Last week, Liverpool Football Club acquired the services of the Swiss International, from Stoke City, for 13 million pounds. Being linked with the club before the start of the FIFA world cup, a number of news outlets reported LFC’s interest, and the possibility of a move for the player once tournament concludes. And rightly so, days after the Swiss exit, we landed ourselves a player who we’ve been linked with in the past as well before he made his switch to Stoke City.
The majority of the Liverpool fanbase are not exactly thrilled to have landed this player but are not overly troubled too. A big portion of the fanbase is quite happy with getting the player who they see will fill the role of a backup to the front 3 or a player who can feature as an impact sub. Either way, they see him providing squad depth to the team that reached the final of Champions League last season. Smart business, considering the amount of money LFC paid for him in this over-hyped market. The other set of fans are of more ambitious views, who see Shaqiri as a player who will not ‘challenge’ the players currently at disposal, and hence has not added to the quality of the attacking options, and want the club to make more competitive acquisitions.
I think both these sets of fans might be in for a bit of surprise come the next season.
Career Path
Coming from ranks of the club, Shaqiri started his career at FC Basel, where he showed promising potential and caught the eyes of several clubs for his cameos in Europe. Earning a career-defining move to Bayern Munich in 2012, the Swiss had his eyes on the prize, but failed to make a distinct impact. Although he won the Champions League with the club, his playing time was limited, leading to his switch to Inter Milan in 2015. Not playing a full season there, the player moved to the English Premier League, signing for Stoke City in July 2015. For 3 seasons, he remained at the club, and now he has penned down for Liverpool Football Club.
Analogy
With all due respects to the previous employers of the club, below is my view of the player’s time at his previous clubs and his statistics:
FC Basel
Making several eye-catching performances, getting the attention of big clubs, delivering at the big stage (Europe), scoring 23 goals, as a youngster, this is by any means the traits of player who can go big.
Bayern Munich
With his preferred position to play as a winger, let’s face it, any player in the world at the time would struggle to get in the starting line up that had Ribery and Robben on each flank. Shaqiri, still a youngster, managed to make 81 appearances for the club scoring a total of 17 goals.
It would generally and in all honesty be harsh to deduce from his stats given the amount of playing time he had.
Inter Milan
His time in Italy is merely a stint. 6 months is again, not an enough period of time to make any deductions. He appeared 20 times for the club scoring 3 times. But this mere half a season is what even some top, top players need to settle in a new country, new club or surroundings.
Stoke City
Not the best playing environment for growth. Shaqiri played at the club for 3 years scoring a total of 15 goals.
The only thing that can be deduced from his time at Stoke City is, that such was his hunger to play football regularly, he took an apparent downward step moving from Inter Milan to a lower tier club in the English Premier League. It shows his preferences, shows his love, commitment and dedication to becoming a better player. But this move failed to provide him with the conditions that would have helped him fulfil his potential. Surrounded by average players, Shaqiri showed glimpses of his potential but could not achieve it fully.
Klopp Effect
Now he comes to Liverpool.
Our club has had several examples of players being given the right coaching, and we have seen such players hit the ground running. The prime example in this context is that of Daniel Sturridge, seen as an outcast, finding it difficult to find the net, even at a club like Bolton, but when given;
- The right coaching
- The right amount of competition
- The right mindset of teammates
- The right platform where the hard work can bring success.
All these ingredients helped to make the player ‘revive’ his career when the potential was already there, he just didn’t have the right amount of ‘rights’ around him.
Same goes for the big man, the king, Mohamed Salah, who we all know played in the EPL previously with Chelsea, and how that went, yet last season was the season when Salah scored the most number of goals in a single, 38-game Premier League campaign.
Klopp is the manager that we know can bring out the best in players. I am not comparing these three players, but the right amount of ‘rights’ around the player. And that is the same in Shaqiri’s case.
He is at the stage of his career where he would be raring to have a go, and, under Klopp, he can. With top players around him, he can eliminate the weaknesses in his game, the right amount of experience he has now, coupled with his playing style and abilities, I can’t help but think that all of this is really likely to ‘click’ for Shaqiri, and there will be a team selection headache for Klopp before every game next season.
Shaqiri might not be the ‘big money’ or the ‘marquee’ signing that we all want, but he might just be that gem of a signing that I like to call a very “LIVERPOOL” signing. With Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain still recovering from his injury, there will be places up for grabs during the start of next season among the front 6. And that is where Shaqiri is likely to take his chance.
Let’s all hope he does.
The Liverbird 