Liverpool vs Salzburg: Are Salzburg the perfect feeder team for the Reds?

Liverpool play Salzburg in their second Champions League game of the season and we have to ask: are they the perfect feeder team for us?

Never mind Southampton, that ship has sailed. The future is European (sorry Brexit) and Michael Edwards needs to have his eye on a little big underdog funded by a huge worldwide corporation.

The name is Salzburg, remember it. They’ve given two of our high-profiles stars a start in life as both Naby Keita and Sadio Mane got a taste for European football with the Austrians and their brand of football suits Liverpool down to a tee.

It might be a problem poaching directly from the Red Bull giants. Their domestic league isn’t the strongest and both Keita and Mane needed to cut their teeth on one of the top five before moving to Anfield.

Salzburg used a counter-pressing method, which remains true across the clubs the energy drinks company owns. This creates players who are used to working off the ball and are used to winning it back and would allow them to transition to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

Their manager Jesse Marsch takes team unity and bonding very importantly, said a report in The Athletic, and that fits in with Klopp’s ethos and the way he motivates those around him.

If we compare Erling Haaland and Hee-chan Hwang with Roberto Firmino, we can see that they’re molded in the same shape as Firmino. Smarter Scout gives them all excellent ratings for their recovery work (58, 99 and 97) and their ability to disrupt (86, 74 and 69).

Both Hwang and Firmino win a high amount of tackles, while Haaland hasn’t been in the position to do so much this campaign.

Taking a player from the Austrian Bundesliga and putting them straight into the Premier League wouldn’t be an easy transition and may require a few years of loans before their first team ready, but if Liverpool build a feeder club on purpose they couldn’t get any more perfect than Salzburg.