Emre Can Reportedly Won’t Decide Future Until Season’s End

Emre Can has been free to sign a pre-contract agreement for nearly two months and few expect he will remain a Liverpool player beyond the end of the season. And yet Can shows no sign of actually signing a pre-contract agreement with anyone any time soon.

It’s made for a rather confusing situation to try to get a read on for Liverpool fans, who have wondered if Can not signing with another club—most likely Juventus—so far means he’s had a change of heart. It’s been confusing, too, for the rumour mongers in Italy.

One, though, has put forward an at least plausible theory today, with Tuttosport claiming Can is holding off deciding—or at the very least announcing any decision he may have made—to keep the focus on Liverpool’s efforts in the league and Champions League.

He’s still likely to leave Liverpool at the end of it, and they even rather sensationally and/or dubiously claim Real Madrid are tracking the player and could get in the way of Juventus signing him when everything’s said and done, but for now he’s only got one focus.

As a theory it at least lines up with past statements from Can about his focus, for this season at least, being on Liverpool and playing football week to week. It also aligns with manager Jürgen Klopp’s desire to have players commit to him fully one season at a time.

Klopp has previously said that for both players and the team it’s about a season-to-season commitment—that he wants the player commit to him and the club and he and the club in turn will commit to them, and that at the end of it all both sides can reevaluate.

Philippe Coutinho went back on the commitment he made to Klopp last summer and so, in the end, Klopp took the risk and sold him. Can, at the very least, appears to be holding to his commitment for the current season. Assuming Tuttosport’s theory is correct.