FEATURE | Thilo Kehrer – from the PSG ‘loft’ to becoming Monaco’s ‘real leader’ | OneFootball

A familiar face returned to Ligue 1 when Thilo Kehrer joined Monaco, initially on loan, from West Ham last January. The former Paris Saint-Germain centre-back arrived at the Principality club with a reputation to re-forge after a relatively middling spell in London. He has done that, and then some.

Kehrer joined PSG as a youngster for €37m from Schalke back in 2018 but despite making 128 appearances for Les Parisiens, he never established himself as first pick over the long term. He then befell a fate that has become all-too-familiar a feature at the Parc des Princes in recent years as he got “lofted” back in 2022.

“The experiences that I had at PSG helped me enormously in terms of personal development and as a professional player. The experiences that I had in these four years, I’ll take them with me,” said Kehrer in an exclusive interview with Get French Football News earlier this year.

Emphasising the positives, he was nonetheless regretful for how it ended. “There is that side of football. There is more competitiveness, more games and financially the game is growing and it is becoming more of a business. It isn’t a situation that you like to experience and that isn’t viewed positively,” says the German international. “For a player, for his mentality, for his confidence, you always want to be wanted, to be respected, to be valued and when that isn’t the case and you find yourself in a ‘loft’, of course, you’re not necessarily in a good place.”

‘There is always motivation against your former club’ – Hütter on Kehrer’s PSG reunion

Always circumspect, looking at the bigger picture, Kehrer says that he didn’t take his ejection from PSG seriously. It won’t be a question of trying to exact revenge when he faces his former club at the Stade Louis II on Sunday, as attractive a narrative it may be. “There is always a motivation against your former club,” Monaco manager Adi Hütter nonetheless added.

He left PSG for West Ham in the summer of 2022 and despite a positive start, a mixture of high squad turnover and recurring injuries saw him lose his place in the side in his final six months before he made the move to Monaco, initially on loan in January 2024, before making the move permanent in the summer. It was with a big grin that he announced to reporters that he would be staying at the club beyond his loan spell. He is happy to be at Monaco and Monaco are certainly happy to have him.

His experiences abroad, having left Germany at a young age, make him a huge asset, not only on the pitch but in the dressing room. “Of course, when you’re a bit older than the majority of the dressing room when you’ve played at different clubs, in different competitions with world-class players, you’ve experienced things that others in the dressing room have not,” said Kehrer, who, in a very young dressing room, has taken on a new dimension.

“The most important thing for me has just been being myself. If you see things or if you have things to say, I say them, always doing so respectfully and for the good of the team and of the individual that I’m speaking to. I feel though that it is appreciated,” he added.

Vocal in the dressing room and on the pitch, his role as leader has manifested itself in his appointment as vice-captain this season. “He is a real leader here, he speaks several languages and is connected to all of the players,” says Hütter, who despite the high turnover in the squad, has still started the German international on 18 occasions this season.

He is the standard setter in terms of his intensity on the pitch but also in demanding more from his own teammates. “During my years at PSG, I developed a mentality of arriving somewhere or playing in a team with the objective of winning titles. Of course, it isn’t the same thing in all clubs in all contexts, but I have found myself in teams with lots of potential and so wherever I have gone, including here, the objective is winning titles,” Kehrer told us.

Kehrer’s decisive Ben Seghir intervention

Words like ‘mentality’ and ‘leadership’ are intangible, and unquantifiable but their effects were noted during a win over Strasbourg in November. Struggling in the first half, pushed off the ball and disconnected from his teammates, Eliesse Ben Seghir had a difficult first half. At half-time, Kehrer intervened.

“I chose to give him some bits of advice. I told him to play smarter because he often likes to dribble, play one-versus-one and his opponents know that, so they play tough with him,” said Kehrer post-match. The effects were evident in the second half as Ben Seghir netted a match-winning brace.

In a team as young as Monaco’s, players like Kehrer are a necessity. But Kehrer’s importance at the Principality club isn’t merely abstract. He is a well-rounded and error-free centre-back – something of a luxury. He is composed on and off the ball, is rarely caught out of position, covers the spaces well, and knows when and how to apply more intensity. The latter two aspects are key in Hütter’s high-pressing, high-risk, high-reward system.

His impact can be seen in the statistics with Monaco conceding fewer goals in the second half of the last season compared to the first part of the campaign when they were without the German defender.

Silencing the doubters

He is also important in both boxes. A good header of the ball, he also has a knack of exploiting spaces in the opposition box. He already has three goals this season, profiting from the excellent dead-ball delivery from the likes of Aleksandr Golovin, Lamine Camara, and Caio Henrique.

Kehrer, both on and off the pitch has therefore become indispensable. He has returned to Ligue 1 a different player than the one that left. There is now an assuredness and a confidence to everything that he does and that comes from the experiences that he has accrued but also from the trust that has now been shown in him. He is at ease with his role at the club and his place in the dressing room, and that never seemed the case at PSG.

But back in Ligue 1 and at Monaco, he has shown that he is a Champions League-level player and one so focal to a side flying high both in France and in Europe.

GFFN | Luke Entwistle