Huge u-turn could ruin Liverpool transfer plans
Liverpool could have a huge Gini Wijnaldum u-turn on their hands.
We’d all been assuming that the midfielder was going to leave this summer, either for Barcelona or somewhere else.
In fact, there’s a few out there who had been banking on it. How else could space be made for Thiago to come in from Bayern Munich?
With a contract that’s expiring at the end of the season, Gini Wijnaldum is in serious danger of leaving on a free. But now Sky Sports have thrown a spanner in the works.
The organisation are reporting that Jurgen Klopp has held talks with the Dutchman and things are looking good from that point of view. Wijnaldum wants to stay at Liverpool, said Sky Sports, and is hopefully that a contract extension will be forthcoming.
If Wijnaldum does put pen to paper, it’ll certainly throw the cat amongst the pigeons. There’s already been a major twist in the Thiago transfer, and now the Gini news has really stirred the pot.
Liverpool would almost certainly have to offer Wijnaldum a substantial wage increase. He hasn’t signed a new deal since signing from Newcastle in 2016, when Klopp’s project was in its infancy.
Since then, he’s been involved with winning the Premier League and Champions League, and has watched his mates land bumper new deals.
You can forgive Wijnaldum for wanting a piece of that pie. He’s been a vital part of Klopp’s team and deserves to be rewarded for doing so. Despite the lack of appreciation he gets from some fans, it would have a big impact if Liverpool lost the Dutchman.
Could the team make a midfield of Thiago and Gini work? It’ll be difficult to keep players fresh and motivated with another elite operator in the engine room and you may see Naby Keita or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain frozen out.
Either way, this may be the beginning of the end of one of the summer’s longest running sagas.