This can’t be right, can it?
The custom in modern football is that if a player has stayed with one club for ten years, he gets a testimonial.
Simple.
Come the end of this campaign, it’ll be ten seasons since Lucas Leiva arrived at Anfield from Gremio for a modest £5m fee, but according to James Pearce in the Echo, there’s so far only plans to throw a party to commemorate his decade at the club.
Why…? Only Arthur Riley (South Africa, 1925-1940), Berry Nieuwenhuys (South Africa, 1933-1947), Bruce Grobbelaar (Zimbabwe, 1981-1994) and Jan Molby (Denmark, 1984-1996) have spent more time at the club in our history as a foreigner than Lucas.
The South American has been brilliantly loyal and often very important. There was a time before his cruciate injury in 2011 when he was one of the very best holding midfielders around and he would have cemented that reputation if it were not for the enforced absence.
Since then, he’s played a vital role in the dressing room and been used under Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish, Brendan Rodgers and now Jurgen Klopp.
He’s a fans’ favourite and at Empire, we think it would be a huge oversight if Lucas, who was booed by the Kop during his early Liverpool tenure, wasn’t awarded a testimonial having taken the club and city into his heart.