Former Liverpool defender Ki-Jana Hoever has hit a new low in his career, according to reports. The Reds sold him for £9m.
Eindhovens Dagblad reports that PSV Eindhoven will send Ki-Jana Hoever back to Wolves this month. They’ve apparently decided that he just isn’t good enough and won’t fulfil the potential they believed he had.
It’s reached the point where Hoever isn’t deemed worth keeping around. He’ll now return to Molineux – where he wasn’t having a good go of things, either.
Former boss Burno Lage publicly criticised the defender last year, claiming he simply didn’t work hard enough.
“Ki is a good example of the young kids, the young players, they want everything to happen,” he said, per Goal. “When you are out and your teammate is playing, you are not training at the intensity you need to train, you’re not preparing yourselves enough. And when you have a chance, these kinds of things happen.
“I have too many kids in my team, sometimes they don’t work the way they should work. They don’t prepare the way they should prepare.”
Ki-Jana Hoever left Liverpool
Hoever was once a highly-rated prospect at Liverpool. They’d signed him from Ajax as one of the most promising young defenders around.
He did get onto the pitch under Jurgen Klopp, too – funnily enough, against Wolves. Hoever even scored in the EFL Cup against Milton Keynes Dons, becoming the Reds’ fourth-youngest goalscorer in the process.
Despite never breaking into the Premier League team, Hoever’s reputation was enough that Liverpool sold him to Wolves. Per the Athletic, the clubs struck a £13m deal with £9m of that upfront.
It’s a lot of money for a player who was all potential – potential that he now looks very unlikely to realise. Liverpool backed Hoever, too, with a 15 per cent sell-on clause in that deal. They expected him to move again for a decent amount.
Instead, he’s rebuilding his career after this disaster of a loan with PSV. Looking back, it was stellar business from Liverpool.