It goes without saying that Liverpool‘s summer transfer plans will be influenced by their fate in the Premier League. With the final stretch of the campaign looming ahead, their hopes of playing Champions League football next year hang in the balance.
After winning the league title last year, Arne Slot cemented himself as one of the best coaches in world football. Replacing Jurgen Klopp was not an unenviable task but an impossible job, and yet the Dutchman made it look like a cakewalk, finishing ten points clear of second-place Arsenal despite relaxing standards at the end of the year.
Slot has caught a virulent bout of second-season syndrome, and now, he’s at risk of being sacked by FSG ahead of the new campaign.
Whether Slot will be in charge remains to be seen, but Anfield won’t see Mohamed Salah running down the wing in any case, and Richard Hughes and co are therefore prepared to spend big on a new forward.
Liverpool plan to sign new forward
Salah will leave Liverpool on a free transfer this summer, bringing a rich era to an end. However, Liverpool’s problems stretch far wider than just that of the Egyptian King’s departure, with Cody Gakpo ineffective on the left and Alexander Isak, record signing from last summer, sidelined for the lion’s share of the season.
Liverpool are going to need goals, and, yes, they are going to need to compensate for Salah’s exit in the aggregate. While a right-sided forward will be needed, the FSG superiors appear to have set their sights on a prolific centre-forward.
That’s according to Correio da Manha in Portugal, who have confirmed that Liverpool are preparing a summer move for Sporting Lisbon striker Luis Suarez (not that one).
Sporting Lisbon have already acknowledged that they might sell the 28-year-old Suarez after this summer’s World Cup, no doubt hoping to see his skyrocket after prolific performances in North America.
Suarez has an €80m (equating to about £69m) release clause in his Leaoes contract, and the Reds don’t seem all that keen on coughing up such a sum.
Why Liverpool are interested in Suarez
Liverpool already have two elite strikers in Isak and Hugo Ekitike, but maybe FSG are considering the romantic edge to a potential deal, signing a player whose namesake once tore English football to shreds in Liverpool colours.
Former Almeria striker Suarez has played across the frontline in the past, but he’s an out-and-out striker, someone whose skills are best utilised from number nine.
He’s found something of a Midas touch in front of goal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that his prolificness will translate to the Premier League. After all, just look at how Darwin Nunez fared in the Premier League.
Nunez was sold to Al Hilal last summer, and while his three-year stint on Merseyside was rich with silverware, he flattered to deceive from a personal standpoint, erratic under Klopp and ineffective under Slot.
There’s no question that the Uruguayan was unpredictable, but given that he himself had no clue what was going to happen next most of the time, it’s unsurprising that he never managed to channel the kind of consistency needed to thrive as a marksman for Liverpool.
|
Nunez’s Wastefulness in the Premier League |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Season |
Goals |
Big Chances Missed |
|
24/25 |
5 |
8 |
|
23/24 |
11 |
27 |
|
22/23 |
9 |
20 |
It’s unfair on Suarez to suggest that he would be Nunez 2.0 purely because he plays his football in Liga Portugal, but Liverpool’s former goalscorer, such as he was, bagged 34 in all competitions in 2021/22, quickly falling by the wayside as an elite attacker when linking up with the Anfield side.
In this, Suarez could find a similar obstacle in his pathway, and that’s without even considering his positional rivals.
He joined Sporting from Almeria last summer as Viktor Gyokeres’ replacement. He has scored 33 goals from 42 matches in all competitions, including five goals in the Champions League.
In all honesty, this might not be the most prudent move for Liverpool to make. The Redmen need to fork out a shedload to replace Salah, and they are well-stocked at centre-forward. Gakpo is hardly the flavour of the month on the left too.
Suarez isn’t Nunez, but he’s not that far away from his 30th birthday, and for such a big fee, it does carry a certain Nunez-esque quality to it.
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