da poker： All reports on Monday pointed toward three players that Liverpool will potentially sign in the summer. Of these three, two have been linked with the club repeatedly throughout the last 6 months and one which has never been a consideration for the club would actually be a signing to look into.
da bet vitoria： The first of these three is Ashley Young; a player who has been linked with the club again and again and again over the last couple of years but – given Villa’s recent poor form – looks more and more likely to happen, should the price be right. Now, Young is certainly not my favourite player and I wouldn’t rate him as highly as even some of the other wingers that we’ve had over the years. However, we face one problem: wingers are a bit of a rarity at the moment and when they are good – Ribery, Robben – you can expect to pay an absolute fortune for them. So, unless we stumble across a top-class winger in the next few months, he looks about as good as it gets. His record though, is fairly decent: in his career so far, he has managed 55 goals and almost 75 assists. Average that out and Young is contributing to somewhere around 20 goals per season. If we can get him for a reasonable amount and he can chip in with 10-15 assists and around 10 goals a season, then that would be something you could be happy with.
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The second, being Charlie Adam. He is a player who, it is quite clear, Kenny Dalglish admires greatly. With what he has achieved so far this season, it is not hard to understand that admiration at all, Adam has had a great year. It is perhaps a little too soon to completely judge the Scottish midfielder but his one full season (and two part seasons) at Blackpool have been a resounding success. A lot of people will point toward how much he struggled in the Scottish Premier League. Fair point but then I would argue that he went on to score 18 goals in the Championship last year, assisting in numerous other goals, and helped Blackpool into the Premier League against all odds. And he did all of this in a league that – as far as I’m concerned – is equal to (if not superior to) the SPL.
With 57 goals in his career so far and 29 of those coming during less than 2 full years at Blackpool, you have to say that Adam represents something we’ve been sorely missing from our midfield since we let Yossi Benayoun go: a regular goal scorer. He is also no stranger to assists and his set pieces are a level above anything any of our current players are capable of. As with Ashley Young, if he can be acquired for the right price, we will have about as close to a playmaker as you can get for less than 30 million in today’s market.
The final player considered a potential signing, represents something of an oddity for Liverpool: an Everton player that is better than anything the Reds currently have. Leighton Baines is probably England’s best fullback. Over the past 2 seasons, he has matured, gained experience and added goals and assists to his repertoire. Looking at his career stats, he isn’t a prolific goal scorer (currently, he has 7) but then, the fact that he actually scores goals means he is already head and shoulders above any of our currents fullbacks. However, it is in his assists that he would add another dimension to our side, with 12 already this season for our neighbours. To have a left or right back that contributes to the sides’ goals tally would be a massive addition to the first team. It is something we’ve sorely missed since John Arne Riise left.
Our best full back by a mile is Fabio Aurelio but he is never fit (so nothing more needs to be said about him). Besides him, we have one fullback who is defensively lacking, one who is a future prospect and one who is currently on loan one league below us. At the price he is being touted at – £10 million – Leighton Baines is a steal and given that Everton are pretty desperate for any kind of cash at the moment, we probably wouldn’t expect to pay much more than that for him.
Read more of David Tryer’s articles at Live4Liverpool
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