Football Manager stories: Takumi Minamino fails at Liverpool

Takumi Minamino is the newest player to join Liverpool, having arrived in January. But how will his career go? We found out on Football Manager.

We’ve already taken a look at how Kalidou Koulibaly would react to being put in the Liverpool side, and we’ve continue with that save into 2020/2021 to find out if Takumi Minamino will be used more by Jurgen Klopp.

And the initial results aren’t so promising, with Liverpool sending the Japan international on loan to Danish side Kobenhavn after he made just five Premier League appearances in the season previous.

On Football Manager, the former Salzburg man is a natural right winger – the position Mohamed Salah currently occupies. And although Klopp also sent Xherdan Shaqiri out on loan with a view to selling him permanently, there wasn’t any room in his squad for Minamino.

One interesting purchase that Liverpool made was Juventus star Paulo Dybala – who has been linked with the club in real life – to compliment their central options of Roberto Firmino and Odsonne Edouard.

Interestingly, Harry Wilson was also sent back on loan and Firmino used way more on the flanks in order to get Edouard in the side.

This policy has killed off Minamino’s career with Liverpool. With Salah out of the side for any length of time, you would have thought the Japanese international would be the next in line.

Far more playing time has been given to additional summer recruit Shoya Nakajima, who joined for big money from Porto.

While Liverpool were scrapping for another Premier League title, they were third by January, Minamino was doing well in Denmark. However, that’s hardly a league that’ll allow a 25-year-old to improve and come back ready to play top flight football in England.

It didn’t really get any better than that. Liverpool won the title by another tiny margin (just one point) but failed in every other competition and were knocked out of the Champions League by Manchester City in the quarter final.

Minamino wasn’t really able to build on his decent start to the season and added just two more league appearances, but ended with a really high average rating.

But it’s difficult to see how the Japanese international will break through into the first team. With a value of £26 million, Liverpool are primed to make a quick buck on the man they prised away from Salzburg for a fraction of that price.