“Wherever I have gone, the objective is winning titles,” says Thilo Kehrer. Having lifted silverware at PSG and West Ham, he now wants to do the same at Monaco. Success was expected when he joined PSG in 2018 but it was less foreseeable at West Ham. “For so many years, West Ham went without a title. And for so many years, the club was so far away from even thinking about a title,” says the Germany international.
That changed last year. Kehrer was a central figure in the side that clinched the Europa Conference League. Having started the matches leading up to the final, Kehrer – who had previous experience in European finals, having started for PSG against Bayern Munich in the Champions League in 2020 – dropped to the bench against Fiorentina in Prague.
Nonetheless, he played an important role in the game, coming on with 30 minutes to go and helping the team win 2-1. “It was a big disappointment in not starting in the final but I managed to change my emotion from frustration and disappointment into something positive. Even if there was disappointment before the match, the joy by the end was even bigger. We won a big title and wrote history for the club. When you see West Ham today, it is no longer the same club, or it is but it is seen in a completely different light.”
However, Kehrer’s demotion was a sign of things to come. Due to a combination of “small injury niggles” and being overlooked by David Moyes, he was restricted to just 19 minutes of Premier League football before January. Having started 32 games last season, it was a “difficult period” for Kehrer. “The team was in place and there was a defined starting XI that was putting in good performances. You have to recognise that as a player. When a manager puts out a team and there are good results for five or six matches – which isn’t easy in the Premier League – it isn’t easy to break into the team.”
It wasn’t Kehrer’s first “difficult period”. Before joining West Ham in 2022, PSG had placed him in the “loft”, where unwanted players are banished, ostracised and discarded. The aim of the practice – which is the subject of a legal challenge from the UNFP, France’s players union – is to isolate players from their teammates while the club tries to arrange a departure.
Player welfare is not even an afterthought in this process; it is simply neglected entirely. “Financially, the game is growing and it is becoming more of a business,” he says. “It isn’t a situation you like to experience. As a player, you always want to be wanted, respected, valued. When that isn’t the case and you find yourself in a ‘loft’ you’re not necessarily in a good place.”
Despite the sad ending, Kehrer looks back on the trophies he won while at PSG – three Ligue 1 titles, two Coupe de France titles and one Coupe de la Ligue – with pride. “The experiences I had at PSG helped me enormously in terms of personal development and as a professional player. I’ll take those experiences with me. It was also a reason for coming to Monaco. Having a knowledge of the league and the playing styles gave me more information about how you experience the games on the pitch. So that made me want to come back to Ligue 1.”
Thanks to his Francophone mother, Kehrer had no issues fitting into a dressing room where French, English and German are the main languages. “Language skills help a lot,” he says. “It’s actually one of the reasons I decided to come here and one of the reasons why Monaco recruited me,” he says. With Monaco’s youthful team chasing a Champions League place, the club also wanted a player with Kehrer’s experience. “When you’re a bit older than the majority of the dressing room, and when you’ve played at different clubs in different competitions with world-class players, you have experienced things that others in the dressing room have not,” says the 27-year-old.
Having played in title-winning sides, he sees areas of improvement that others do not and has noted a lack of “guile” in the dying stages of games as a weakness to be improved. “When I say guile, it is not about trying to win in the prettiest way, or spectacularly, or in the cleanest way every time. You see it with every big team – if the match is close and the team is one goal up, they are not always thinking about scoring the second, especially in the final minutes of the game. It is about being a bit mischievous, committing fouls in the right parts of the pitch, preventing the opposition from having possession, from attacking, having dangerous set pieces, and from creating chances.”
Kehrer is making an impact on the pitch too. Having started just three games for West Ham prior to his departure in January, he has already started 12 times for Monaco. “I am very happy to have moved in the winter and discovered a style of football that corresponds with my qualities,” he says. “At West Ham, there were lots of phases of play where you had to defend in a low block and it was about tempting teams in and attacking on the counter, or with set pieces, or more individual actions. Defending in a low block isn’t necessarily what corresponds with my qualities because I have physical qualities, like speed, and also technical abilities with the ball, which I had less of a chance to show given the style of play.”
Having returned to the centre of defence at Monaco, Kehrer has rediscovered his form and fitness, and he is impressing his new manager. “His performances are improving,” said Adi Hütter last week. “He can play more than one position. He’s a good communicator. And it is good for me that he speaks German also. We’re really happy with his performances.”
A lot is on the line for Kehrer and his club in the final seven games of the season. “The objective is to qualify for the Champions League,” says Kehrer. Monaco are third in the table – enough for a place in the Champions League group stage – and three points above fourth-placed Lille. However, in the long term, he believes the club should aim higher. “With the potential we have, we should have big objectives and should target titles.”
His own future remains uncertain. Monaco have the option to make his deal permanent at the end of the campaign and he is open to staying, but discussions are on hold until later in the season. “Remaining is something that I am open to. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come here in this way. Even without the Champions League football, it is a great place to play,” says Kehrer, who is “trying to do everything possible” to earn a recall to the Germany squad with Euro 2024 approaching fast. A season that started so miserably could yet have a silver lining.