29-year-old Swiss midfield schemer Xherdan Shaqiri has spoken out to the local Swiss press admitting that his departure from Liverpool would have happened “sooner” if he had his way. Shaqiri struggled to become a first-team regular under Reds boss Jurgen Klopp, a marked difference to his spell with Stoke City when he was virtually indispensable to the Potters’ cause.
When Shaqiri left Stoke City after their relegation to the EFL Championship, he ended up top scorer for the Potters with eight goals and seven assists to his name. His first season at Anfield saw him almost better that with six goals in a Liverpool shirt, but he played only two-thirds of the games at just 24 Premier League starts.
The Swiss international admitted that he needed “a lot of games” to be able to play at “100 per cent” fitness. Although Jurgen Klopp was forced to use the depth of his Liverpool squad through the heavily congested 2020/21 Premier League campaign, Shaqiri played just 45 games in a three-season spell at Merseyside, an average of 15 games per season.
Playing less than a third of the Reds’ domestic games per campaign was never going to get Shaqiri up to speed. Academic studies into the impact of fixture congestion on a footballer’s intensity also discovered that high-impact running was limited when players had less than four days to recover between matches. In the 2020/21 campaign especially, Shaqiri would not have had the time to build and maintain his match sharpness.
Shaqiri still holds plenty of respect for Jurgen Klopp
Although Shaqiri said that the club “wouldn’t let [him] go” sooner, he “never had any problems” with Klopp and remained in contact via phone while negotiations with new club Lyon were ongoing. Shaqiri insisted that he never threw his toys out of the pram and simply wanted “a new challenge” to add a different dimension to his career. He said that Klopp “helped [him] in this regard”.
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Klopp and fans faithful to the Reds will remember Shaqiri most fondly for his iconic assist in their UEFA Champions League tie with FC Barcelona. Shaqiri put the ball on a plate for Gini Wijnaldum to score against his future employers, helping Liverpool on their way to their sixth Champions League trophy. In total, Shaqiri scored eight times and assisted nine times in 63 games across all competitions.
A move to Ligue 1 is a step in the right direction for Shaqiri
Liverpool eventually secured £9.5m for Shaqiri from Olympique Lyon. In doing so, the Reds almost recouped the entirety of the £13m they paid to Stoke City for his services. The diminutive playmaker has gone straight into the fulcrum of the Lyon team, making seven successive appearances in Ligue 1, returning a goal and assist apiece.
Some Lyon supporters raised their eyebrows at Shaqiri’s arrival, given his temperamental form in the last couple of seasons, as well as issues with injuries. There was also one other problem for Shaqiri to contend with. As a summer transfer window recruit, Shaqiri arrived straight into a Lyon squad ready to start the Ligue 1 season.
Shaqiri had very little pre-season this summer, but he’s already caught the eye of Lyon head coach Peter Bosz. Bosz admitted that several members of his squad didn’t “fully understand his qualities” in his opening appearances but he has quickly demonstrated his “great left foot”. Bosz also described Shaqiri’s crossing ability as extraordinary, insisting he remains “a really good player”.
A £9.5m transfer fee seems like good business for Liverpool, given that Shaqiri was never going to be good enough to oust Mo Salah or Bobby Firmino. At the other end of the spectrum, Shaqiri was also too good to be on the bench and could have got into at least half of the starting line-ups in this season’s Premier League. A fresh challenge in France will do the 29-year-old the world of good. The eyes of Europe’s football media are firmly fixed on Ligue 1 this term following Lionel Messi’s arrival at PSG. It could be a golden opportunity for Shaqiri to put himself back on football’s radar.
