The Premier League Owl
Dutch play-maker Wesley Sneijder completed his move to Galatasary last night, ending speculation that he might have been on his way to the Premier League and specifically Anfield.
Initially, Liverpool fans are going to be disappointed by that, but once they step back and survey the situation for what it truly is, they may well feel that they’ve dodged a bullet.
Wesley Sneijder is a very talented footballer, but he’s undeniably been in steady decline since 2010. The temptation when a player has a year like that, is to allow them to exist on reputation for the rest of their career, rather than to properly evaluate their contemporary usefulness. Sightings of the Dutchman at San Siro have become few and far between, but if you have managed to catch one of his performances for Inter Milan over the last 36 months, then you’ll have seen a shadow of the player who Jose Mourinho was able to build his Champions League-winning side around.
Egotistical, entitled, selfish – these are all worthy synonyms with Sneijder, and they’re all qualities that the Liverpool dressing-room could clearly do without. Brendan Rodgers’ side are young and developing, and logic implies that they will mature together – and while Sneijder may have made the Liverpool first-team marginally more competitive in the short-term, his long-term value and legacy would have probably just been that of a ‘me first’ drain on resources.
‘Drain on resources’ however, doesn’t really do the Dutchman’s salary justice. Galatasary are going to be paying a King’s Ransom to employ Sneijder, and that’s exactly the kind of financial burden Liverpool need to avoid until they re-establish themselves in the Champions League.
It would have been terribly exciting to see him in the Premier League, but it wouldn’t have been a particularly smart move. There are far better, far cheaper, and far more viable options out there.
If you’re still not convinced, think about this: how many clubs must have passed on the player before he eventually committed to Gala? Sneijder’s agent would have placed a call to all the PSGs, the Manchester Uniteds, the Bayern Munichs, the Chelseas, and each time he would have been told ‘thanks, but no thanks’. If clubs like that – all with the resources to comfortably take that kind of risk – weren’t willing to pony-up for the play-maker, what does that tell you?
Liverpool should never have gone anywhere near him, and they’ve done exactly the right thing in staying clear. Wesley Sneijder is just a name and a reputation, he’s not a logical next-step for this club.
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@cookiebun – You’re missing the point. We most likely WERE interested in him, but wouldn’t pay him enough of the stupid money he wanted and therefore he chose Gala and subsequently we avoided him (doesn’t have to mean we deliberately didn’t bid etc)!!
Plus are you telling me the media never get it wrong or make things up? Get real and perhaps engage your brain a little (if possible) before commenting in public!
Well said. It is funny that he states the reason as being we are not playing for trophies! Yeah, because the Turkish league is the one they all want (no disrespect intended)!! I have heard that Gala will pay him the equivalent of £100,000 a week after tax. So he would have to be on £200,000+ in England to get that and we obviously refused to match it and off he went. A lot of fans will be disappointed, but they are thinking with their hearts and not their heads. We want to bring in the big names again, but as you say it would have most likely been to the long term detriment of the team. A Joe Cole situation x 2 in terms of finance!
The other (Brazilian) lad from Inter looks good though, so hopefully that will happen!!
So if Liverpool avoided him, why all the media hype they were ever interested. Nothing article again.
Sad, but think that’s spot on. I’m sure the mandate from FSG would have been to find the next Sneijder, not buy a player and watch him slowly go off the boil over the next three years of his contract. Goal aside yesterday, Dempsey is in the same category. He isn’t as sharp as last year and will continue to digress until he’s just a bloated figure on Tottenham’s wage bill. Still surprised that no one picked Sneijder up and he went to Gala…which is the football version of an elephants graveyard.