Speaking recently on The Athletic’s Headline podcast, Simon Hughes said that Jurgen Klopp has identified up front as the area in which Liverpool need to ‘increase their numbers’ and ‘improve on’.
Following the recent confirmation that Liverpool have agreed a deal to sign Thiago Alcantara from Bayern Munich, Simon Hughes, James Pearce and Luke Brown discussed which other positions Klopp could look to strengthen in before the transfer window closes in October.
It was reported earlier in the year that the German manager was keen on bringing Timo Werner to Anfield ahead of Liverpool’s Premier League title defence. It was also an open secret that Werner himself wanted a move to Liverpool.
However, following the impact of the global pandemic, it would seem that Liverpool felt they could not justify paying the release clause of the 24-year-old and the forward ended up joining Chelsea instead.
Due to Klopp’s desire to sign Werner, however, Hughes believes that up front is still an area in which the Liverpool manager would like to strengthen in the current transfer window.
He said: “You’ve got to look at it from Jurgen Klopp’s point of view, in that he was very keen to sign Timo Werner and obviously Liverpool had to pull back from that transfer. So, that area of the pitch is clearly an area that he’s identified that Liverpool need to increase their numbers [in] and improve on.
“Given that he thought that last March and they haven’t been able to target that position yet, I still think that, from what I’ve been told, they are still looking in that area, but again, it does come down to money.
“The original statement from The Athletic has always been that they have to sell players to buy – [but] I think they’ve had encouragements over a couple of other players in terms of outgoings over the last couple of days. So, I think that is the outstanding area.”
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TIF Thoughts…
From Hughes’ comments, it would seem as if the journalist still feels that Liverpool are indeed trying to strengthen up front and with “encouragements” regarding a couple of potential outgoing players, that the club could receive an injection of cash from player sales that would help them fund a move for a striker.
As for who they would like to recruit in the position, we are unsure, but it is certainly something to keep an eye on over the remaining weeks of the current transfer window.