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Liverpool need a central.
Jurgen Klopp knows it, the fans know it and the media know it. The FSG knows this too, but, with less than a week before the January transfer window, their transfer position remains unchanged. Any senior company will have to wait until the summer.
Such a position is truly frustrating, even more so considering the Reds’ recent handover to first place in the Premier League table, but it comes as no surprise amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Liverpool’s transfer business under its American owners has always been planned in advance, and the club sticks to its principles and puts maximum work behind the scenes before moving towards a desired goal.
The Reds team is littered with examples of that kind of recruiting, from world superstar Mohamed Salah to left-back Kostas Tsimikas. Players that the club has monitored for a period of time before making a play in a timely manner at a price that the club deems acceptable.
As such, a string of Liverpool signings could have been recruited less years in advance when he first joined the club. But with their well-thought-out transferring activity, the Reds are always very particular about when they make their move.
Take Salah, for example. This week marks the anniversary of the Egyptian’s arrival at Chelsea in 2014, with Liverpool also in the running for his signing at the time. But if they had hired him that season, enduring the same early struggles he had at Stamford Bridge, it’s hard to believe they would have retained his services long enough to enjoy the successes that followed since his eventual move to Anfield in 2017.
With that in mind, Klopp and Michael Edwards will have already drawn up a list of center-backs that they will continue to monitor and news from Anfield experts suggests that the recruiting work to take place in January has focused on the next summer window.
With Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez likely out of the game until the end of the season, having suffered serious injuries in October and November respectively, there has been a lot of pressure to move towards one of their desired goals now rather than in the summer.
But if such a deal were possible, it would have already been completed.
The reason such a move will not take place in January will be because, despite the Reds’ rather drastic current circumstances, it is not the right time for the perfect deal for a variety of reasons.
However, a recent report in Athletic suggests that Liverpool’s bosses may have reached the stage where they deviated from their proven method to find Klopp a short-term solution after they allegedly probed Sokratis Papastathopoulos’ representatives after his release from Arsenal on his situation. .
The talks supposedly did not go any further, with the Greek since he signed for Olympiacos.
But with Joel Matip’s endless weaknesses, Fabinho, an improvised, albeit rather impressive, central defender whose midfield talent is lacking and both Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips still quite raw, it stands to reason why such an option would be explored.
Liverpool bosses could have hoped that Klopp’s team could continue to challenge this season with what they have, and they were doing so admirably until just a few weeks ago.
But now with their most precarious situation, with the Champions League qualification at stake, regardless of the defense of the Premier League title, the Reds will have to move into a different position than they are used to if they want to get a new center. . back for the second half of the season.
Liverpool pride themselves on being well-run and staying away from impulsive short-term decisions.
But his current situation calls for just that, and given that the Reds can’t follow their preferred protocol if they sign such a player, one Klopp already knows well would seem like the best solution.
Sokratis joined Borussia Dortmund from Werder Bremen in 2013, and it is exactly the same as he has enjoyed two years with the German before ending his seven-year stint with BVB.
However, there is currently a center available on the market that is even better known for Klopp and that Liverpool could turn to as a possible solution to its defensive shortage.
Nevan Subotic.
The Serbian international recently became a free agent after breaking his contract with Turkish Denizlispor and is a player Klopp knows better than most.
After making his way through the youth ranks at Mainz 05, the German gave him his debut in 2006 and shone in his first full season with the club before following the Reds manager to Borussia Dortmund in 2008.
There he enjoyed 10 successful years with BVB, seven of them under Klopp, making 263 appearances in which he won two Bundesliga titles, a DFB-Pokal Cup and reached the final of the Champions League.
Prior to his time in Turkey, Subotic enjoyed seasons with Saint-Etienne and Union Berlin and the 32-year-old is no longer the player he once stood alongside Mats Hummels at the heart of Dortmund’s most impressive defense.
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But Liverpool would not need it. In an ideal world, Matip remains fit and Van Dijk returns early from injury, with the Serbian used as a central defender as a prime alternative to ensure the Cameroonian is handled with care or could, on occasion, allow Fabinho to return to the field. midfield.
Despite frequent ties to players like Mario Gotze, Marco Reus and Christian Pulisic during his time at Anfield, Klopp has never signed one of his former players since moving to Merseyside.
But any reluctance never stopped him from taking Subotic to Dortmund after leaving Mainz.
And if Liverpool really do decide that a superior short-term solution on defense is required to help rekindle their luck, Klopp could break his transfer rule and return to his more well-known former players once again.
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