Liverpool are linked with French international Ousmane Dembele not for the first time and if reports in the media are anything to go by, then they might end up failing to sign him again.
According to L’Equipe, Liverpool and Bayern Munich contacted Barcelona hoping to attract the former Borussia Dortmund winger.
News – Liverpool consider move to sign £90million star – We take a look
However, the renowned French news outlet state that the Les Bleus attacker wants to stay at the Nou Camp.
Klopp tried to lure him in 2016:
In 2016, Dembele opted to leave Rennais FC to move to German club Borussia Dortmund.
In 2017, he exclusively told Four Four Two that Liverpool boss made a last gasp attempt to bring him to Anfield but he had already decided to move to the Bundesliga and did not change his decision.
Now, as mentioned above, the £220,000-a-week star (The Daily Express) has once again snubbed the chance to move to Merseyside in order to stay with the Catalan giants.
It must be remembered that during his time in Germany, the French attacker rented Jurgen Klopp’s house and he angered the Liverpool boss by leaving the place in chaos (The S*n via Mirror Sport).
Stats, playing position and injury record:
Dembele played for just a single season with Borussia Dortmund, who mainly utilized him in the central attacking midfield position (Transfermakrt).
In all competitions, he featured in 49 games for the German club, directly contributed in 32 goals, attracted Barcelona’s attention and then moved to the Nou Camp in the summer of 2017.
In his first season with the Spanish giants, Dembele was mostly on the treatment table due to a hamstring injury, only started 12 league game and mainly played on the right wing (Transfermarkt).
Last season, he played majority of the games on the left wing, scored 14 goals and provided 9 assists in 42 appearances for Barca (Transfermarkt).
His injury record has not been good since moving to the Spanish champions. In 2017-18, he missed 27 games and in the last campaign, he missed 13 games due to various injury concerns (Transfermarkt).
So far, he has played 21 times for the Les Bleus. Dembele was a member of the France’s World Cup winning squad in 2018 but he only started two games in the competition and did not even feature in the semis and the final.
Liverpool wingers:
Liverpool have top quality wingers in the form of Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah. The duo won the Golden Boot award in the last campaign and are irreplaceable at Anfield.
As far as the back-up options are concerned. Xherdan Shaqiri is there to cover for Salah on the right wing. The Swiss international directly contributed in 8 goals in the first half of the PL campaign but in the second half, Klopp mostly kept him on the bench and he only provided one assist (vs Newcastle United).
On the other hand, on the left flank, there is no natural winger to cover for our Senegalese star, Sadio Mane. Therefor, Liverpool should act to improve the depth in the summer transfer window.
