‘It hurt at the time’ – Pepe Reina recalls ‘regret’ over how his Liverpool career ended
A decade on from when he last played for Liverpool, Pepe Reina has recalled how he felt ‘hurt’ over the manner in which his time with the club ended. The goalkeeper – who’s still playing at 41 with Villarreal – was linked with a return to Barcelona in the summer of 2013, only for that […]
The post ‘It hurt at the time’ – Pepe Reina recalls ‘regret’ over how his Liverpool career ended appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.
A decade on from when he last played for Liverpool, Pepe Reina has recalled how he felt ‘hurt’ over the manner in which his time with the club ended.
The goalkeeper – who’s still playing at 41 with Villarreal – was linked with a return to Barcelona in the summer of 2013, only for that planned move to fall through, and he instead joined Napoli on loan after Brendan Rodgers brought in Simon Mignolet from Sunderland.
The Spaniard was annoyed that the Reds agreed to the temporary move to Italy without discussing it with him beforehand, and he left through the back door a year later when signing permanently for Bayern Munich.
Speaking to The Athletic about how his Liverpool career faded out, Reina said: “It hurt at the time but that’s football. I told Brendan that if I wasn’t going to Barcelona, then I wanted to be at Liverpool.
“Leaving that way is something I regret, but I’ll always be grateful to Liverpool for what they did for me. I am very proud of what I achieved there.”
Even if Reina didn’t have his strongest season at Liverpool in 2012/13, with one costly error in the 2-2 draw at Manchester City standing out, he was undoubtedly one of the pillars of the Rafael Benitez era at Anfield.
He became the first goalkeeper to record 20 clean sheets in multiple Premier League campaigns (The Athletic) and saved three penalties in the FA Cup final penalty shootout in 2006, routinely coming good on the big occasion.
Despite being a decent spot kick stopper in his own right, Mignolet never quite managed to exude the same confidence as the Reds’ last line of defence that his predecessor did.
It was a shame to see Reina’s time at Liverpool peter out the way it did, considering how magnificent a servant he’d been for so long at Anfield, but with Rodgers so laser-focused on bringing in the Belgian, the Spanish ‘keeper would probably have been relegated to second-choice on Merseyside anyway had he stayed put.
Nonetheless, he was firmly our best goalkeeper in the Premier League era until a certain Alisson Becker came along, and there’s no shame in being eclipsed by our heroic current number one.
EOTK Insider with Neil Jones: Andre ticks a box, Liverpool have a ‘real top player’ with Kevin De Bruyne gift, unfair treatment of Nunez and much more!The post ‘It hurt at the time’ – Pepe Reina recalls ‘regret’ over how his Liverpool career ended appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.