Liverpool preparing bid for “elite” £34m star who’d be Slot’s own Salah

Liverpool supporters have been frustrated by Manchester City’s sharp efficiency this month. The four-in-a-row champions have acted incisively to address glaring concerns within Pep Guardiola’s squad while latterly tying Erling Haaland down to an extraordinary new contract, valid until 2034.

Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold have been free to discuss pre-contract agreements with suitors overseas since the turn of the new year, while discontent grows around a supposed dearth of depth across the backline.

It’s hardly all doom and gloom. Arne Slot’s side perch atop the Premier League with a four-point lead over Arsenal, holding a game in hand at that.

Top of the Champions League group phase and still in both domestic cup competitions, the Reds are searching for silverware this season and have a talented and balanced squad that can achieve the lofty goals.

However, City’s recent action serves as a reminder to FSG and Richard Hughes that they need to ramp up the gas, lest this wonderful position flakes away over the business months of the campaign.

Andy Robertson, for one, needs replacing.

Why Liverpool need to replace Andy Robertson

A tremendous player, one of Liverpool’s finest since his smart £10m signing in 2017, leaving Hull City, Robertson has enjoyed a successful career as one of Europe’s superlative left-backs.

He’s still only 30, but the Scotland skipper is discernibly regressing in terms of athleticism, concentration and creativity, three staples of his skill set.

His understudy, Kostas Tsimikas, has a fine eye for a pass but is clearly unfavoured by Slot as the starting option, so Liverpool need to address this problem going forward. The Athletic’s James Pearce issued a pragmatic response on the matter, claiming that signing a new left-back is high on the to-do list but unlikely to be resolved this month given that there is existing depth.

Robertson, however, has consistently found himself at the scene of the crime this term and lacks the technicality and confidence that once established him as a world-beater.

Liverpool do have a successor in mind and may still push to complete a deal this month.

Liverpool’s left-back search

As reported by Italian outlet Solo Lecce earlier this week, Liverpool have entered the race for Lecce full-back Patrick Dorgu, joining Premier League rivals Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.

It’s understood that Liverpool’s admiration has grown with rapidity and that FSG chiefs have already prepared a €40m (£34m) offer for the Denmark international.

Dorgu, only 20, has impressed Liverpool scouts with his power and energy, also showing versatile traits that could see Slot will him into a shape of his choosing going forward.

What Patrick Dorgu would bring to Liverpool

Dorgu is one of Italian football’s brightest young talents, already chalking up 55 senior appearances for Lecce, scoring five goals, since earning his stripes in FC Nordsjælland’s academy in his homeland.

Currently plying his craft in Italy, Dorgu could prove to be Slot’s own Salah signing, with the Egypt sensation joining Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool from Roma for a £34m fee in 2017, the same window as Robertson, and going on to score 232 goals and set up 105 more across 378 appearances, winning the full gamut of trophies (Europa League notwithstanding).

Dorgu has shown flashes of quality but could realise his full potential with Slot’s Liverpool project beginning to hit full swing, similar to Klopp’s side way back when, with Salah serving as the attacking catalyst and still carrying that burden to this day.

The rising star, after all, has already been hailed as an “elite team player” with “immense physicality” by one analyst, so there’s every reason for Liverpool fans to get excited, for he could become one of the finest defenders competing on English shores.

As you can see above, Dorgu is one of the most positionally flexible players in Serie A, and while he’s found comparative prolific success on the right wing, Lecce manager Marco Giampaolo, who was appointed in November, has moved him back into a more conventional left-back role.

This is positive, proving that Slot, one of Europe’s superior tactical minds, could sculpt Dorgu to his own design, though it’s probable that the young gun will continue to provide support across a range of roles, skirting away from being pigeonholed into one tightly-held category.

Anyway, as per FBref, Dorgu ranks among the top 9% of Serie A wingers this season for tackles, the top 7% for interceptions, the top 5% for clearances and the top 9% for aerial battles won per 90, illustrating the strong defensive application that stays with him even when fielded in offensive situations.

There is hope that an agreement will be struck and Liverpool will extend Salah’s stay on Merseyside. If this is to be the case, Slot is not going to need a first-class replacement just yet.

But in Dorgu, he could land his own Salah signing, killing two birds with one stone. The lively Dane may prove to be the perfect Robertson replacement going forward, but his proven success as a moonlighting right winger has made a convincing remark on the dynamism that is practically custom-made for Slot’s fluid system.