Is Wilfried Bony Good Enough for Liverpool FC?

So, Luis has gone. That much is done and dusted. The hard work now begins to find a player that can slip seamlessly into his place, giving the fans a player that they can attach their hopes and dreams to, who is also capable of delivering in a big way. This is not going to be easy.

However many attacking players are brought in before the season begins, one of them is going to be deemed as Suarez’s ‘replacement’, and it will more than likely be the most expensive one. With that in mind, one name which has come up a great deal in the past few days (for a pretty hefty sum too), and is likely to continue to until the club spends a bit of the Suarez money, is Swansea striker Wilfried Bony.

This is a proposition that’s almost certain to divide fans enormously as, for a start, the player just doesn’t have that… tangible something about him that many will feel is a requirement. He has one full season at Premier League level and his previous clubs have included Dutch minnows, Vitesse Arnhem, and Czech side, Sparta Prague. Neither club is exactly at the forefront of the footballing world.

Nonetheless, Bony has impressed at each club he’s been at, scoring 30 in 75 for Sparta, and 53 in 73 for Vitesse, culminating in a Golden Shoe (Eredivisie’s equivalent of Player of the Year) winning final season at Vitesse where he scored 37 in 36. Many Reds will no doubt remember this is something Luis Suarez won the season before he joined Liverpool.

Bony’s first season at Swansea was also a resounding success, scoring on both his Europa and Premier League debuts for Swansea. The Ivorian would go on to score 25 goals in all competitions for a side that, at times, toyed with relegation. In what turned out an otherwise underwhelming season for the club, Bony was one of the few highlights scoring over a third of his sides goals throughout the season, as well as chipping in with another 6 assists.

Still, with more illustrious names available, it is perhaps understandable that Liverpool fans are beside themselves that the club don’t seem to be chasing any genuine ‘names’ or recognized world class stars but the transfer window is only 12 days old, and many things can happen between now and the end of the window.

One thing is sure though, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better striker in the Premier League, unless we were to sell Daniel Sturridge back to ourselves, and provided the price is right, Bony could prove to be a great acquisition and would mean Liverpool once again had 2 of the Premier League’s top 5 goalscorers from last season.

The only problem is that, as mentioned earlier, the fee required to get Bony is far too much and, if he was signed, would be interpreted as a direct replacement for Suarez and that will just not cut it for many fans, considering this was the summer that Champions League football was meant to signal the return of to the top tier of the transfer market for Liverpool.

Would Bony be a good signing for Liverpool? Or should Brendan Rodgers be setting his sights higher?