Diego Cavalieri is set to play his last game for Liverpool on Thursday night against Trabzonspor in the Europa League, as he heads off after the game to complete a medical at Cesena of the Serie A.
With a fee already agreed for the player, the keeper gets the chance to say goodbye to the Anfield crowd and hopefully help the Reds gain a good starting advantage over their Turkish opponents to take into their 2nd leg. Cavalieri leaves his understudy position to Pepe Reina, with Australia’s Brad Jones signed at the start of the week from Middlesborough, to take over the role and attempt to dislodge one of the best goalkeepers in the world from the Reds starting eleven. Cavalieri had been previously linked with moves back to Brazil at the end of last season for first team football but the player was believed to be reluctant to return to his homeland just yet, with options of either Spain or Italy more of a preference.
Roy Hodgson has confirmed the intended move for the Brazilian in todays press conference, ahead of the Europa tie.
“Diego has done a marvellous job for the last three years,” he said.
“He’s a very good goalkeeper and a very good person, but he made it clear to me at the start of the season that after three years of watching Pepe play every week he might, if he’s not careful, lose his goalkeeping ability or his status as a first-team goalkeeper.”
“He made it clear he’d like to leave and find a club where he’ll be able to play on a regular basis, so we set about the task of finding someone we thought would be as good a complement to Pepe Reina as Cavalieri has been.”
“That’s why Brad Jones has come in.” ”He’s the man we’ve chosen to back up Reina, put him under pressure and, most importantly, be ready to play.”
“Diego will travel to Cesena after the game tomorrow night for a medical.”
Ahead of last weekend’s Premier League fixture against Arsenal, Liverpool FC Managing Director Christian Purslow gave good indication that more players could yet leave Anfield this summer, in his interview with Five Live. It seems as though another one of those is set to be young Hungarian striker Krisztián Németh who is all set for a move to join former team mate Albert Riera at Olympiakos for a season on a season long loan.
The promising striker has just returned from a spell with AEK Athens where he featured 17 times for the Greek club, finding the net on 3 occasions, his spell at the club was largely disrupted by an ankle injury collected on international duty which ruled him out for several months. Italian side Lecce were hoping to take him away from Anfield in a £1m deal at the start of pre-season which saw the player omitted from the Swiss training camp but it seems with the loan option in place the talented player might still have the slightest glimmer of a chance of a Liverpool career in the future.