Is Andrew Robertson the answer for Liverpool?

A left-back is a position that Liverpool seriously need improvement. Last season, Klopp was fortunate enough and didn’t have many problems in that position, with Milner doing a great job. However, with The Reds in the Champions League and looking to be strong contenders for the title, a left-back is something that Liverpool must go for.

A few days ago, was reported that Liverpool agreed a deal to sign Hull City’s and Scotland international Andrew Robertson, for a fee of £10m, including add-ons. The 23-year-old could turn out to be a bargain, but some doubt if he is capable of playing a big part in Liverpool’s season and in this article, I’ll analyse him and give my opinion if he is good enough for the job.

 

Style of play

Something that may called Klopp’s attention is Robertson’s attacking desire and that he could be a valuable player in Klopp’s style of play. The scot likes to overlap and with his pace and fairly good technical ability, he could be another attacking threat for Liverpool and add more in the team than Milner is doing.

For a defensive player, Robertson creates a fair amount of chances and has great passing, something that could turn out to be great for Liverpool. He also has good defensive awareness and is a though tackler, not affraid of putting himself on the ball’s way.

 

Stats

The former Dundee United player was important on Hull’s relegation campaign and arguably, was one of the side’s best players. He scored once and gave two assists in a side that was one of the least scoring teams in the league.

He managed to do 17 key passes in 33 appearances in the Premier League and created 19 chances across the campaign. He completed 920 passes, with an accuracy of 76%, which is less comparing to Marcos Alonso’s and Danny Rose’s.

In the defensive side, Robertson is a good player and could be improved working with Klopp.  He won 36 tackles and completed 26 take-ons in the Premier League. He also had 59 interceptions, 15 blocks and didn’t make an error leading to a goal, an impressive stat considering he played in a relegated side. His defensive stats ranks him better than Danny Rose, who was in PFA’s team of the season, and Marcos Alonso, who won the title with Chelsea.

 

My thoughts

£10m doesn’t mean nothing for the Premier League sides, with the TV money and sponsorships. Liverpool are getting a pretty decent left-back, who could become one of the most important signings in Klopp’s era for a fee that is not significant at all.

Maybe Robertson won’t be able to make an impact right in his first season, but his stats and what I’ve seen him play show that he is a promissing and talented player, who could become a key part of a title contender Liverpool. He is an improvement and an option that Liverpool need to have, considering they are playing in the Champions League.

I would rate this transfer 8/10.

 

Sources: WhoScored and Squawka

The Transfer Target: Alexander Isak

Known as the “next Ibrahimovic”, Alexander Isak catched the eye of many big european clubs, with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Liverpool, among other European clubs fighting for his signature. After breaking through in AIK’s first team earlier this year, Isak went on to score nine goals in 22 league appearances for the Swedish club.

Profile:

Place of birth: Solna, Sweden

Date of birth: 21/09/1999 (17 years-old)

Height: 6 ft 3 in

Position: Forward

International Caps: Sweden U17 (19), Sweden U19 (3), Sweden U21( 1)

 

Style of play

He is very tall player, but he has really good dribbling and he really likes to attempt them. Also, his headers are really good, as he scored 2 headed goals this season. His finishing is another really strong quality on him, he is a cool finisher and doesn’t feel the pressure in front of goal.

On the other hand, he doesn’t contribute too much in the defense and his passing is not amazing, despite playing a game this season as an attacking midfielder.

Stats

He has played 22 times in the league, scoring nine goals and assisting once. Overall he made 8 tackles, 184 duels and six interceptions. He has made 310 passes, with an accuracy of 70%. Usually, he makes 19.85 passes per game, 34.17 touches and one key pass per game.

He takes 158.6 minutes to score a goal with an accuracy of 63% of shots on target and he usually has 2.1 shots per game. Nine of his goals were with his right foot, his stronger foot and two with the left. He is a real forward as all of his goals were scored inside the area. He is fouled in an average of 0.5 per game

As I mentioned before, he really likes to dribble and he has 23 successful dribles in total and gets one in each match. He has 4 offsides and he is caught offside in an average of 0.2 per game.

 

Where would he fit?

He has been linked with plenty of big European clubs so, I don’t expect him to come and make a huge impact if he joins any team he has been linked with. Probably, he will get his time to develop and be a great option for the future. It is obvious that this kid has talent.

 

How much would he cost?

His market value is €400k, according to the website Transfermarkt. No fee has been mentioned but AIK sporting director Bjorn Wesstrom said: “Now that he has made the breakthrough, Alexander will leave for a big transfer fee. Now or in the next transfer window he will be sold.”

 

Sources: Transfermarkt, WhoScored and OneFootball.

Andriy Yarmolenko- The Transfer Target

Andriy Yarmolenko has been linked with a move to the Premier League since Euro 2012, where he impressed playing for his national side Ukraine.

A move to the Premier League seems more likely than ever now. He has been linked with numerous clubs including the likes of Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal.

His agent published a video on the social media Instagram, where he was at Liverpool’s office in London for a meeting.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Vadim Shabliy (@shablii_vadim)

With this video and the hashtags the agent has used, he is most likely to join Liverpool in the summer and is set to snub Everton and Arsenal.

Profile:

Andriy Yarmolenko

Date of birth: 23 October 1989 (Age 26)

Place of birth: Leningrad, Soviet Union.

Height: 6ft 2in

Playing positons: Right winger and right forward.

 

Stats:

He has played seven out of eight games for Dynamo Kyiv in the Champions League. In the Ukranian Premier League he was a key player for Dynamo Kyiv’s title bid this season, breaking a domination of rivals Shakhtar.

He has made 22 appearances in the Ukranian Premier League, scoring 13 goals and making 10 assists. His goal creation ratio is really good and probably his big contribution for the attack caught the eye of the big teams.

In the Champions League he has scored 2 goals and had a shot accuracy of 69%, getting a goal in each 279 minutes.

He has made 249 passes getting an accuracy of 79%. He has an average of 40.16 passes per game. He has 64 touches in 90 minutes, with 21 crosses, getting an accuracy of 4.76%

He has made 6 tackles with an impressive accuracy of 100%. He has made 2 clearances and 6 interceptions. He has 45% accuracy of the 73 duels he made and won 25% of his aerial duels.

Yarmolenko’s heat-map on 3-1 deafeat against Man City

Style of play

He is 6ft 2in and you might thinks that he is too tall to be a winger and that he is not quick enough, but his speed and strength are things that stand out on him. He can create chances with his speed and open spaces with his strength and these are things that make Yarmolenko a quality player.

He can beat his man easily using his dribbling and skills, quality that a manager always searches when he will buy a new winger. He knows the best moment to use dribbling and the best moment to pass the ball to a teammate. He is not selfish, differently of a lot of wingers we see nowadays.

He is a natural goal threat despite being a winger. This quality is something that it’s hard to see in a winger that isn’t Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. In his 321 games for Dynamo Kyiv he has scored 126 goals with 86 assists, which is something really impressive for a wide man.

 

Where would he fit?

Liverpool’s only natural winger at the moment is Jordon Ibe, who he is not really good and Sheyi Ojo, who is too young. Liverpool need to play Milner or Lallana there, so he would fit perfectly in both of the wings.

At Everton he would be an improvement on Kevin Mirallas or Deulofeu.

With Chamberlain and Walcott likely to be leaving, he would be ideal to replace one of them and certainly he would be a huge part of the Arsenal team.

How much would he cost?

According to the website Transfermarkt, his current value is £19.5m. Any of the teams linked with him will need to pay between £21m-£25m.

 

Sources:

Squawka

One Football

Transfermarkt

The Transfer Target- Mahmoud Dahoud

 

Mahmoud Dahoud has been a transfer target for numerous teams as Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham and Borussia Dortmund are interested in the 20 year-old.

Having break into the first team last season, on the current season he has been playing an important role on german club Borussia Monchengladbach.

Profile:

Mahmoud Dahoud

Date of birth: 1 January 1996 (age 20)

Place of birth: Amuda, Syria

Height: 5 ft 9 in

Playing positions: Central Midfielder, Defensive Midfilder and Attacking Midfielder

International Caps: 2 for Germany u21

 

Stats:

On this season Dahoud has been a key player for Gladbach, playing 38 games in all competitions. He has scored 4 goals and made 8 assists.

His characteristics shows that he is an all-round midfielder and his work rate is really good.

He has an average of 2 tackles per game, with 1.5 interceptions. He concedes an average of 1.4 fouls.

He has nearly 1 key pass in each game with an average passing of 39 per game. He is successful on 82.1% of his passes and has an average of 2.2 long passes per game.

On Gladbach’s last win on the Bundesliga against Hertha BSC, he had 86% of pass accuracy, created two goal chances and both ended as assists. He had 56% of tackling accuracy and made 3 interceptions and 3 fouls.

Dahoud’s movement on 5-0 win against Hertha

 

Style of play:

As I mentioned before, he is a central midfielder and played games as an attacking mid, defensive mid and as a right mid.

He is a player that has really good long shots and he has scored 2 goals from outside the box. He is a player that can build the play from the back as one of his main strengths are long passes and through balls.

He is a player that is really committed on getting the ball back when his team losses it, and his concentration is one of the things that stand out on him.

His dribbling is another good quality, he can create spaces easily and have a central midfielder who has good dribbling is something that every team wants to have.

Something that he lacks is aerial battles, he is only 5ft 9in and is not a surprise if he isn’t good on that.

 

Where would Dahoud fit?

If he moves to Liverpool he would play alongside Jordan Henderson as a player that has really good distribution and commitment to the team.

Borussia Dortmund is interested on him as a replacement for Ilkay Gundogan, who is likely to join Manchester City in the summer. He is a really similar player to Gundogan as their stats shows.

How much would he cost?

According to the website Transfermarkt, his current value is £9m. Considering his age and the talent that he has, his price could rise to £25m-£30m.

 

Sources:

Who Scored

One Football

Squawka

Transfermarkt.

 

The Transfer Target- Piotr Zieliński

Piotr Zieliński claims that Jürgen Klopp is interested in his services. I thought that an article about him would be a good thing to do with an objective to give the essential information about the player, and if he will be any good for Liverpool.

Profile:

Name: Piotr Zieliński

Age: 21

Place of birth: Ząbkowice Śląskie, Poland

Club: Empoli (On loan from Udinese)

Height: 5 ft 10 in

International Caps: 13

 

Zieliński is keen on getting a place at Poland’s squad for the Euros. He has been on loan at Empoli for the past two season and has made just 19 appearances for Udinese in two seasons.

 

Stats:

In this season for Empoli he has made 31 appearances, scoring 4 goals and assisting 4 times. He has an average of 45.7 passes per game and getting 81.2 of them successfully. He has 1.5 key passes per game with an average of 1.5 long balls per game. He has 2.6 dribbles per game and gets fouled 0.9 times per game. Defensively he has 2.2 tackles per game and 1.5 interceptions. The heat-map down bellow will show his movement.

Zielinski’s movement against Fiorentina

Seeing his stats it shows that he has more of a playmaking role. His main movements are in the middle of the park and he will be an interesting kind of player for Liverpool. He could do a similar role to Gundogan at Klopp’s time at Borussia Dortmund.

 

 

Style of play and main strengths:

He is a skillful player, which means that he likes to dribble and is something really good to know, because he can create loads of space with quick dribbles. He can run a lot and keep possession really well and seeing his passing stats you will know that. His quality of distribution is one of his main strengths and combining with his vision and skill he could be a really good central midfielder for Liverpool. He has also played in a deeper role just behind the striker, and in the Poland national team he has played as a right winger.

 

Where would he fit?

If he comes to Liverpool, probably he will be an improvement to Joe Allen, who has been linked with a move away from Liverpool. He could be a good partner to Philippe Coutinho and help the defence with good distribution, something that Liverpool has been struggling in the past few seasons. Creating chances from the back is a really important thing and certainly Zieliński will help to do that.

 

 

How much Liverpool will need to pay for him?

 

According to the website Transfermarkt, his current value is at £5.6m. Considering that Udinese doesn’t seem to want the player he might go for a fee about £5m- £5.5m.

 

 

I hope you did enjoy this article. I see you tomorrow for the match preview of Liverpool’s game against Borussia Dortmund on Thursday.

Goodbye,

Gabriel Coelho

 

The Transfer Target- Jonas Hector

Jonas Hector is a left back who currently plays for the german side FC Köln and has been playing for the Germany national team frequently since the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, where the germans ended up champions.

Hector has been linked with a move to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, for a fee around £6m and could fix the problems we have in the left hand side. Watching Germany’s friendly against Italy on Tuesday, my aim was to watch what kind of player Hector actually is, and I ended up really happy with his performance and how he could be a balanced player and is very good while he is attacking and defending and just to mention, he scored the 3rd goal of the game after a good transition play by Mario Gotze and Julian Draxler.

 

 

Let’s know a little bit more about him:

Date of birth: 27 May 1990. Age 25

Place of birth: Saarbrücken, West Germany.

Height: 6 ft 1 in.

Former Clubs:SV Auersmacher and FC Köln II.

International Caps: 12

 

Watching the game between Germany and Italy, I could note that Hector has good physical strenght as he went up and down the pitch almost everytime considering that Germany were playing a 3-4-3 formation while attacking a 4-4-2 while defending. When Germany were attacking, Hector played in a left midfielder role with the mission to mark the Italy players while the midfielders and the centre backs were trying to close in.

He has created some good chances with crosses or even shots and I was impressed by his defending mentality because he did make some good interceptions and some good tackles.

Now, let’s talk about stats, in the current season he has played 26 games out of 27 in the Bundesliga, with three assists and being the most creative player for Köln with 47 chances created.

 

 

 

In Köln’s last win in the Bundesliga against Hannover, he has 86% pass accuracy, considering the possibility of a move to Liverpool and that Jürgen Klopp likes a more direct style of play and most of his passes were long balls and it’s really good to have a left back who knows how to play with the ball on his feet.

In the whole season he has 53 tackles, getting 79.23% of them right. He denied 62 goals this season with 67 interceptions.

He has 80% of completed passes in general this season , with an average of 47.5 passes per game and 75.06 touches per game and this means that he is a very active player.

He has only two yellow cards this season, which is fair enough.

He is a player that basically moves at the attacking area of the pitch as his heat map of the game against Hannover shows:

 

Mainly he is more attacking than defensive but his stats shows that he is good on defending and this could be what Liverpool needs. Watching him play he seems much better than Moreno because he has some desire on defending, something that Moreno doesn’t show too often. I believe Hector could be the ideal fit for Liverpool.

I hope you did enjoy this article and I’m not posting too often because my PC still broken but I believe this will be fixed soon.

Thanks for the support.

Goodbye,

Gabriel Coelho.

 

The Transfer Target- Alex Teixeira

Hello and welcome to this week’s The Transfer Target. Today I will be taking a look at Shakhtar’s foward Alex Teixeira, who is heavly linked with a £35m move to Liverpool and he is also linked with Chelsea.

The Brazilian as an incredible technique and he is versatile player as he can play at any position of the midfield and as a striker.

Here is some information about him:

Alex Teixeira Santos

Country of birth: Brazil, Duque de Caxias.

Age: 26 years-old.

Former Club: Vasco da Gama(Brazil)

Major Honours:

Brazilian Serie B- 2009

Ukranian League- 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14.

Ukranian Cup- 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13.

Ukranian Supercup- 2010, 2012, 2013.

FIFA U20 World Cup Silver Ball- 2009.

Ukranian League Top Scorer-2014/15.

 

After a superb average goalscoring in the last two seasons , this man caught the attention of Liverpool’s manager Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool has difficult to deal with the attack of the team.

Almost all Liverpool’s wins at Anfield were by 1 goal difference and sometimes it seems that we don’t have the striker that we need for our style of play. We have Daniel Sturridge but he only played 6 matches this season, Benteke isn’t the quickest of players as we need a quick attacker and Firmino is not a real striker despite scoring four goals in four matches as a centre-foward.

Alex Teixera could fix this problem and could be a versatile player like I said in the start of the post, he could play as a defensive midfielder, central midfield, attacking midfielder, winger and striker.

He scored 25 goals in 26 matches in all competition which is really impressive and he scored twice against Real Madrid in the Champions League and considering the quality of Real Madrid’s defence it’s really difficult to score against them.

He won 20% of his aerial duels and he is 5 ft 8 in.

As he is naturally a midfielder you would expect his passing accuracy to be pretty high and it’s, he has 90.7% pass accuracy and his average passing per game is 37.83 in the 90 minutes.

He has nearly 100% shot accuracy ( Shots on target) and his average goal per minute is 61.3 which is really good. He scored 21 goals with his right foot and 2 with his left foot and in the Champions League he scored a header.

He has only one yellow card this season, he conceded 7 fouls and won 7.

He would an amazing signing for Liverpool considering that is the January transfer window and he is a quality player, he is the kind of player that will suit perfectly in our squad because he is quick and tricky.

I think the deal will be agreed until the deadline day.

 

This is today’s post, hope you have enjoyed your read and I hope that I brought you all the necessary information about this player.

I see you tomorrow.

Gabriel Coelho.

 

 

The Transfer Target- Iñaki Williams

Welcome the 2nd post of The Transfer Target. Today I’ll be talking about the U21 player who scored 10 goals this season, he is the Athletic Club foward Iñaki Williams.

He has been linked with numerous clubs the main ones are Arsenal and Liverpool, like I said in the start of the post he has 10 goals and 2 assists, he is naturally a winger but he can as a striker too, he is really quick and strong and is similar player to Welbeck and Sturridge.

Some information about him down bellow:

Iñaki Williams

Country of birth: Spain, Bilbao

Age: 21

Previous Clubs: Basconia, Bilbao Athletic, Athletic Club.

International caps: 4 (for Spain’s U21 level).

Liverpool and Arsenal were reported to be monitoring Iñaki Williams as he has a £15m release clause on his contract. According to the website Transfermarkt he is currently valued at £7m.

He played 14 out of 19 La Liga matches and made an important impact for his team, scoring 6 goals and assisting one time.

Like in the previous The Transfer Target with Emil Forsberg, this man has an impressive tackling for a Winger/Striker, he has 12 tackles and won 83.33% of the tackles, he has 6 clearances and 9 interceptions.

In passing terms, he has one assist in La Liga with 65.7% pass accuracy which it’s quite decent, he passed the ball 236 times this season with the average of 20.50 passes per game. He has made 39 crosses with 23.08% accuracy which is quite decent too.

He has 55% shot accuracy and scored 6 goals with his right foot and all of his goals was inside the box, he has 20 successful dribbles and 7 offsides.

He has 2 yellow cards, have conceded 16 fouls and won 26.

I think for both teams, this man would be a good signing, Liverpool need a striker and this man it’s ideal for our style of play, he’s quick, strong and tall (6ft 1 in) and would addept to the pressure style of play.

And Arsenal need a backup to Giroud or even someone who can play together with Giroud, he will be a good signing for Arsenal too.

He is about to sign a new four-year deal so if these clubs want to sign it needs to be quick.

This is it for today’s The Transfer Target, I hope you enjoyed the read, leave a comment and a like telling me if he would a good signing for both teams.

I will be without posting for one week because I will travel tomorrow.

I see you next week.

Goodbye

Gabriel.

 

The Transfer Target- Emil Forsberg

Hello everyone, I want to welcome you to new series on my blog.

It’s called the Transfer Target, the aim is to talk about players who are linked with big clubs, tell you more about them and what they can bring for the team they are linked with.

Reading the Paper Talk in Sky Sports I saw a player who catched my eye.

The player is Emil Forsberg who currently plays for Bundelisga 2 leaders RB Leipzig, he’s naturally a winger but he can play as an attacking midfielder too.

You can know a little more about him down bellow:

Emil Forsberg

Country of Birth: Sweden, Sundsvall

Age: 24 years-old

Previous Clubs: GIF Sundsvall, Medskogsbron BK and Malmo.

Major Honours:Allsvenskan( Swedish League)- 2013, 2014.

Svenska Supercup- 2013,14

Allsvenskan Midfielder of the year-2014

International Caps: 13

Liverpool was reported to made an enquiry for the Sweden International over a move on the summer and he would cost around £6.6m which I think it’s a fair value, according to the website Transfermarkt he is valued at £1.75m.

He has played 18 games this season, scoring 5 goals and assisting 4 times.

He has a decent pass accuracy for a winger with 75.6%.

Another impressive stat for him is his tackling, he has made 34 tackles and won 83.35%, this is much better than a lot of full-backs in the Premier League.

His average passing per game is 32.84 in the full 90 minutes, he has 62.7% of shot accuracy and he has scored 3 goals with his left foot and surprisingly it’s his weak foot.

He only has 2 yellow cards this season and have conceded 24 fouls.

He is a tricky winger, and plays on the left-side, he’s skillful and knows how to build the play for his teammates, he has good shots from outside the box and could be mostly of the time a danger for the opposition.

He would fit really well into the Liverpool side as we need a winger, with his stats probably he is better than Markovic and Jordon Ibe as he is more accurate in creating chances for his team.

This is it for today’s post, I hope you enjoyed it.

Leave a like and comment telling me what do you think about this player and if he could be a good signing for Liverpool.

I see you tomorrow.

Gabriel