Photo courtesy of Nufcfans.co.uk
When the news first broke about Kolo Toure reportedly interesting Liverpool, I put it down to just erroneous news reports and conjecture that would never come to fruition. Imagine my surprise when the news broke yesterday that Kolo Toure had been spotted having a medical at Melwood and him signing a two-year deal was imminent!
Well, Liverpool fans have been clamoring for the defense to be tightened up, especially since Jamie Carragher’s retirement, but I don’t think anyone expected Toure to be the one Brendan Rodgers turned to.
In terms of defensive options that were available to Rodgers, there were more attractive propositions that the Liverpool manager could have pursued. One of which was Martin Demichelis from Malaga, who is out of contract with the Spanish club. More importantly, Alex Pearce is out of contract this summer and having been linked with the Reds previously, it was thought he would be brought in as he fits the FSG model more closely.
Toure has been dogged by controversy throughout his career and in 2011 threw a tantrum as he felt he was being punished for missing games while away on international duty with the Ivory Coast. Again in 2011, Toure was banned for six months for testing positive for a banned substance and his career at Manchester City stalled.
Couple this with the reported spat with Stefan Savic where Toure was highly critical of the Montenegrin defender, and you have an absolute recipe for disaster waiting to happen at Liverpool.
It’s clear from the Liverpool fans backlash that they don’t want lazy trouble makers at the club, and it’s also abundantly clear that Liverpool have already begun taking backward steps with the signing of Toure.
This deal surely doesn’t bode well for the future and had better not be a sign of more ineptitude in the transfer market as this time, it won’t be tolerated.
James Hilton is a soccer writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter , “like” his Facebook page or add him to your network on Google+
