Liverpool's expected midfield rebuild could be driven by Premier League rules this summer.
And that gives further credence to speculation that the Reds could be prepared to make a swoop for Mason Mount, should he fail to agree new terms with Chelsea.
The 24-year-old England star is in the final 18 months of his current contract at Stamford Bridge, but according to The Guardian, he is looking for a considerable uplift in his £75,000-per-week wages. Chelsea are thought to be are wary of losing a player who has been at the club since he was six-years-old to one of their main rivals and they will have good reason to suspect that interest is legitimate.
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Under Premier League rules, clubs are allowed to name a maximum 25-man squad at the start of each season, but only 17 of the list can be classified as non-home-grown players. This leaves eight further spaces to fill.
The Premier League definition of the rule states: "A "Home-Grown Player" means a player who, irrespective of nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to The Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21)."
Under that definition, Mount is classed as a home-grown player and therefore, would not only bolster Jurgen Klopp's midfield but also not take up a valuable place in Liverpool's current allocation of non-home-grown players.
Furthermore, should Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Caoimhin Kelleher, Nat Phillips. or James Milner exit the club at the end of the season, they would vacate home-grown player positions, further strengthening the case for bringing in a player such as Mount. By that very same token, Klopp could even decide to offer Milner another contract extension that could keep him in the squad for another season, without impacting his core squad list of 17 non-home-grown players.
Although a Premier League squad can be up to a maximum size of 25 players, Liverpool only named 23 at the start of the season, with just seven home-grown players included. That is helped by a quirk in the rules which states that players who are 21 or under - born on or after January 1 2001, for the current campaign - do not need to be registered as a part of the squad. That means emerging stars such as Ben Doak and Stefan Bajcetic do not need to be named in the senior squad to appear.
With both players expected to play more prominent roles next season, the case to keep Milner on the books for another season grows stronger, with Mount exactly the type of new arrival the rulebook would encourage.
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