Thiago Alcantara will force Fabinho into defence
Thiago Alcantara could force Liverpool star Fabinho in defence.
The Bayern Munich star has been linked with a move to Anfield all summer and it could have serious ramifications.
He’s currently starring for the Bavarian giants and helped them smash Chelsea in the Champions League, which will prevent any deal being done while they’re still operating in Europe.
After moving for Greek left-back Kostas Tsimikas, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and sporting director Michael Edwards could save themselves some money on a central defender by bringing in Thiago Alcantara.
Talking to The Athletic’s podcast The Red Agenda, Stephen Warnock said that this move would allow Fabinho to move back in defence when he was needed.
Warnock continued to say that this would allow Thiago to operate in the middle of the engine room and do what he does best – find outrageously small pockets of space, skip around players and ping the ball all over the pitch.
The former left-back played 67 games for Liverpool, before leaving and going on to make 416 more professional appearances – most of them in the Premier League.
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"He said: “If you were to buy Thiago, you could almost move Fabinho back into the central defensive role, as and when you need to.“If you play him centre-back, he can almost stride out of defence with the ball and you know you’ve got a centre-midfielder striding into those positions. Then you’ve got quality ball players all over the park who want the ball.”"
Fabinho has played in that position before, and grew up as a right-back before moving into his current position.
This would be a very FSG move to make. They’re always looking at different ways to save money, and the COVID-19 financial landscape means they might have to search harder than ever before.
Sporting director Micheal Edwards always has his eye on a bargain, and bringing Thiago Alcantara in for just £27 million would be a steal based on his ability, and it would prevent the need to replace Dejan Lovren.
That is a little bit of a risky solution. Joe Gomez and Joel Matip aren’t physically reliable. Both have been injury prone over the past couple of seasons, and Klopp won’t want to get to a stage where Virgil van Dijk and Fabinho are the only defensive options for an extended period of time.
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It could work, though. It could be so crazy that it just might work.