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When Loris Karius joined Besiktas on a two-year loan with a purchase option, we kind of hoped we wouldn’t have to talk about the goalkeeper again here on TLO. Not because we take particular issue with Karius, mind. Rather, it just seemed like time to move on.
For the player, for the club, after three uneven seasons and the disastrous Champions League final and Karius’ concussion and Liverpool signing a replacement, spending time thinking or talking about Karius just seemed, well, pointless. And maybe a touch cruel.
Reality, though, hasn’t let us—or Karius or the club—move on, not completely. Not with a constant drip of stories about him struggling to win over Besiktas’ fans or his new manager questioning him or, most shockingly, stories about Besiktas not actually paying him.
So here we are. Talking about Loris Karius when we’d really rather have put all that behind us—and had hoped, similarly, Karius could have moved on with his career. And talking about how Karius could be set to return to Liverpool, at least for a little while.
Given the pay issues he’s dealing with at Besiktas, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise, but Türkiye Gazetesi this week claim that the goalkeeper is seeking to terminate his Besiktas contract has been in contact with Liverpool over the best way to go about doing that.
They further claim that the groundwork has been laid for Karius to then head back to Germany with either Frankfurt or Dusseldorf, returning to the league where he first had success and for a time was seen as Manuel Neur’s potential national team successor.
If true, it would seem to be for the best. Karius’ situation at Besiktas is untenable, even if they resume paying the goalkeeper’s wages, and it was a little puzzling that he went to Turkey to try to revive his career rather than returning to Germany in the first palce.
Terminating his Besiktas contract and then joining Frankfurt or Dusseldorf next season would seem like the best possible outcome for everybody at this stage.