Firpo or Tierney? Who Jurgen Klopp should go in for

Liverpool have been linked with the transfer of Junior Firpo, while Kieran Tierney is also available. But who should Jurgen Klopp sign?

The Reds want Firpo for a mad £45 million, said the Guardian, while Tierney would be available for around £25 million – reported the Daily Mail.

So instantly there’s a large disparity between two players who are very similar. Both are 22-years-old, both play in a relatively attacking role for their clubs and both have some European experience.

But how have they been performing this season, and which one would suit Liverpool better? We turned to Smarter Scout to try and unpick the difference between Firpo and Tierney.

As both play in different leagues, it’s difficult to make direct comparisons. For that reasons, data from the Europa League will be used as Firpo and Tierney both played a similar number of minutes in the European second string

Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold set the benchmark for attacking play from full-backs but they’re allowed to do so because of the system that Jurgen Klopp employs. For that reason, any player signed needs to be able to attack as well as defend.

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In terms of attacking output, Tierney leads the way by some distance with a rating of 63/99, while Firpo only manages to score 45. From that, you can see that the Scot has been more effective in advanced areas – which is one big tick in his box.

If you need your full-backs to have an impact at both ends of the pitch, as Klopp does, then they’ll need to be fit and able to make recovery runs well and often. In this regard, Tierney does better as well. His rating for this is 55, while Firpo’s is 48.

Firpo does keep the ball better than Tierney, but the Spaniard’s dribbling ability as about half as good as the Scotland international’s.

And when it comes down to defending, the Celtic man does that to a higher standard as well. In fact, Tierney is so much better than Firpo it’s scary.

For defending quality, the Celtic man is 74 and for defending quantity it’s 78. The Betis star can only post 15 for quality and 70 for quantity.

So it seems pretty clear. One costs £45 million, the other £25 million. The scary thing is, the cheaper option seems to be the better one and Liverpool don’t even want him.