Liverpool missing out on Mario Gotze was a blessing in disguise - Jurgen Klopp won't be tempted again

Gotze will be available on a free this summer. Liverpool won't be in the race for him.
Bongarts/Getty Images
David Lynch11 April 2020

Liverpool fans would have been justified in feeling a little nervous when the summer transfer window of 2016 opened up.

This was a fanbase that had seen Mario Balotelli and Christian Benteke offered up as the solution to their team’s lack of goal threat in each of the last two years.

They had also just watched Dejan Lovren and Alberto Moreno largely fail to improve on disappointing debut seasons at the club the second time around.

Consequently, Reds supporters were probably treating Jurgen Klopp’s reported search for a goalscoring winger with a healthy dose of scepticism.

And those feelings will only have been compounded when Liverpool were hit with an early setback as Mario Gotze rejected a move to Anfield.

In Pictures | Liverpool vs Bournemouth | 07/03/2020

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The German had decided that he would be better served returning to Borussia Dortmund, rather than heading to England, upon finally ending a disappointing stay at Bayern Munich.

So the Reds, as they had done remarkably often in recent memory, turned to Southampton in search of an alternative solution.

Thankfully, this time they were pursuing a signing far more inspired than any of their previous raids on the south coast, ultimately securing Sadio Mane for just £34m.

Enough has been written about the brilliance of that acquisition, resulting as it did in a Champions League win, Premier League domination, and deserved Ballon d’Or consideration for the player.

But it is often forgotten that Klopp could quite easily have ended up with his number one target: a man whose career has gone in a vastly different direction.

On Friday, Gotze confirmed that he will leave Dortmund for a second time this summer when his contract with the club expires.

He wrote: “Today I would like to announce that after intensive consideration, I have decided to make a change in the planning of my career.

“What the sporting future will bring will only become apparent when a little normality has returned to the world.”

Still just 27 years old, the forward has clocked up a meagre five Bundesliga starts this term - a struggle for game time that has become a theme of recent seasons.

A 2017 diagnosis of myopathy, a muscle disease, accounts for that poor return, as well as the fact that so much of the player’s early promise has not been delivered upon.

It also explains why so few reporters have rushed to link Gotze with Liverpool this time around, despite his availability on a free transfer.

Even as a manager renowned for loyalty, Klopp knows that offering his compatriot a second opportunity to make the switch to Merseyside makes no sense.

Liverpool's alternative to Gotze has delivered.
PA

That is because his priority is protecting his team’s interests and, right now, signing one of his most talented former proteges does not fit the bill.

Even were he still at his best, Gotze could hardly have been considered a priority target this summer given what both Mane and Mohamed Salah - himself a substitute for Julian Draxler - are doing in his position.

Both men have turned themselves into superstars since an opportunity to move to Anfield opened up as a result of Klopp feeling the sting of rejection four years ago.

And so, while Liverpool have no thoughts of letting either leave, they are sure to be consistently linked with mega-transfers to the likes of Real Madrid this summer.

Conversely, Gotze will be searching for a new home in a transfer market that may have been irreparably damaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

If nothing else, these contrasting scenarios prove that, when it comes to signing players, it is sometimes just as important to be lucky as it is to be smart.

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