It was promising to be a fantastic season for Liverpool under Arne Slot. Until just a week ago, they were in the reckoning for a treble and yet, in the matter of a few days, the dream came crashing down.
Currently, the Reds have nothing left to play for this season other than the Premier League title.
News – Report – Liverpool expected to strike £80million deal to sign Marc Guehi in summer
At the risk of regretting these words, Liverpool will need to have an incredibly dramatic collapse between now and the end of the season to lose out on the league.
The Reds are enjoying a 12-point gap at the top ahead of Arsenal with 9 games left to go and that is as comfortable as it gets.
However, with Liverpool now out of the other competitions, Arne Slot can make use of the time he has to spare to figure out potential signings for the club for next season.
As per an exclusive story recently covered by journalist, Sam McGuire, on Anfield Watch, Liverpool are lining up a huge bid to sign Atletico Madrid striker Julian Alvarez, to solve their striker problems. The Argentinian number nine has been in terrific form for Diego Simeone’s side, especially since the turn of the year and is having a very good season.
As per todays’ version of Spanish publication SPORT (news image provided below), Liverpool are preparing an offer worth £84million (100 million euros) to sign the Rojiblancos forward just a season after his transfer to Atletico.
However, negotiations are unlikely to be easy with the player having a long-term contract until 2030 and a release clause of around €150m.
Definite upgrade
If there is one thing that Liverpool need to admit, it is that they got it wrong with Darwin Nunez. The Merseysiders overpaid for a player based on potential and it is safe to say that the Uruguayan has hardly delivered on the promise he once showed at Benfica. It is quite rare for them to get a transfer so wrong, especially in recent years.
Nunez has been poor except for the odd moments of brilliance and has one goal in his last 13 games. His alternative in that position, Diogo Jota, has netted once in the last 10 games and the make-shift option, Luis Diaz, has netted once in the last 18 games.
With Cody Gakpo also out with an injury in recent weeks, this has put all the pressure on 32-year-old Mohamed Salah.
As the radar clearly shows (via DataMB), Alvarez is heads and shoulders above Darwin Nunez, despite playing for a team that sees much less of the ball compared to Liverpool.
Although some of his numbers look inferior compared to Jota, that is more down to how Atletico play and not exactly a reflection of the Argentinian’s abilities.
There is no doubt that if Julian Alvarez featured in a team like Liverpool that saw a lot of the ball and if he got to play as the designated nine unlike at Atletico where he shares that role with Antoine Griezmann, these numbers would look drastically different.
Ultimately, the baseline is that the 25-year-old has scored 7 goals more than Jota and Nunez put together this season.
Although it looks extremely difficult to pull this transfer off, should they manage to do it, then Liverpool will be having an excellent striker at their disposal who can rule at Anfield for years to come. It remains to be seen how the negotiations pan out and only time will tell us how it develops.
