Despite being unbeaten at home in the Premier League for over three years, loosing just one Premier League game so far this season and making it to three European cup finals in the past four years, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists that his current squad are not “the finished article” and after signing a contract extension to keep him at the club until 2024, it looks like we’ll be witnessing a few more changes to this Liverpool side before his tenure with the reds comes to an end.
Two names in particular have been making the headlines in the build up to the transfer window this summer – RB Leipzig’s Timo Werner and Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly.
But how would Werner and Koulibaly fit into Liverpool’s line up if they sign for the reds next season?
Timo Werner’s potential move to Liverpool gained real momentum in February after the 24-year-old hailed Klopp’s side as “the best team in the world” following Leipzig’s victory over Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League. Since then, transfer news linking Werner to Liverpool has carried on for the majority of the year and at the time of writing, it has been reported that Liverpool would be willing to offload three players in the summer including Xherdan Shaqiri in order to secure Werner’s signature.
The German international has been electric for RB Lepzig this season scoring 30 and assisting 12 in a total of 37 games – moving Lepzig up to fourth place in the Bundesliga. But as a centre forward, Werner still faces real competition for a spot in Liverpool’s squad.
In particular, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mo Salah have established themselves as one of the best attacking trios in the game which can make it difficult to envision how Werner might improve upon an almost perfect attack.
However, we could see Werner move into a 4-2-3-1 formation for the reds with the German imbedded in-between Mane and Salah on the wings and Firmino as the striker up front – something which could make Liverpool into an almost untouchable force at the top of the field.
If Werner joins, it could mean less game time for Liverpool centre forward Divock Origi as we see him start even fewer games for Liverpool next season, but there’s little reason to believe that he wouldn’t be able to make an impact from the bench – something which has made him a popular figure amongst supporters in recent times. Likewise, it could also mean more game time for Liverpool’s most recent signing Takumi Minamino, but we could see Klopp utilise him more as an attacking midfielder in the near future.
Meanwhile, Kalidou Koulibaly is a 28-year-old Senegalese defender who has started 15 times for Napoli in the Serie A so far this season and 6 times in the Champions League before the competition was suspended due to Covid-19.
Unless Van Dijk was injured for a substantial amount of time, it is highly unlikely that Koulibaly would overtake Virgil for a spot in Liverpool’s starting 11 given that the Dutchman has established himself as one of the most prolific defenders in world football since joining the club in 2018.
However, there is no denying that Koulibaly has the potential to provide an even stronger partnership with Van Dijk than Joe Gomez has been able to offer given his physical dominance, his ability to start attacks from the back and the accuracy of his passes which have not dropped below a completion rate of 85% during his time in the Serie A.
Liverpool centre back Joel Matip had an excellent start to the season before the Cameroon international suffered a serious knee problem against Manchester United in October which kept him side-lined for over 84 days until January 18 – having played just 12 games across all competitions. Despite this, Matip remains a crucial member of Klopps side meaning that we could see Koulibaly and Matip rotated between one another if Koulibaly was to sign for the reds in the summer.
Meanwhile, Dejan Lovren has fallen to the back of Jurgen Klopps pecking order after the Croatian’s unsuccessful attempts to redeem himself as a more valuable member of the current squad in recent seasons – the most recent of these being his horror performance against Watford which resulted in Liverpool loosing for the first time this season.
It looked almost certain that Lovren was being transferred to Roma in August, but a deal was never agreed, and the Serie A side went on to sign Chris Smalling from Manchester United instead. If Koulibaly signs for Liverpool for the proposed sum of £90m though, he would most certainly start above Lovren with no questions asked.
