Jamie Carragher suggests £7.2m Liverpool star has squad player written all over him

Follow us on Google Discover

Jamie Carragher has intimated that Takumi Minamino will never be anything more than a mere squad player under Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.

The Japan international was signed by Reds’ director of football Michael Edwards a little over a year ago but it’s been a difficult start to life in English football.

Minamino, a £7.2 million addition, has started only four Premier League games for Liverpool since arriving at Anfield.

Klopp gave him a six-minute cameo in Thursday night’s 1-0 defeat by Burnley on Merseyside – their first home loss in the league for close to four years – but the former Salzburg attacker was unable to change the game.

In that match, Divock Origi, starting his first Premier League game of the season, missed Liverpool’s best chance of the game after fluffing a one-on-one with Nick Pope in the Clarets’ goal.

And club legend Carragher has suggested that the German manager will never fully trust either player, claiming they’re never going to be first-team regulars.

He wrote in The Telegraph: “Divock Origi and Takami Minamino have opportunities but will never be regular starters. We are seeing the consequences of that recently.”

Is Carragher right? Well, probably.

Okay Minamino has only had one year of experience in English football but, by the same token, he’s 26 and if he was going to be the adequate covering option for Sadio Mane, Mo Salah or Roberto Firmino that he was supposed to be, we’d know by now.