Parallels drawn to Andy Robertson with Liverpool signing who hasn't played a SINGLE minute
Have to feel a bit for Ozan Kabak.
Liverpool will not be looking to part ways with Ben Davies this summer, according to James Pearce.
Jurgen Klopp apparently sees similarities between the centre-half and Andy Robertson, who became the Reds’ first-choice left-back after an injury took out Alberto Moreno in the latter end of 2017.
“Ben Davies didn’t play a single minute after his move from Championship club Preston North End for an initial fee of £500,000 midway through the season,” the journalist wrote for The Athletic.
“The 25-year-old defender has been told that Klopp sees parallels with how Andrew Robertson needed months to adjust to the team’s style of play when he arrived from Hull City in the summer of 2017.
“Liverpool aren’t currently looking to off-load Davies, who will be assessed along with Phillips and Williams in pre-season before decisions on their futures are made.
“Much will depend on what kind of shape Van Dijk, Gomez and Matip are in, and whether they are properly fit to start the new campaign when it kicks off on August 14.”
With Ozan Kabak told to pack his bags and make his way back home to parent club Schalke 04, the decision to hold on to Liverpool’s resident ghost in the former Preston North End man is rather mind-boggling.
Admittedly, we’ve not seen much of the Englishman beyond an opening interview and the odd picture of him in the stands, yet this makes keeping him even more bizarre.
As brilliant as Nathaniel Phillips and Rhys Williams have been when called upon, the possibility of a future where the former is sold on to capitalise on his value and the latter is loaned out remains.
Having had a taste of first-team action too, few could blame Phillips if he asked for an exit to get regular minutes elsewhere, and Williams is far from being a convincing option if the likes of Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez need more time to recover at the start of the season.
As such, a starting lineup then consisting of Ibrahima Konate and Davies come the 14th August hardly screams world-beating, does it?
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves - let’s rewind to comparisons with the circumstances that brought Robertson to the fore of Klopp’s selection plans.
It’s difficult to envisage a scenario where a player brought in specifically to reinforce a backline absolutely savaged (even that seems to be putting the direness of our crisis mildly) by injuries doesn’t play a single minute.
The only comparable situation we could draw upon would be as if Jurgen had brought in Robertson to act as an understudy to Moreno and then relied upon a variation of Emre Can and Adam Lewis to provide cover.
Except, that didn’t happen; Klopp put his faith in the summer signing from relegated outfit Hull City and we haven’t looked back since.
It just doesn’t add up.
It’s possible, of course, that selling the player, now that we have better options set to return, isn’t on the cards given that we’re still dealing with the financial ramifications of COVID-19, and that we’re merely protecting the defender’s confidence.
But then it’s difficult to see how the decision-makers at Liverpool didn’t see a future for an impressive Kabak who became a mainstay in the back four up until his injury in the latter end of the season.
We know that Klopp loves to find solutions within his squad rather than dip into the transfer market where possible but the German may be clutching at straws in this instance.
Either way, dependent on what happens with the likes of Phillips and Williams, not to mention the fitness of our first-choice centre-back duo, a further defensive signing beyond Konate may be necessary to relieve some concerns ahead of the next campaign.
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