On-loan Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina has once again confirmed that he will definitely return to Anfield at the end of the season.
When asked about his future in August 2013, Reina told the The Independent:
"At the moment it's difficult to think about being a Liverpool player next year. There's no reason to think I'll be a Liverpool player from now on"
In October, however, Reina seemed resigned to the possibility of returning to Merseyside next summer. He told Italian newspaper La Gazetta Dello Sport:
"My future? As far as I know, I will return to Liverpool after my loan spell is over. Then, we'll see what happens"
Atletico Madrid and Barcelona continue to be linked with a move for Reina, but in an interview with Italian newspaper Tutto Mercato last night, the Spaniard reiterated that he'll return to Anfield:
"Until the end of the season I will give 100% for Napoli. In June, I will return to Liverpool and decide [about my future]. It depends on Liverpool and me."
I get the feeling that the ship may have sailed on any potential Barcelona move. In November, Barca vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu publicly confirmed (for the first time) that the Catalan club is definitely interested in signing Reina, but Marc-André ter Stegen - who is constantly linked with Barca - seems to be the preferred choice. Speaking to RAC1, Bartomeu said:
"Ter Stegen and Reina are within our range of options, which is already very small. We are in highly advanced negotiations.
If Reina and ter-Stegen sign for Barcelona, it will only be a matter of time before the 21-year old becomes the club's number one, and will Reina want to spend his whole Barca career looking over his shoulder, just waiting for the inevitable day when he's dumped in favour of a younger 'keeper?
Is Reina's LFC career totally over? Perhaps not. Simon Mignolet is not infallible, and he's clearly unsuited to Rodgers' 'play out from the back' philosophy. The Belgian's suspect decision-making was in evidence again on Sunday when he played Kolo Toure into major trouble, which then led to the Ivorian making a mistake under pressure, which led to a goal.
Rodgers has shown in the past that he's willing to give players a second chance, and if he has the appetite, perhaps Reina can return in the summer and battle with Mignolet to the club's number one goalkeeper. Reina certainly retains the affection of the fanbase, but in a recent poll on the site, a lot of fans indicated opposition to the Spaniard taking over from Mignolet.
11700 fans (approx) participated in the poll, and only 20% were in favour of Reina returning as LFC's number one.
Still, stranger things have happened, and if Reina did return, and somehow managed to reclaim the number one spot, it would be quite a story.
Author: Jaimie K
When asked about his future in August 2013, Reina told the The Independent:
"At the moment it's difficult to think about being a Liverpool player next year. There's no reason to think I'll be a Liverpool player from now on"
In October, however, Reina seemed resigned to the possibility of returning to Merseyside next summer. He told Italian newspaper La Gazetta Dello Sport:
"My future? As far as I know, I will return to Liverpool after my loan spell is over. Then, we'll see what happens"
Atletico Madrid and Barcelona continue to be linked with a move for Reina, but in an interview with Italian newspaper Tutto Mercato last night, the Spaniard reiterated that he'll return to Anfield:
"Until the end of the season I will give 100% for Napoli. In June, I will return to Liverpool and decide [about my future]. It depends on Liverpool and me."
I get the feeling that the ship may have sailed on any potential Barcelona move. In November, Barca vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu publicly confirmed (for the first time) that the Catalan club is definitely interested in signing Reina, but Marc-André ter Stegen - who is constantly linked with Barca - seems to be the preferred choice. Speaking to RAC1, Bartomeu said:
"Ter Stegen and Reina are within our range of options, which is already very small. We are in highly advanced negotiations.
If Reina and ter-Stegen sign for Barcelona, it will only be a matter of time before the 21-year old becomes the club's number one, and will Reina want to spend his whole Barca career looking over his shoulder, just waiting for the inevitable day when he's dumped in favour of a younger 'keeper?
Is Reina's LFC career totally over? Perhaps not. Simon Mignolet is not infallible, and he's clearly unsuited to Rodgers' 'play out from the back' philosophy. The Belgian's suspect decision-making was in evidence again on Sunday when he played Kolo Toure into major trouble, which then led to the Ivorian making a mistake under pressure, which led to a goal.
Rodgers has shown in the past that he's willing to give players a second chance, and if he has the appetite, perhaps Reina can return in the summer and battle with Mignolet to the club's number one goalkeeper. Reina certainly retains the affection of the fanbase, but in a recent poll on the site, a lot of fans indicated opposition to the Spaniard taking over from Mignolet.
11700 fans (approx) participated in the poll, and only 20% were in favour of Reina returning as LFC's number one.
Still, stranger things have happened, and if Reina did return, and somehow managed to reclaim the number one spot, it would be quite a story.
Author: Jaimie K
sell. see him against Atalanta at weekend?? not good..
ReplyDeleteSell him. He was good in his day, but SM is faster, younger, quicker, and will get smarter...in a word...SM is better.
ReplyDeleteHe would be better back up than Jones. But would he want to be back up? Probably not.
ReplyDeleteSelling him or loaning him again seems the most likely.
Heard that atletico are interested so maybe sold when he returns if not its good competing for mig
ReplyDeleteReina will either be loaned out again or sold that is for sure. He is earning 100k+ a week so there is no place for him on the bench.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be good for him (Pepe) to come back. Simon looks a bit shakey at times and being the number 1 by default does nothing for a player's confidence. If Pepe came back there would be good competition between them, and with the possibility of Champions League football Pepe is less likely to 'phone it in', as he's been guilty of in the last couple of seasons.
ReplyDeleteSimon's young and while his shot-stopping is excellent, his distribution and organisation could be improved. Pepe's distribution and organisation have always been excellent (99% of the time at least) and Simon could learn a lot from him.
With competition from Pepe, Simon will up his game, and when he ups his game he'll have the confidence to start catching balls that come into the box rather than just punching/flapping them away.
Really, it can only be a good thing to have more than one 1st class player in each position.
Surely there's some stats to help us make up our minds?
ReplyDeleteAnyone wanting Pepe back at Liverpool have you seen the mistakes he's been making in Italy?
ReplyDeleteMignolet is a much better long term option. Yes he's made a couple of mistakes but the times he's actually saved the team massively out weigh them.
I also believe a fit settled defence sees a much better Mignolet
Atletico will only be interested if they cant get Courtois from Chelsea
ReplyDeleteYou clearly havent watched any of Napoli's games this season!!
ReplyDeleteMignolet bore no responsibility for Touré's error, he should have played the ball back to Mig for him to clear, and if Touré is blind thats not Mig's fault IMO. Jamie go to you tube and look at Reina's performance at the weekend, absolutely awful, so bad he made a public apology, fact.
ReplyDeleteTry sell him if we can find a buyer, but his £110k a week might be a stumbling block, plus his lack of loyalty when he thought he was going to Barca, get rid.
I am sure i heard him say "I'll be back"
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Mignolet lately?
ReplyDeletei reckon it would be good for Liverpool to bring back Reina. Mingolet makes top saves but he is consistently making errors along with it. with Reina on the bench, hopefully he'll cut out the mistakes. his mistakes have cost us many points. i know teams will definately try to pressure our defenders nows as well after seeing toure and mingolets mistake.
ReplyDeleteI think if we were going to sign Yehven, the ukraine guy it had to be in January. in summer i would pass on him personally. i would sign Carlos Vela from Real Sociedad for his £15M release clause. with 14 goals/10 assists from RW in 33 games in La Liga and Champions League, hes performing at a very high level. he scored a few hatricks for Arsenal at a young age but was completely ignored. hes 24 and fits the FSG profile. back-up signing if this was to fail would be Yarmolenko for probably about £20M. Barcelona were willing to let Alex Song go for £10M in January according to reports and if true how LFC has ignored probably one of the best PL defensive midfielders is beyond me. anyway in the summer i would make a £15M bid for Alex Song. hes a very good player and would play BR-style football with perfection after playing with Arsenal and Barcelona, the two best passing football teams in the world. backup option to Song could Fernando from Porto on a FREE transfer. i'd also buy Adam Lallana, to complete our midfield. he would probaby cost about £15M.
Summer Signings
Carlos Vela - RW - 24 - £15M - Real Sociedad
Alex Song - DM - 26 - £15M - Barcelona
Adam Lallana - LM - 25 - £15M - Southampton
total out: £45M
Removing Dead Wood
Iago Aspas - Back to La Liga - £8M, if i was Liverpool i would offer Aspas back to La Liga as he is not playing and is just gettin wages for not nothing. clubs there will definately buy him so we should offer him back for the fee we purchased him. hes a proven goalscorer their and a failure here.
Luis Alberto - Loan, if any La Liga Side, PL side or even the Championship will take Luis Alberto on loan i think it can be good for his career because getting 8minutes game time every other 4 months wont help. if we loan him at least he can get game time and hopefully perform on a weekly basis.
Cancel Moses loan, in the summer, if we get CL, we will not need Moses.
Joe Allen - offer for £12M to PL clubs, tbh i dont think Joe Allen will ever make it at LFC. if we were to ever buy a midfielder of the quality of Song who is being rejected at his club, Joe Allen should make way. Henderson is obviously the better midfielder.
total in: £20M
---------------------------------------Reina
Flanagan-----------Skrtel--------------Sakho---------Enrique
------------------------Song-----------------Gerrard
-----------Vela------------------------------------------Lallana
-----------------------------------Suarez
-----------------------------------Sturridge
subs: Mingolet, Agger, Toure, Lucas, Henderson, Coutinho, Sterling
or
--------------------------------------Reina
--------------------Skrtel-----------------------Agger
Sterling-------------------------Song--------------------Enrique
----------------------Gerrard------------Lallana
-------Vela---------------------------------------------Suarez
----------------------------------Sturridge
subs: Mingolet, Flanno, Agger, Toure, Lucas, Henderson, Coutinho,
He'll go. I say sell him AND Mignolet and sign Courtois!
ReplyDeletePipe dream.
ReplyDeleteMignolet is probably a better shot stopper than reina, that's about it. He's certainly not quick. However I'm in agreement that he should retain the no1 spot as the other facets of his game will improve
ReplyDeleteLalana sighed a new 5 year deal last April so if you think he will be sold for 15 million being British and probably the best player Southampton has then you are smoking your socks.
ReplyDeletethey cant demand more than £20M for him. he is not better than Cabaye. hes good but hes around that value. £20M is the max they can demand
ReplyDeleteHe is British. Can't see how you want to argue with this.
ReplyDeletedont matter. if a club came with £15-20M cash to Southampton they would accept. Rodwell went to City for £12M simply because they coughed up the cash. Lallana will go for £20M believe me. there prize asset is Luke Shaw. he is only 18 and they can demand much higher fees for him.
ReplyDeleteI know I know but I just can't get over the fact that we have a partnership with Genk and we lost out on Courtois, DeBruyne AND Benteke.
ReplyDeleteI was one of those who insisted reina must leave years ago, nothing changed now. I was convinced mignolets the one after first 4-5 games of the season but if you ask me now, I see no difference between reina and mignolet, both great at times and shocking at times, so none of them should stay here imo, begovic was always my wish even before mignolet arrived, so should suggest br to go for him, hes way more consistent than these two and wouldnt cost much I think.. Around 10m which is ok for me.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree Eric! He is a clown of a keeper. Yes he might be a decent shot stopper, but every Premiership keeper should be. I was against this signing from day one and gutted that we overlooked Bergovic. I find Mignolet to be a very clumsy keeper and his kicking is embarrassing!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I don't blame Toure for his mistake. It was our clown at number one that felt it necessary to roll it out to him when there were 3 WBA attackers very close by. Boggles the mind!
If Henderson went for 16 million pounds then I can rest assure you that Lalana will go for almost double that. We are talking about one the best English attacking midfielders at the moment. Not some player from Everton who will be sitting on City's bench for some years to come.
ReplyDeleteThe deal between LFC and Genk was to help us get players from Africa and South America. This was setup by Benitez. Clearly he was blind not to see what was on offer at Genk?
ReplyDeleteDe bruyne was only sold last year by Genk. Benteke has played for 7 different clubs already and Courtois was probably scouted by hundreds of clubs.
Have you seen our gutless back four lately?
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Still trying to figure out how Toure not being able to pass a ball back to Mingolet, is actually Mignolet's fault...
ReplyDeleteEveryone looks like a world beater until they come to LFC and realise what pressure is.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it has something to do with deluded fans.
ReplyDeleteBack up keeper? whose wages are almost twice as first choice keeper?. I will have whatever you are smoking right now.
ReplyDeleteI think we could have used up Downing very well this season. He would have been massive in terms of depth and before he left he did put consistent shift week in week out. But I understand FSG's policy of sell and buy. Downing was also on high wages.
ReplyDeleteReally? Wow! Amazing how you still rate downing. As for squad depth, re signing poulsen would of been strength in depth too by your logic. We dont need numbers, we need quality. By that logic assaidi suso wisdom ilori shelvey borini cole carroll would of been still here!
ReplyDeleteSo whats the difference between a sunderland and a lfc keeper? You dont wanna concede goals anyway, do you? I dont think any keeper of the bottom teams goes out and thinks" hey im playing for a poor side dont care much if I concede because im not in a top team". Sunderland or Liverpool the pressure is always there, no one wants to concede and everyone fights not to do much!
ReplyDeleteTBH he's not producing anything of note at West Ham.
ReplyDeleteWas this poll conducted among Anfield regulars or some Youth club far away from Liverpool?
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a fit,settled defence.Quite the opposite.
ReplyDeleteThe future is now in that we need Champions League now.We can worry about that if we get top 4 this season,which is now looking very shaky.
ReplyDeleteWhen was the poll done ? when we first signed mingolet? when all lpool fans only really seen short clips of youtube of his good saves? or after his first few games pulling off amazing saves? .. if reina comes back and is back to the old passionate reina / the not so clumbsy reina then im sure there will be a huge battle for no1 GK pos
ReplyDeleteRoss and Eric don't have a clue about football I bet use both wasn't slating him the first ten games tho we're playing a different style of football now were he needs time to adjust it's his first season at a top club there's much more pressure on him to do well every keeper in every league makes mistakes ! And if pepe does come back and stay it will make great competition for the no1 spot 2 Great keepers with different qualities !
ReplyDelete