Liverpool is being linked with a transfer move for Chelsea midfielder Mason Mount amid a contract stand-off at Stamford Bridge. It makes sense for Jürgen Klopp.
As Liverpool and Chelsea faced off at Anfield, it felt as if both sides could play another 90 minutes and still not score. But the players on show are capable of far better than that.
Less than a year ago, they played two of the best-quality football matches you will ever see at Wembley, with Liverpool winning both domestic cup competitions on penalties — a few months on, they are both a pale imitation.
For both squads, major changes are coming. Chelsea’s rebuild has already run into the hundreds of millions and is showing no signs of slowing down, with seven players having been purchased this month alone.
Liverpool’s spending will come in the summer, when they need to reshape their midfield area. Jude Bellingham and Matheus Nunes are among their transfer targets, but so too, according to The Guardian, is Mason Mount.
Like Chelsea and Liverpool as a whole, Mount is a player capable of playing to a level far higher than he showed on Saturday lunchtime at Anfield, though he was bright in spells.
With so many new players coming in at Stamford Bridge, however, and with only 18 months left on his contract, he could be one of those that are allowed to go with the push for more and more new arrivals meaning some sacrifices will have to be made.
Given his contract situation and the fact that Chelsea is trying to sign every player they get wind might be exciting, Mount could be attainable with the right pitch, even if his current employers would rather not lose him.
That is just one reason that a transfer deal makes sense, though. As well as his situation at Chelsea, Liverpool’s need for a midfielder or two is obvious. He might be another to fit the Harvey Elliott, Curtis Jones and Fábio Carvalho category of being a number 10 ideally — a position that Jürgen Klopp does not favor — but he is undoubtedly a major talent that would add depth and quality, still only 24.
Mount is also English, making him a homegrown player. With Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain out of contract and James Milner potentially leaving too, Liverpool has to make sure their squad has enough to fill the various quotas.
To name a full 25-man Premier League squad, for instance, they need eight senior players categorized as being ‘homegrown’. Anyone 21 and under does not go on that squad, which means that the likes of Elliott will eventually fill those positions, but having more in the meantime is no bad thing. Above all else, at his best, he is a cut above what Liverpool has in midfield at the moment.
For the right price, then, Mount makes sense on three counts. And with Chelsea having been one of the clubs to have helped change the unwritten rule of not selling players to your rivals lately with the purchase of Raheem Sterling last summer from Manchester City, Liverpool should spot an opportunity to take one of their own.
source: https://www.liverpool.com/
