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Liverpool ‘wants’ transfer with Jude Bellingham traits amid $38m ‘talks’ and club’s admission
Liverpool knows that it cannot afford to get it wrong this summer. Jürgen Klopp has little margin for error when it comes to midfield recruits, but the ideal player could be available for a relatively cheap price.
Liverpool supporters were dismayed at the news that Jude Bellingham was no longer a priority this summer. The Reds have spent big sums under the ownership of FSG, at one time purchasing the most expensive defender and goalkeeper in the world in the space of six months.
If you added together the fees for Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker, though, you wouldn’t have much change left from the asking price for Bellingham. Previous top-dollar signings, dating all the way back to Andy Carroll, have been funded from hefty sales too, and that isn’t looking like an option.
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There are, though, other players that can take center stage ahead of the Borussia Dortmund man at Anfield. Some of those even have some of the same traits that Bellingham has, including one particular name being linked at the moment.
Liverpool has been ‘informed’ that it will have to pay somewhere between $38m (£30m/€35m) and $43m (£34m/€40m) to sign Manu Koné from Borussia Mönchengladbach, according to transfer journalist Fabrizio Romano. L’Equipe says that talks have already taken place over a deal.
Koné currently plays for Borussia Mönchengladbach. The club’s sporting director Roland Virkus spoke to Sport Bild (via Buli News) at the end of last summer, and discussed the midfielder’s future.
“I’d be lying if I said we would never sell him. There have already been inquiries for Manu,” he said. “But we don’t have to sell him yet. Above all: we don’t want to sell him yet.”
As he is already their highest-valued player (per Transfermarkt), the club might want to see his price rise further before letting go, but it also has something of a rebuild coming and might need the funds to reinvest.
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Whether the previous inquiries included a call from Julian Ward is unknown, though Jörg Schmadtke will be well aware of the player’s ability. And as much as Mönchengladbach might wish to retain Koné, he will only have two years remaining on his contract (with an option for a further year) at the end of this season. A big offer this summer may be very difficult for them to refuse.
And the way the French U21 international’s season went, there may be no shortage of suitors. Many of his statistics have taken a step up from solid to elite.
In some metrics, he is even reaching Bellingham levels, and that development is certain to catch the attention of the Liverpool transfer analysts, even if his numbers have not been sufficient to warrant any firm interest up to this point.
For instance, while Koné is ‘only’ in the top 10 per cent of midfielders in Europe’s big five leagues for 10 stats on FBRef, his Dortmund counterpart can point to 25 metrics where that is the case.
But they share five, and it’s a quintet of eye-catching numbers. Three of them relate to dribbling (attempted, completed and players passed) while they are also both elite at drawing fouls and playing passes under pressure. It’s worth noting Koné also has interceptions and successful pressures in his top stats too.
If anything, FBRef’s percentile stats do the former Toulouse man a disservice, as they are calculated over the last 365 days, when his hot form has been more recent.
The scouting report says he is not in the top half of midfielders in England, France, Germany, Italy or Spain for completing open-play passes into the final third, yet his rate has increased to the point he was in the top-10 in the Bundesliga last season.
He can dribble, pass, and put in a defensive shift to elite levels and his club has admitted ‘the boy must want to take his next step to a club that is significantly bigger than Gladbach’. Liverpool’s group of Bellingham alternates may have just gained a new member.
An original version of this story was first published on 22 September 2023.
