for the good of the company and it's customers.


    Of course people will suggest strongly that there is simply no comparison between the average footballer and the average bloke on the street but there are plenty of grey areas in between the extremes. There are professional footballers at top clubs who earn less than high end professionals. There are CEOs and top management guys like Henry and Warner who have incomes that would dwarf what any player earns. In each case what you'll almost always find is that people just want to earn as much money as they can, to be paid the maximum of what they think they are worth. Sometimes they are greedy, sometimes they just get what they think is coming to them. I'm not convinced that as fans we're really in a position to judge that. What do we really know about the business side of things? What experience do we have that makes us experts on the wages of a professional football player at a massive earning club like Liverpool?


    What I'll agree on is that Sterling has limited loyalty to Liverpool. But unfortunately that's just modern football. Teams are not loyal to players, they'll sell them or drop them as soon as it suits them. Players are not loyal to teams, they'll want to play for someone who can pay them more and offer them greater opportunities. Only in very rare examples will that not be the case so I think we need to accept it and get on with our lives. These players don't think of a club they way we do, they never will. This is their profession, their career, and what they will always try to do is maximise what they get out of it, not what they can do for the clubs that employ them. Only if what they value is itself a sense of loyalty and belonging to a club will we see them turn down the lure of more money and greater opportunity.

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  27. ok..sterling...must make more impact.. and after 5 years.. we see how much another club want to get him... 40 million??

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  28. suso looks like he's on his way too. shame, i really liked how he developed last year at almeria, scored some really good goals, thought he could kick on this year....i'm baffled why they let this guy go but keep others?

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  29. Coutinho would not either hate to tell you.

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  30. Nah it isn't. He'll be registered as a company. It's an easy loophole, register 'image rights', offer merchandise, hey presto, Footballer X is a company paying relatively little tax. Living costs become expenses required to maintain the company, hence tax deductable. Footballer X draws a relatively modest wage - no overheads to pay - and pays income tax on that. Club is hiring the services of 'Footballer X Ltd'.

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  31. ... and... er... Raheem Sterling.


    You DO know he started his career at QPR and he's not a scouser, don't you?

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  32. Let's not forget, Gerrard is going to LA because LFC's offer was half his current wage and LA are offering crazy money. If anyone in the Premier League or Europe would have matched his current wage, he'd be signing for them and not LA. The real reason he'll never play against LFC is because no-one will pay him what he wants, not loyalty to LFC!

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  33. I thought of Suso whilst watching Tom Ince play for Hull in the cup. All the natural ability and flair but obviously something missing mentally. I thought Ince was going to be a top player, similarly Suso but they just haven't trained on. Youth development is one area of the club that I actually trust at present - there hasn't been a young player that has left us and become a real star elsewhere so perhaps we have to trust the club on this one?

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