Liverpool FC Forum

yeah, his form dipped after benitez left but for 5 years he was one of, if not the best keeper in the country.
whenever fans discuss who was the best ever liverpool keeper his name will be thrown into the hat alongside the likes of clemence and scott etc
he`ll always be welcome at anfield
YNWA pepe lad

We could start the season without Pepe , Carra and Suarez ! The most of the spine gone.

Gutted that Pepe has gone but I suppose he is still connected to us because we will be paying a portion of his wages !!

One of the best keepers we've ever had at this club.
It was only 2 years ago he was considered one of the best keepers in the world. It will be sad to see him go, but I have been starting to see his form suffer recently due to errors from himself and the defence.

Thanks Pepe and good luck.

One of the best keepers we've ever had a this club.
It was only 2 years ago he was considered one of the best keepers in the world. It will be sad to see him go, but I have been starting to see his form suffer recently due to errors from himself and the defence.

Thanks Pepe and good luck.

Good luck to him. Truly, one of the best we've ever had.

Gutted he has gone, we will rue this one. I'm sure Mignolet is good, but IMO Reina is better.

The potential Barcelona bid for Reina situation has clearly forced our hand, it's just hard to swallow when that move doesn't materialise and we are left with two highly paid keepers on the roster.

SouthCoastShankly » Thu Jul 25, 2013 7:40 am wrote:Gutted he has gone, we will rue this one. I'm sure Mignolet is good, but IMO Reina is better.

The potential Barcelona bid for Reina situation has clearly forced our hand, it's just hard to swallow when that move doesn't materialise and we are left with two highly paid keepers on the roster.

Game set match.

I think we thought he was off so had to move for mign, reina has probably said he wants barca next year. Making the best of what we can i guess

^ we did think he was off...

Brendan Rodgers says Reina insisted on Barcelona move - claims Mignolet was signed because of Reina's desire to move to Spain

The Liverpool boss, speaking at a press conference in Bangkok today, confirmed that the 30-year-old had joined Napoli on a season-long loan.

Rodgers insists he only made a move for new £9million shot-stopper Simon Mignolet after being informed that Barcelona were ready to offer around the same amount to take Reina back to the Camp Nou.

As it turned out, Victor Valdes' decision to see out the rest of his contract with the Catalan giants meant Barca never followed up their interest in Reina.

With Mignolet already on board, there was no chance of Liverpool paying Reina his £110,000 per salary to warm the bench so they have allowed him to be reunited with Rafa Benitez in Naples.

Rodgers said: “In terms of us as a football club, it was obviously a difficult decision but it's one from last season.

“As manager I was led to believe we were going to get an offer for Pepe Reina that would probably see him leave the club.

“Obviously, on the football side we had to ensure we protected the team. At that stage we started our search for another goalkeeper and we found Simon Mignolet, who is top class and one of the best goalkeepers in Europe.

“As events transpired, Pepe's move didn't quite happen and that left us with two very good goalkeepers. Both would have been fighting for the No 1 position.

“An opportunity then arose for Pepe that we felt as a football club was probably best for him.

“As a senior keeper he needs to be playing. This is an important year for him this year with the World Cup next summer.

“It wouldn't have served any purpose for either the football club or him personally if he was the one missing out.

“He has decided to go to Napoli but we still have two very good goalkeepers still here at the club in Simon and Brad Jones. We will review the situation with Pepe when his loan has finished.”

as i have said on here a few times the echo reported that reina`s agent went in to see rodgers and ayre at the end of last season and told them before the summer was out to expect an £8m bid from barcelona, this was at a time when reina was in the press saying how difficult it would be to turn down a move to the nou camp and even his arl fella was in the spanish media urging his lad to join catalan giants.
there was not much else the club could do, to rodgers and ayre the whole thing must have looked like a fait accompli,they had to line up another keeper, i`m sure if they would have had a crystal ball and could forsee that valdez`s move to monaco was going to fall through they would have put this off till next summer.
once it became clear that we now had 2 keepers the club had to be fair to mingolet, we probably signed him on the pretext he was going to be our number 1 keeper

lets just hope then that brendan does not allow himself to be so easily led in future 

red till i die!! » Fri Jul 26, 2013 12:37 pm wrote:lets just hope then that brendan does not allow himself to be so easily led in future 

It was what happened with Torres / Carroll that made him act quickly. In his 30 minute appearance on TAW he said he'd been stung before and left in the lurch and wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. It's not about being so easily lead - Barca would have bid for Reina if Valdes hadn't have done a u-turn on his retirement.

red till i die!! » Fri Jul 26, 2013 11:37 am wrote:lets just hope then that brendan does not allow himself to be so easily led in future 

Almost every manager would have made the same decision, the difference is not every club cannot afford two highly paid goalkeepers int he first team XI. Richer clubs than ourselves could maintain that squad cost, we cannot. That is the only difference.

No decent manager would not react to a clearly imminent risk of his first team keeper leaving, the fact that the deal did not materialise is irrelevant. When a credible risk presents itself you become reactive. If Rodgers had not been reactive to the situation, the result could have easily been another fiasco akin to what happened at the start of last season with our strike force, or lack of.

I'm sorry but I don't think every manager would react to talk of bids - they would react when actually confirmation of any bid - especially so early into the window and especially after Valdes stated he isn't leaving so Barce werent going to bid for Pepe.

We went the total opposite of what happened with Carroll. Waiting a week or two weeks wouldn't have made a difference. But we now have a GK in the team who is on cheaper wages - that certainly is suspect to me

if we'd of waited we may have lost the opportunity to get our man. We had to strike quickly to make sure we weren't left with Brad Jones as number 1 next season.

good thinking by the club in my book.

I think the the club also took his form and wages into consideration. 
Seems to me like both parties were fairly happy to part ways and it just didn't quite work out the way Reina wanted. 

If we really wanted to keep Reina we could have signed Mignolet and immediately loaned him back to Sunderland or another club for a season.  We chose not to.