Liverpool journalist James Pearce has provided some details regarding the recent loan move of Ben Davies to Sheffield United.
The 26-year-old was brought to the club in January to help ease some of the pressure that the club were under following a disastrous run of injuries suffered by their central defenders, but despite getting on the bench a few times, he wasn’t able to make a single appearance for the first team.
It appears that a bolstered and recovered Liverpool defence has done little for his first-team chances, and a loan to Sheffield United has since followed. Speaking about the move on The Red Agenda podcast, Pearce revealed some of the details behind the deal and what the future holds for him:
“I know he was told at the back-end of last season, over the summer, ‘we want you to come back and do pre-season, we’re not looking to move you on’.
“But I think a lot of that was to do with, ‘well, let’s wait and see what happens with Gomez, with Van Dijk, with Matip’. There was obviously a question mark over them coming back from long injuries and whether there would be any setbacks in their rehab. I think now the three of them have proved their fitness, it just makes sense, doesn’t it, to loan Ben Davies out.
“There’s no option to buy for Sheffield United, I think that wouldn’t have made sense for Liverpool. They’ll think that if he goes and plays week-in, week-out and helps Sheffield United win promotion back to the Premier League, then his value will increase significantly. I think it just makes sense.”
TIF Thoughts on James Pearce’s comments about Ben Davies…
Will Ben Davies be a success at Liverpool?
Yes
No
This does come across as a smart move for Liverpool to make when it comes to the next few years for Davies, because only sending him on loan with no option to buy gives them a lot more flexibility.
If he does manage to play well, then rather than have him fixed to just one club next season that will have the opportunity to buy him, they can offer him out to pretty much any club they want to. That could be on loan, or they might decide to do it permanently if they think that they can make some decent money off of someone who is, realistically, a fifth or sixth-choice central defender at this point.
Meanwhile, if he doesn’t impress, and his value doesn’t increase significantly, then they still have a few years to try and make something work by sending him out on loan again to another club. But when you consider they only paid £1.6m for him, then they haven’t exactly put the club into financial strife because of it, so it’s not a big deal if he doesn’t develop into a decent player for them.
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