As quoted by the club’s official site, Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that our defender Joel Matip will not be leaving for the Africa Cup of Nations early next year and will stay to play with the Reds.
It’s certainly welcome news as we saw how quickly our defence fell apart without him around last weekend against Bournemouth due to a minor injury and the prospect of that for a month was pretty frightening.
Now, though, it seems that he’ll be with the Reds for the whole of the season as we look to end our drought for a league title under Klopp.
The former Dortmund man said of Matip’s decision:
“We actually had this talk a few weeks ago already, so I was not surprised [by the news].
“Of course, I am happy about this, there is no doubt, but the players make these decisions by themselves – there is nothing the club can do.
“For Joel it is different because he has grown up in Germany and all that stuff, so that’s different – that’s always different and there are a few players like this – and so he decided this for himself and that is good for us.”
The former Schalke man has been very impressive so far this season and looks like the kind of calming presence we’ve needed at the back for a serious amount of time.
Matip very rarely gets bullied either and is good with the ball at his feet so he looks set to be one of our key players for a serious amount of time to come.
Happy, Reds? Let us know below!
