Rumoured Liverpool Goalkeeper Target Strakosha Will Not Be Sold

The Reds need a goalkeeper this summer, but it won’t be Lazio’s Thomas Strakosha.

Liverpool need to sign a goalkeeper this summer. No matter what the club’s views on the long-term prospects of Loris Karius, Simon Mignolet and Danny Ward are expected to move on this summer and so the club will need to bring in a shot stopper.

It could be a veteran to back up Karius, a promising player to compete with him, or a new number one. That side of it is uncertain; that there will be a goalkeeper arriving isn’t. What seems certain now, too, is that goalkeeper won’t be Thomas Strakosha.

Despite reports in recent weeks of Liverpool interest in the player, the stance in Italy now is that Lazio have no intention to sell. Meanwhile, in recent days The Liverpool Echo’s James Pearce has reported that Liverpool have never actually been interested.

For those wondering why Strakosha has been so regularly linked with Liverpool over the past few weeks, in retrospect the answer seems obvious: wages. Strakosha signed his most recent deal with Lazio back in 2016 when he was just 21 years of age.

It was the summer before he broke into the first team, a point at which he had played zero first team minutes for the Serie A side, it was a five-year deal locking the goalkeeper in until 2023. And it was a deal that reportedly paid him around €500k per season.

It was, in essence, a youth deal—and a very, very long one. One that, now Strakosha is Lazio’s first choice goalkeeper, one would imagine he and his agent would like to see improved upon. To which, queue those rumours of Liverpool’s supposed interest.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com