The transfer window might have closed for a few months, but the rumours never cease. Plenty of midfielders will be linked with Liverpool ahead of January, as that is the one area of the team most people would agree needs addressing most urgently.
It may be that on-loan Juventus man Arthur Melo eases the need for reinforcements in the centre of the field. His opportunities have been limited early in his career in England, though, with a pair of Premier League postponements doing nothing to help.
One player who is apparently of interest to Liverpool is Ibrahim Sangare. According to Calciomercato he could potentially have joined the Reds last summer, though AC Milan, Chelsea and West Ham were said to be interested too. His relatively low reported release clause of £29.9milllion is unlikely to deter clubs of that stature so perhaps he will be on the move in January.
PAUL GORST: Liverpool respond to brutal message as Jurgen Klopp uncovers two players he can't be without
IAN DOYLE: What Liverpool fans did for Mohamed Salah proved crucial in Ajax win
The PSV Eindhoven man certainly ticks plenty of requirements which the Reds might look for from a midfield signing. He turns 25 in December so will soon be approaching his peak years, unlike Liverpool’s midfielders who fall into youngster or veteran camps.
The Reds could also benefit from greater physicality in the centre of the team, with only eight clubs in the Premier League having fielded shorter starting XIs on average this season. As talented as Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho are, this is one area in which they do not contribute.
Indeed, only five players shorter than either of them have started in the top flight this season, and the diminutive Reds pair made up two thirds of their starting midfield in the recent Merseyside derby. Standing 1.91 metres tall, Sangare would be Liverpool’s tallest player who is not a goalkeeper or centre-back.
Of course, height alone is no reason to sign a player. Seeing that they are statistically like another recent target might do the trick though, and Sangare works on that front too.
Liverpool were keen to sign Aurelien Tchouameni, only to see him opt for Real Madrid instead. In many statistical categories Sangare had better numbers last season, albeit while playing in a slightly weaker league.
He looks like he would fit in with the Reds too. As per the above chart, one of the categories in which Sangare held an edge over Tchouameni was taking part in lengthy possession sequences of at least 10 passes. Only Manchester City (unsurprisingly) have had more of these than Liverpool so far in 2022/23 ( per The Analyst ), and the rate at which the latter and PSV advance the ball up the pitch has differed by just 0.01 metres per second this season.
Sangare’s defensive style is also aligning more with how the Reds play these days. In his early career, coming through the system at Toulouse, the Ivory Coast international was a tackling machine. Per FBRef, he topped Ligue 1 for tackles in 2019/20, and was in the top eight players in Europe’s big five leagues for the metric both that season and the one prior.
In his time in Ligue 1, Sangare won 2.7 tackles for each interception made, but that rate has dropped to 0.9 in the Eredivisie with PSV. This has brought him far closer to Liverpool’s average (0.9 last season) and broadly in line with the figures for Curtis Jones (also 0.9), James Milner (1.0) and Thiago Alcantara (1.1).
Sangare can also win the ball high up the pitch, as evidenced by his average of 1.1 possession regains in the final third per 90 minutes last season ( per Fotmob ). This matches Thiago’s figure for this stat, and the two players were not far apart when it came to making progressive passes either - which could be helpful in many ways, not least for giving Thiago an occasional breather. With numbers like these, the PSV midfielder looks capable of returning to the big leagues before long, be that at Liverpool or elsewhere.
READ NEXT:
-
Thiago masterclass changes it all as three Liverpool players become undroppable
-
Liverpool player ratings as Joel Matip and Thiago excellent against Ajax
-
Jurgen Klopp makes honest Liverpool admission and blunt Napoli comparison after Ajax win
-
Liverpool fans show meaning of respect with moment's silence for Queen at Anfield
-
Rate the Liverpool players after late Champions League win over Ajax
