Jurgen Klopp didn’t want Nabil Fekir to be part of his Liverpool project due to the manner in which he and his agents behaved before the transfer was finalised.
This was the key reason for the transfer collapse; not the infamous knee injury that was so often cited, according to respected Liverpool correspondent Dave Maddock.
“I think his greatest quality is to find the right personalities,” Maddock told Sky Sports. “People have overlooked this.
“They nearly signed Nabil Fekir from Lyon last summer and in the end the reason they didn’t sign him was not because of the injury – and he did have an injury, which was a problem but they could have done the deal. There were other problems: he got his brother involved, began demanding more money, wouldn’t speak to the Liverpool people. Klopp was like, ‘we can’t have that personality in our squad’.”
Fekir played an entire season with Lyon after the failed transfer, and has been ever-present for Real Betis since moving to Spain this summer just gone – so whatever the issue with the knee was – it’s not stopping him feature.
In recent weeks, we’ve began to finally hear whispers of the true reasons…
Fekir’s former agent Jean-Pierre Bernès blamed the player’s family for being greedy, while the Frenchman himself has claimed it was entirely the fault of the agent himself.
Regardless, not buying Fekir has not affected us negatively. We won the Champions League last season and have in fact developed a tactic in which he’d struggle to fit.