Manager slams his £26m midfielder as decision to snub Liverpool move turns sour

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Orkun Kokcu’s move to Benfica is turning a little sour less than a year since Liverpool allegedly missed out on signing him.

Liverpool simply had to invest in new midfielders last summer.

Jurgen Klopp’s engine room had grown a little stale and was arguably losing its legs a little.

Big changes came as Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, James Milner, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain all moved on, paving the way for new additions.

Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Wataru Endo and Ryan Gravenberch came in and the results have been hugely impressive.

Liverpool are title challengers once again and much of the turnaround is down to re-energising the midfield.

The Reds did have other targets in mind though and one player on their radar may wish he had made the move to Anfield…

Orkun Kokcu in a spot of bother

Reports from 1908.nl last summer suggested that Liverpool were ‘quite close’ to signing Orkun Kokcu from Feyenoord.

Liverpool had identified the Turkish star as a key target and allegedly moved towards a deal.

However, the report suggested that Kokcu picked Benfica even with Liverpool asking him not to finalise the transfer.

Benfica paid up to €30million (£26million) for Kokcu, seemingly believing that they had pulled off a major coup.

The 23-year-old has endured a frustrating season though, despite bagging three goals and seven assists in 19 league games.

Just over a week since bagging a goal and assist against Estoril, Kokcu told De Telegraaf that Benfica boss Roger Schmidt was using him in a role too defensive for his abilities.

Kokcu felt that he was better off playing further forward and thought that he would play a bigger role under Schmidt.

Well, the Benfica boss hasn’t reacted well to those comments and has excluded Kokcu from the squad.

As quoted by Fabrizio Romano, Schmidt has suggested that Kokcu cannot be part of the team after giving such an interview.

Schmidt suggested that it is ‘impossible’ for Kokcu to feature after those comments and believes the interview was ‘absolutely negative’ for all.

“If you do that kind of interview, you can’t be part of the team. Impossible,” said Schmidt. “I didn’t speak to the player yet, but I’ll tell him that he did something absolutely negative for club, team and especially for himself,” he added.

Sure enough, Kokcu was not involved in Sunday’s win over Casa Pia and his time in Lisbon looks to be turning a little sour.

It’s unlikely that Liverpool will be going back in for Kokcu this summer and the midfielder may well regret his decision from last summer as he surely starts to consider a move away at the end of the season.