One prominent Liverpool journalist has advised Reds supporters to ‘keep an eye on’ a Ligue 1 defender in the final week of the summer transfer window.
David Lynch has said that Jurgen Klopp’s side hold an interest in Arthur Theate of Rennes, with the 23-year-old reportedly available for around £30m in the current market.
The reporter outlined that a concrete move for the Belgian centre-back has yet to materialise, although he stated that the defender is ‘a name to keep an eye on in the upcoming days’ (via DaveOCKOP).
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Perhaps one of Theate’s strongest advantages from a Liverpool perspective is his left-footedness, with all of Klopp’s current centre-back options predominantly right-footed (Transfermarkt).
It’s a niche in the Reds’ squad which could do with addressing, and efforts to rectify that void were made with an unsuccessful pursuit of Chelsea’s Levi Colwill earlier this summer.
Despite his imposing 6 foot 3 frame, the Belgian is more of a ball-playing defender than a hulking centre-back beast, as highlighted by statistics from FBref.
He ranks among the top 2% of positional peers in Europe’s five main leagues for progressive passes per 90 over the past year (6.63), yet is only in the 43rd percentile for aerial duels won with 1.94 per game.
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Also, while some of Liverpool’s current central defenders are sadly prone to injury – Ibrahima Konate is a doubt for the Newcastle game on Sunday – Theate has only been forcibly sidelined for one match in his club career so far (Transfermarkt), a reliability which’ll surely endear him to Klopp.
This could be one of those moves which gathers sudden yet unstoppable momentum towards the end of a transfer window, much like the recent coup of Wataru Endo, and it’ll be interesting to see if the Reds go for the Rennes centre-back in the coming days.
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