If I remember rightly Pepe's leaving of Liverpool was an acrimonious affair with mutterings about him being the highest paid member of the squad, wage ceilings and financial expediency ushering him toward an undignified exit.
For me he never reached the same performance levels following the move, of course his amazing skills of days gone by could not be guaranteed in his latter days at Anfield but he was still on par with fellow top flight 'keepers.
I do think the move from Anfield did affect his game, it certainly affected LFC in that his replacements were not a shadow of Pepe's goalkeeping mastery, it could be said that situation prevailed until the arrival of Alisson.
At Napoli he was very good, but Bayern and AC Milan he’s played very little.
Should never have left us when he did, his form dipped with us but I’m not surprised because it was at a time when all the likes of him, Kuyt, Maxi etc were essentially being forced out the club because the owners wanted younger players with sell on value. That on top of being clearly unfavored by Rodgers who was intent on getting Migs in as first choice. Pepe left us earlier than he should have and I don’t think he has really happily settled anywhere since. He was red through and through, I expect he’d have stayed for the rest of his career had he not been forced out.
Just look at how the club went about happily seeing Gerrard go. Not far off a pay as you play contract and being benched for games that we needed him the most, so likes of Pepe had no chance.
The way the club operates now, I can’t see situations like this happening again thankfully.
Never got over binning off Pepe for years of sh*te from Mignolet. Safe to say, Rodgers didn’t get off to a good start!
Can see him doing well at Villa though, could have a massive impact on the entire team.
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