{"id":480970,"date":"2025-10-07T18:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T18:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/480970\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T18:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T18:26:12","slug":"theo-walcott-says-he-can-absolutely-understand-why-37m-player-decided-to-leave-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/480970\/","title":{"rendered":"Theo Walcott says he can absolutely understand why \u00a337m player decided to leave Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Liverpool have undergone plenty of change over the last few years. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ve changed managers, completely altered their first team squad and have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/2025\/05\/25\/all-the-best-photos-as-liverpool-lift-the-premier-league-trophy-for-the-first-time-ever-in-front-of-fans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">even become Premier League champions again<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>This season, much of the same was expected from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/club\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Liverpool<\/a>, especially with the amount of money they spent on new arrivals. <\/p>\n<p>Players such as Alexander Isak and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/2025\/10\/07\/alan-pardew-says-he-simply-cant-get-his-head-around-how-arne-slot-is-using-outstanding-liverpool-player\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Florian Wirtz were supposed to come in and make Liverpool a much better squad<\/a>, but so far, that hasn\u2019t been the case. <\/p>\n<p>In fact, there are some fans even saying that a few mistakes were made in the summer regarding players that were moved on and brought in. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"692\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2238370819-1024x692.jpg\" alt=\"Arne Slot looks on from the bench against Galatasaray\" class=\"wp-image-265274\" \/>Photo by Ahmad Mora \u2013 UEFA\/UEFA via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Several members of Liverpool\u2019s team last season wanted to leave for the good of their careers and, now, less than 10 games into the campaign, Theo Walcott has admitted that he can see why <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/tag\/luis-diaz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Luis Diaz<\/a> wanted to leave <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/club\/anfield-stadium-information\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Anfield<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Theo Walcott says he can understand Luis Diaz wanting to leave Liverpool to earn more money<\/p>\n<p>Before the summer transfer window had even opened, there were plenty of rumours about where Diaz\u2019s future could lie. <\/p>\n<p>Many expected the Colombian to stick around at Liverpool and earn a new contract after a few games of the 2025-26 campaign. <\/p>\n<p>In the end, however, with clubs such as Barcelona and Bayern Munich being linked with him, the winger, who cost Liverpool <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/c1w8j9g5qleo#:~:text=Diaz%20joined%20Liverpool%20from%20Porto,the%202022%20Champions%20League%20final.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">\u00a337million<\/a> to sign, chose to make the move to the Bundesliga. <\/p>\n<p>The attacker was one of the Reds\u2019 best players last season, and the \u00a366million fee they got for him looked like a solid deal. <\/p>\n<p>And now, while speaking on The US Overlap\u2019s Podcast, former Everton man Walcott gave his thoughts on Diaz\u2019s exit. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI understand why he left because he\u2019s probably one of the best wingers who was so direct, so unique, and he was probably the player at Liverpool that was not getting paid what he felt was right for someone of his ability,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I understand as a player thinking, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m one of the best wingers in the country. I\u2019ve won the Premier League. I should be getting paid.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd it comes, it does come down to that. I know. And it will as a player. And I think that\u2019s a major factor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool are massively missing Luis Diaz this season<\/p>\n<p>Even though Liverpool still have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/tag\/cody-gakpo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cody Gakpo<\/a> on the left, the fact that they don\u2019t have a winger who likes to track back and defend is massively hindering the Anfield outfit this term. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/2025\/10\/05\/why-milos-kerkez-is-likely-to-continue-liverpool-starting-role-despite-scathing-gary-neville-criticism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Milos Kerkez is being left to deal with all of the opposition\u2019s attacks<\/a> while also being expected to create as many chances for their attackers as possible. <\/p>\n<p>This is causing a lot of pressure to arise around the Reds\u2019 defence, which then results in mistakes occurring, which is likely to be one of the main reasons why <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/tag\/ibrahima-konate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ibrahima Konate<\/a> has been so poor this term. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2238422334-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Ibrahima Konate of Liverpool looks dejected after the UEFA Champions League 2025\/26 League Phase MD2 match between Galatasaray A.S. and Liverpool FC at Ali Sami Yen Spor Kompleksi\" class=\"wp-image-265030\" \/>Photo by Justin Setterfield\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>This lack of defensive work from the team is causing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rousingthekop.com\/club\/manager\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Arne Slot\u2019s<\/a> men to concede more goals than they deserve to which makes earning any sort of points from their clashes close to impossible. <\/p>\n<p>At the moment, it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess what could happen, but one thing is for sure: if Liverpool still had Diaz among their ranks, they\u2019d likely be in a much better position than they currently find themselves in. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool have undergone plenty of change over the last few years. They\u2019ve changed managers, completely altered their first&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,8902,16701,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-480970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-luis-diaz","13":"tag-theo-walcott","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115334295385028488","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}