Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is reportedly ready to try to tie Roberto Firmino down to a new contract even though the Brazil international is no longer a regular starter for the Reds.
Klopp is supposedly still keen to keep hold of Firmino as a part of his squad, however, with Football Insider reporting that the club are expected to offer the 30-year-old a new deal.
While it’s easy to see why Klopp would remain loyal to a great servant like Firmino, it’s perhaps a bit of a weakness of the German tactician, who shouldn’t be afraid of doing more to freshen his squad up a bit.
Firmino may well still have more to offer, even if it’s only as a squad player, but there’s no doubt his form has dipped and Diogo Jota starting ahead of him is perfectly justified.
In that sense, Klopp has done well, as he perhaps recognised the need to make a signing like Jota with the view of eventually shifting Firmino out of the starting XI.
Liverpool fans could be justified in asking for even more ruthlessness from their manager, though, as Firmino shouldn’t really be kept around just because of what he did for the club in the past.
If anything, LFC should keep looking to the future, and once again try to make a Jota-esque signing who can come in and put pressure on the current forward players.
The best teams never stand still and rest on their laurels, so Liverpool should be thinking beyond Firmino now and focus on improving even more, rather than rewarding someone who is no longer as important as he once was.
What a strange article. Are you only supposed to negotiate contracts for certain starters, this is a squad game. Klopp has player Bobby a lot recently whilst players have been away.
Strange article this
Klopp retains players that do not add value to LFC and creates multiple issues, for example, One of Klopp’s major issues is favoritism to some players which results in bad business decisions, other players obtain limited playing time, and will not release them, and obviously limits them playing for their country ( Selfish ) Klopp’s hug ridiculous
That is an extremely simplistic comment and has little foundation in football terms. Firmino brings plenty to the party that no-one else offers to the same degree – depth, game intelligence from deeper than the other forwards, the best defensive pressing and robbing possession in the front line, incredible control in tight situations. Just because his goals and assists aren’t as high as previous seasons there’s a lot more to his game than that. He’s often very influential in instigating phases of play that lead to very promising moves. Give the guy a break. Liverpool players get offered new contracts for good reason. May I suggest you go away to improve your football education before writing such diatribe again.
So let me ask this only regular starters should be offered new contracts? The reason why Man City is way a head of everyone else is because of entire squad, when you have players who can come off the bench and change a game…any player can be injured at anytime and players need to know they have competition for there places..Firmino more than deserve a new contract…he is a fine player…these sport writers lack basic knowledge of the games they writing about.