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Liverpool interested in Bayer Leverkusen star, a good deal?

With Liverpool finally looking likely to part company with one of their longest-serving players in the current squad Dejan Lovren.

Liverpool interested in Bayer Leverkusen star, a good deal?

Bengaluru, July 27: With Liverpool finally looking likely to part company with one of their longest-serving players in the current squad Dejan Lovren, a host of names have been linked with the Reds as it is believed that Jurgen Klopp will be keen on replacing the Croatian international with someone with plenty of experience at the top level.

Joe Gomez has mostly been favoured at the heart of the Liverpool defence by Klopp while Joel Matip provides a solid alternative. Therefore, we have seen game time hard to come for World Cup finalist with Croatia Lovren and at 31 years of age, his reported move to Russia with Zenit St. Petersburg makes plenty of sense.

Despite the fact that Lovren has been pretty much the fourth choice at centre-back at Anfield, he has still played a decent number of minutes for the Reds in the last couple of seasons mostly due to the injury records of Gomez and Matip. Both Gomez and Matip are injury-prone and therefore, Liverpool simply cannot make the mistake of not replacing Lovren.

They do have two really promising youngsters in Sepp van den Berg and Ki Jana. However, both the Dutchmen are 18 right now and it will be a surprise if Klopp starts his quest for Premier League defence with them as his fourth and fifth choice centre-backs.

One of the names that have been linked as a possible Dejan Lovren replacement is Bayer Leverkusen defender Edmond Tapsoba and we will look to analyze whether the 21-year-old would be a solid addition to the Reds or not.

Tapsoba joined Peter Bocz's Leverkusen just in January 2020 and since then, he has gone on to become of the most regarded talents in Bundesliga. The Burkina Faso international has already become the key player at the BayArena and his phenomenal rise shows why Bayer Leverkusen are one of the best clubs in Europe for talented young players.

The club deserves all the plaudits for their extensive scouting system that has helped them find some exceptional talents over the years and Tapsoba is the latest product of their philosophy of nurturing the youth.

Even though Bayer Leverkusen missed on a top-four finish, albeit very narrowly, things could have been much different if they had Tapsoba from the start of the season. Since the Burkinabé international moved to the club and became a mainstay, Bocz's side have been pretty solid defensively.

With the 21-year-old in the starting XI, they have just lost four games in all competitions out of the 20 and two of them were against Bayern Munich. Bocz has tinkered his tactics a lot this season and has deployed both a traditional back four as well as a back three.

In a back four, Tapsoba has mostly featured at the left-centre back position whereas in a back three also, he has mostly been used on the left-hand side. Despite being right-footed, the 21-year-old has looked pretty comfortable in both roles.

In many ways, Tapsoba has a lot of similarities with Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk who is arguably the best centre-back in the world right now. Tapsoba has attempted 81.6 passes per game for Leverkusen this season on an average which looks even more remarkable when we look at his passing accuracy of 90.8%.

His averages passes attempted per game is close to that of van Dijk who has averaged 86.2 passes per game but Tapsoba's beats van Dijk in terms of passing accuracy as the Dutchman boasts passing accuracy of 88.9%. Such precision makes the 21-year-old an ideal ball-playing defender for not just Liverpool but for any club in Europe who are looking for defenders who excel in playing out of the back.

Tapsoba averages around 0.4 key passes and 5.1 long balls per game this season which shows that he is not just a simple short passer but can also pick out his teammates from deep. At 6'3", the 21-year-old quite good in the air and that is evident from his 1.9 aerial duels won per game. There is a problem with most ball-playing defenders nowadays that they specialise on passing way more than defending but Tapsoba has his basics right. His average of 1.7 tackles, 1.2 interceptions, 1.1 fouls and more importantly 3.1 clearances per game prove that he can no-nonsense when required.

There is no doubt that Tapsoba will be a massive addition to Liverpool and could become the future of the Reds' defence but considering that he moved to Leverkusen only in January and that too on a deal worth €18 million-plus €7 million as add-ons, it will be hard for them to convince the 21-year-old for another transfer so soon especially due to the fact that he would not be a first-choice. And, even if the players are willing to move to Anfield, it will be an expensive transfer and from what it seems, the Reds are not in a mood to spend a fortune this summer.

Story first published: Monday, July 27, 2020, 21:10 [IST]
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