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He almost got lost amid the frenzy in response to announcements from Liverpool’s Thiago Alcântara and Diogo Jota, followed by Sunday’s emphatic win over Chelsea, but over the weekend the club also said goodbye to one of its most talented youngsters. in Ki-Jana Hoever.
In a move that came completely out of nowhere, much like Jota’s in the other direction, the 18-year-old sealed a permanent transfer to the Wolves for an initial £ 9 million, potentially increasing to £ 13.5 million with add-ons. As part of the agreement, Liverpool also negotiated a 15% sale clause for any future transfers outside of Molineux.
On one level, it feels a bit embarrassing to see him leave at this point. Every time Hoever had a chance at Liverpool, both in competitive matches and in the preseason, he always looked like a very promising talent with great potential. Even since his initial baptism of fire in the FA Cup third round in January 2019, at just 16 years old at the time, coincidentally, against the Wolves, it was obvious he had something special about him.
Quick, cool in possession and a smart reader of the game, there was a sense of maturity and authority to his game far beyond his age. After passing his first test with distinction (despite Liverpool’s defeat on the night), he was rewarded with his first senior start in the League Cup tie against MK Dons last season and duly marked it with a goal: a bullet header to the back post after timing his last run into the box perfectly.
Then, in the FA Cup fourth round replay against Shrewsbury Town at Anfield, it was he, along with compatriot Sepp van den Berg, and with Pedro Chirivella at the helm, who provided the backbone for what it was, of a Unusually, one of the most memorable victories of the season when Liverpool’s youngest team (average age 19, 102 days) achieved a remarkable triumph.
By all accounts, he was on a steady upward trajectory with a really bright future ahead of him. But there was the problem: how could he take his development to the next level in Liverpool without a clear path to new opportunities with the first team, beyond sporadic outings in the first rounds of the national cups?
Clearly, Jürgen Klopp and his coaching staff had seen something in Neco Williams to feel confident that he was Trent Alexander-Arnold’s main substitute at right back. While Williams went ahead and racked up a handful of Premier League appearances, appearing regularly on the match-day squad towards the end of last season, Hoever was nowhere to be found.
While he may end up switching to center-back at some point further down the line, it was almost impossible to see how he would become a viable option there for Liverpool, with Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Fabinho on every street. forward in the hierarchical order. With Billy Koumetio’s striking appearance in the preseason, Hoever’s chances would likely have been even more limited this season, even for cup games.
And so he found himself at a kind of crossroads, with three scenarios to choose from: go out on loan to gain experience, keep playing for Liverpool under-23s, or take the leap and embark on a new challenge elsewhere. The problem with the top two is that they wouldn’t improve your chances of getting close to the first team any time soon.
In Wolves, on the other hand, you will get games. Nuno Espírito Santo is known to favor a relatively tight-knit team, not just buying players that he won’t actually use. Hoever will not immediately become the first choice, of course, but he will be presented with far more opportunities to advance his career than he would have had had he stayed at Liverpool. Plus, the Wolves’ 3-4-3 system seems ideal for using their skill set, whether it’s as a right center back in a three-man defense, or even as a right back.
There is no denying that Liverpool are losing a player with a really high potential ceiling. But they are also earning up to £ 13.5 million from a player who made just four senior category appearances, and who was paid £ 90,000 to sign as a 16-year-old from Ajax just a couple of years ago. That’s more than half of Thiago’s total fee right there.
So it’s not a bad business move, even if Liverpool had kept it in an ideal world, and it is important, in terms of attracting other highly talented youngsters in the future, that Liverpool is not seen to be holding them back. they choose to do it.
This is a summer where more commitments will have to be made than usual, and Liverpool may soon be able to make another by cashing in on Rhian Brewster (albeit hopefully with a buyback clause included). These decisions should not be framed as totally negative, because ultimately, they help facilitate moves that really strengthen Liverpool’s first team.
Recruiting players for minimal fees, developing them, and then selling them for substantial profit is part of being a well-managed club, because the harsh reality is that the vast majority of them will not end up being first-team players in the long run for Liverpool. . There comes a time in every young player’s career when they have to decide what is best for them, and for Hoever that was a new beginning.
He and Brewster could now build excellent careers for themselves, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Liverpool was wrong to let them go.
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