Better than Gomez! How giant disruptor Sepp van den Berg is perfect for Klopp

Liverpool have moved quickly to snap up highly rated 17-year-old defender Sepp van den Berg. This is how he’s perfect for Jurgen Klopp.

The Reds signed van den Berg from PEC Zwolle for a tiny £1.71 million and despite his tender age the Dutchman will go straight into the first team squad.

With 21 games in the Eredivisie under his belt, there’s a small sample size of us to see what sort of player the imposing defender is.

Using Smarter Scout, it’s possible to see how his 522 top flight minutes for 2018/2019 panned out – and the results show one factor that’s really impressive.

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Van den Berg is incredibly good at two things and does one other thing really well. In fact, Sepp does them better than the next most highly rated young defender in the squad – Joe Gomez.

According to the Smarter Scout team of analysts, the 17-year-old was amazing at linking up play from the back. In short, he’s a ball playing defender that’ll get Liverpool on the front foot when he gets the ball at his feet.

Van den Berg scored 83/99 for this ability, which is better than Gomez’s 77. With 50/99 for disrupting opposition play, van den Berg also topped Gomez’s output for 2018/2019 – which was 44.

With 83 for ball retention, the new Liverpool lad is hard to shift off the ball. Gomez scores 81, so the two young guns are at a similar level for that.

In fact, van den Berg has excellent stats and ratings for someone so young and this reflects on the scramble there was to sign him. The Reds beat off some of the best clubs in Europe for the ginger giant, and hopefully that’ll pay off quickly.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzkulkIll22/

In Gomez and van den Berg, Liverpool have two highly promising defenders who can hopefully mature together and develop the type of telepathic understanding that gives forwards nightmares.