Former Liverpool star Stan Collymore reckons there’s one very good reason Raphinha should snub interest from Chelsea, Barcelona and Co in favour of joining his old club — Jurgen Klopp.
The Blues are one of three Premier League clubs trying to sign the Leeds star, with Arsenal having already made an opening offer for the Brazilian and Tottenham also keen.
Spanish giants Barca are also desperate to land the £60million-rated wideman if they can generate the funds. But Collymore reckons he’d complete an excellent summer of business for Liverpool by becoming the perfect complement to or replacement for Mohamed Salah.
The Egyptian has just a year left on his contract and the fear amongst the Anfield faithful is that he will run it down and walk away for nothing next summer. Collymore, who became a British record signing when he moved from Nottingham Forest to Liverpool for £8.5m in 1995, said: “My message to Liverpool is, ‘Go on, get in there and get him, and future proof for the prospect of Salah leaving in a year.
"If Jurgen Klopp can show the boy how to play with more tactical discipline, the Reds will have one hell of a potential threat down the left or right with a promise of goals if he stays high up the pitch rather than drifting. I look at Chelsea and think they are all right for that kind of player, they have good players left and right. People will say that if you can hone his talent and skills, he can give you the same ‘Wow!’ factor , or at least a similar one, to Eden Hazard, even though they’re different players.
“But I just don’t see him as an automatic pick there. With Arsenal, he would go there and carry on in the same vein as he plays at Leeds, where I don’t think he is as tactically aware as I’d like him to be, a lot of what he does is off the cuff. But if you’re looking at Klopp and what he has done with Salah and Sadio Mane then he could do the same with Raphinha.
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“What was Mane’s tactical awareness like when he arrived at Liverpool? And you could ask the same question about Salah. Yes, he scored goals with Roma and he has that outrageous pace, but he still needed polishing to become an even better goalscorer in the Premier League. With Salah in the last year of his contract — and there’s nothing for now saying he is going to stay and nothing saying he is going to go — you wonder if Klopp’s uncanny knack of working with gifted sidemen might appeal to Raphinha.
“And if Liverpool, on the back of good business with Darwin Nunez and Fabio Carvalho, were to get Raphinha and tell him to watch Salah for the next year, not only will he learn but it would also put Mo under a nice bit of pressure to make him think, ‘Am I going to stay or am I going to go?’ Nobody is comparing Raphinha to Salah because you can’t compare anyone to Salah.
“But he has rapid pace, amazing skills and ability, and he can be polished to score more goals and get more assists. If Klopp can do that then, all of a sudden, by this time next year, Liverpool could have an all-new front three and it will be as if people have blinked and not even noticed, which would be amazing.”
