download All Football App

Thiago Alcantara is desperate to experience the Premier League next with Liverpool interested

  /  autty

Thiago Alcantara has always been proud of being a mix of football cultures – the free-spirited flamboyance inherited from his father the Brazil international Mazinho, and the adhesion to order, structure and positional discipline learned at Barcelona and ingrained at Bayern under Pep Guardiola.

It’s no surprise that he wants his club career to reflect the joy of different styles too – he’s done LaLiga and the Bundesliga, aged 29, he is now desperate to experience the Premier League.

Liverpool are interested. How could they not be? The fact that he has one year left on his contract, combined with the deflation of the market caused by the coronavirus pandemic, will bring his price down. And his desire to play in England will help keep any contract negotiations within Liverpool’s understanding of what they should reasonably pay him.

It remains to be seen if, following the words of Karl-Heinz Rummenigge that the Spaniard has his mind set on leaving Germany this summer, there are any other takers.

Manchester United showed some interest last year and might also have signed him back in 2013.

They wanted him when he left Barcelona to the point where Thiago’s then Spain Under 21 team-mate David De Gea wrote ‘See you in Manchester’ on the match ball after Thiago scored a hat-trick to win the Under 21s European Championship final that year.

He had no doubts at the time that he would have adapted to the Premier League and now with seven years more experience he is even more convinced.

He had a slightly undeserved reputation for frivolity when he first emerged at Barcelona but Guardiola helped channel his talent at Bayern making sure everything he did with the ball was for the good of the team and not just for the gallery.

Had Guardiola stayed at Barcelona, Thiago has admitted he would probably have stayed longer. As it was, Pep took him to Bayern.

Now there is a desire to test himself on the same stage as De Gea, and the likes of Juan Mata and Ander Herrera who also played in that all-conquering young Spain team.

The mix with Jurgen Klopp will be fascinating if Liverpool grant him his wish and sign him. He loves to be on the ball. Liverpool’s lightning transitions don’t always lend themselves to midfielders keeping possession for too long.

Klopp will perhaps embrace having a player who offers something different. Especially if he feels Liverpool need to subtly reinvent themselves just to stay ahead of the rivals who are trying to ‘work them out’.

Bayern fans will miss him. They admire the tenacity he showed in coming back from three cruciate ligament injuries in one year back in 2014.

He’s been one of their best performers every season since. He never shirked from having to take on new ideas in order to be as successful in Germany as he was in Spain.

He now wants to do the same in England. The part-Brazilian, part-Spanish midfielder wants his part-La Liga, part-Bundesliga career to have a sizeable and successful epilogue in England.