6 Feb 2017

Deal Close: Liverpool desperately tried to sign 'excellent' £40m attacker in January; Klopp 'pulled the plug'

Julian Draxler recently agreed a massive £40m transfer to PSG, and it appears that Jurgen Klopp was desperate to sign the German international.

According to Mirror's journo David Maddock:

"Jurgen Klopp was seriously keen on Julian Draxler and went deep into negotiations with the Germany international, but he pulled the plug when Draxler tried to use PSG's interest to push up his salary".

If Klopp held personal talks with Draxler then he obviously wanted him badly, but alas, Klopp's fabled 'pull' in the transfer market wasn't enough to convince the midfielder to reject an inferior league and sign for Liverpool. In my view, it's no great loss. The idea of Draxler (tall, powerful German international) is more appealing than the reality, and his overall creative return is simply not good enough.

Granted, Draxler is only 23, but a goal every 370 minutes in the Bundesliga is average, and is not an upgrade on Liverpool's current attackers. As Michael Ballack noted recently:

"Julian Draxler is an excellent player, but he also needs three or four meters of space to do his dribbling".

At PSG, Draxler has already improved his poor minutes-per-goal/assist ratio (5 goals/assists in 5 games. One every 66 mins), but that's probably due to the fact that Ligue One is significantly less physical and fast than the the Bundesliga (and the Premier League).

Bullet-dodged or big loss?


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