Ozan Kabak will wear the no.19 at Liverpool after his loan was confirmed last night.
The Reds will pay Schalke a small fee for the right to have the Turk on loan until the summer and have the option of making his deal permanent for £18m.
The 20-year-old has chosen the no.19 shirt, previously worn by Sadio Mane and Steven Caulker! Let’s hope he becomes as renowned as the former and not so much the latter – who was also a last-minute January signing back in 2016.
There have been lots of descriptions on Kabak, but perhaps none more interesting than from Sven Mislintat, who used to work with Jurgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund, was head scout at Arsenal and now the director of football at Stuttgart.
“I told Jurgen that he’s a top lad. He’s a (Dejan) Lovren-type player. Very good in the air, both defensively and in the opposition box,” he told the Athletic.
As Liverpool fans who watched Lovren for six years, we very much hope he’s akin to the Croat who turned up on a good day and not a bad day.
Physically and technically, he had everything – his decision making was just rash and he was prone to a blunder when games got frantic.
Lovren did however massively improve with the calmness of Virgil van Dijk alongside him, so perhaps that’s something that’ll eventually help Kabak, too.