The final days of Jurgen Klopp’s tenure as Liverpool manager are now imperilled: following Thursday’s surprise Europa League exit against Atalanta, hopes of a successful conclusion hinge on leapfrogging Manchester City in the Premier League title race.
While Pep Guardiola’s defending champions only boast a two-point advantage in the top-flight with six games to go, Liverpool and fellow contenders Arsenal have lost their way,
The Merseysiders, in particular, have seen their aura, their spark and their style, stripped away, complacency, wastefulness and sapped legs all meshing together to present Klopp with quite the quandary at the eleventh hour of his reign.
He has the tools to steady the ship, but FSG’s new CEO of Football, Michael Edwards, will be desperate to ensure the Reds make the right moves on the transfer front going forward, to propel the side forward, and he might have lined up the perfect new addition.
Liverpool eyeing huge new transfer
According to Fabrizio Romano, Liverpool are hot on the trail of Bayern Munich star Jamal Musiala, monitoring his situation with the recently-dethroned Bundesliga champions.
Bayern are desperate to keep hold of the 21-year-old and have slapped a £100m asking price on his signature to dissuade suitors.
It’s important to bear in mind that Musiala is one of the most exciting and high-value young players in the game, and, as such, Manchester City and Chelsea are lurking, with the Etihad side viewed as the frontrunners by The Guardian.
How Jamal Musiala would fit in at Liverpool
Musiala signed for Bayern Munich as a 16-year-old back in 2019, leaving Chelsea’s Cobham academy to follow the likes of Jadon Sancho and Reiss Nelson in finding their feet over in the German Bundesliga.
It’s proved to be a successful move, to say the least, with the Germany international posting 43 goals and 30 assists from just 161 senior appearances, winning four Bundesliga titles and one Champions League so far.
This season, he has scored 12 goals and added seven assists across 36 matches in all competitions, producing some excellent dynamic displays in the German top flight.
Matches played
24
Matches started
20
Goals
10
Assists
6
Pass completion
82%
Big chances created
12
Shots per game
2.4
Key passes per game
1.8
Dribbles per game
3.6
Ball recoveries per game
3.8
Tackles per game
1.7
Duels won per game
7.2
As per FBref, the 6 foot 1 ace ranks among the top 9% of attacking midfielders and wingers across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for goals, the top 18% for shot-creating actions, the top 6% for pass completion, the top 14% for progressive carries, the top 1% for successful take-ons and the top 6% for interceptions per 90.
A wonderful dribbler, fleet of feet, intelligent in his forward motions and possessing impressive spatial awareness, Musiala has been hailed for being “decisive in games time and time again” by his manager Thomas Tuchel.
Bayern, by their lofty standards, have been pretty poor this season, and while they might have prevailed against Arsenal in the Champions League to set up a captivating semi-final tie against Real Madrid, there is much work to do ahead of the new season, with Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen blitzing to the league title and into the final of the DFB Pokal, undefeated all year.
The versatile attacking midfielder has even been proclaimed to be a “future Ballon d’Or winner” by his Bavarian teammate Alphonso Davies, with such claims corroborated by Musiala’s former youth coach Andre Martin, who has clearly detailed his skill set.
He said: “Technically outstanding, very skillful, and a player who can score all types of goals, inside and outside the box. And he’s a great dribbler and likes to take players on, as he did against Schalke. He later became a No.10 and has become as much of a creator as a goalscorer.”
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Such a player would be a worthy addition at Anfield, though it might be bad news for someone like Dominik Szoboszlai, who has not been at the races for Klopp’s side recently.
Why Musiala could oust Dominik Szoboszlai
Szoboszlai only joined Liverpool last summer, completing a £60m move from RB Leipzig, and while he is a technically excellent midfielder, his displays over the past several months have failed to produce the calibre of performance that marked his early-season success.
Still, across 27 outings in the Premier League, Szoboszlai has scored three goals, supplied two assists, completed 87% of his passes, averaged 1.9 key passes, 1.1 tackles, 3.5 successful duels and 6.0 ball recoveries per game.
However, he’s been particularly poor in recent weeks and was one of the primary strugglers as Liverpool crashed out of the Europa League against Atalanta, who are sixth in Serie A.
The 23-year-old possesses many similar attributes to Musiala despite being fashioned into a deeper-lying midfielder than he was accustomed to being in Leipzig, ranking among the top 9% of positional peers across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for goals, the top 4% for shot-creating actions, the top 18% for progressive passes and the top 5% for progressive carries per 90.
But with Klopp leaving this summer, it’s likely that Szoboszlai might find himself playing in a more advanced role once again, especially if Ruben Amorim is appointed, the Portuguese manager implementing an expansive, possession-heavy brand of football that could see the Hungarian shifted into an overlapping right-sided role.
Given that Musiala has already been regarded as a “world-class” player by former Bayern boss Julian Nagelsmann and boasts defensive statistics that actually surpass that of the energetic Szoboszlai, he could be the more robust, more prolific, more potent player to ensure that Liverpool enter a new era with sights firmly fixed on a continuation of the illustrious heights of the past decade.