By virtue of the fact he managed only five minutes of Premier League football last season, it’s fair to say Kostas Tsimikas had a poor first year as a Liverpool player.
The Reds spent £11 million on signing him from Olymiacos last summer.
But five minutes of top-flight action, spread across two different appearances, suggests that the Greece international has a long way to go before he proves himself a good signing by Liverpool.
Injuries didn’t help and Tsimikas had a couple, it has to be said, but for the most part it was just a lack of form.
Clearly he has a huge challenge in the form of Andy Robertson standing between him and regular football.
But even without the Scot, Tsimikas may still struggle.
In fact, he has been linked with a move away from Anfield this summer but The Athletic has reported that the player did actually impress Jurgen Klopp at the training ground toward the end of last season.
The report added that the German manager is expecting to call on him a lot more during the 2021-22 campaign, which suggests very much that he’s staying on Merseyside.
Needed
Liverpool fans were quick to dismiss the likelyhood of him going to Napoli last week – and they’re right.
Tsimikas isn’t a big player for Klopp, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t an important one.
The Reds are one injury to Robertson away from actually needing Tsimikas quite a lot and therefore selling makes virtually no sense.
As mentioned, he didn’t get much chance to impress last time around, but things could be very different next term.
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