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A year ago, Victor Valdes was heading to Monaco and Pepe Reina was getting ready to replace him at Barcelona. Then, Valdes decided to stick around at Barca for one more season. What's happened since has been less than ideal for either goalkeeper.
Pepe Reina went out on loan to Napoli for a year and now finds himself in football purgatory, with no spot for him at Liverpool and no likely destination club willing to pay his high salary. Things might be even worse for Valdes.
Suffering a knee injury towards the end of the season, Valdes has now learned that Monaco are pulling out of their deal to sign him on a free transfer this summer. Catalan newspaper Sport believes Liverpool may now be interested in him, but that seems unlikely.
At best, Valdes won't be fit until well into the autumn. At worst, he may never return to his old form. And even on his old form, it isn't clear that at 32 years of age he would be a better option than Simon Mignolet despite that he would be better at playing the ball out from the back.
There are also wages to consider, with Valdes currently making €115k a week at Barcelona and having been expecting a last-contract payday at Monaco. Sport can speculate all they like that Liverpool might be interested in Valdes based on a few tenuous past links, but basic common sense says they won't be.
An aging keeper in the midst of a serious knee injury that could impact his ability on massive wages and who would expect to start every week who, at best, won't be fit until a month or two into the season. This is not the picture of a future Liverpool 'keeper.
If only Valdes had left for Monaco last summer as originally planned and Reina had headed home to Barcelona as his replacement.
