THIAGO has been offered a potential way out from his underwhelming Liverpool stint with Bayern Munich legend Lothar Matthaus urging him to return to the German club.
The midfielder has been a huge disappointment since his £20million move to Anfield in September, failing to provide the spark Jurgen Klopp’s reigning champions needed.
And despite an improved showing in Tuesday’s 2-0 Champions League win over RB Leipzig, pundits are still pointing to the Spaniard as one of the reasons Liverpool’s title defence has fallen flat.
However, he still has an army of fans in Germany – and none more so than former midfielder Matthaus.
He told Sky Germany: "How about Bayern bring Thiago back to Munich? He is not getting on in Liverpool and in Munich he is missed by Hansi Flick and the fans.
"Anyone who says goodbye to Karl-Heinz Rummenigge so emotionally, the door is certainly never completely closed. "
Thiago spent seven seasons in Bavaria – winning the Bundesliga in each of them and turning out 235 times for the club, where he is still remembered fondly.
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He was singled out by then-Bayern boss Pep Guardiola as the one player he wanted to sign on joining the club back in 2013.
But fast forward to today and his much-vaunted Premier League move has gone awry.
Former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is one of Thiago’s biggest critics, pointing to him blunting the Liverpool midfield’s famed tenacity.
He said: "Thiago Alcantara, for me, shows a problem for a manager.
"Liverpool were very hungry and aggressive in midfield, when you're a manager you think you want to make the team better and you take a technical player.
"When you take a technical player, you lose the aggression in midfield and you destroy a little bit the strength in midfield that Liverpool had before.
"They have certainly less capacity today to win the ball back and they suffer a little bit more. Sometimes when you want to improve the team, you take something away from it."
And former Reds midfielder Dietmar Hamann added to the chorus questioning Klopp’s move to bring Thiago in.
He told talkSPORT last month: "He slows things down and doesn't really play the way Liverpool play.
"Liverpool in the past have had hard-working midfielders, they were not as skilful as Thiago, but they have the ball to Mane and Salah early.
"If you get the ball early on the wing, and these guys can run at players they are very hard to stop."
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