OPINION
Centre back may not appear to be a glaring need for Liverpool, but that hasn’t stopped Jurgen Klopp sending scouts to watch Real Sociedad defender Diego Llorente twice recently.
Spanish outlet Cadena SER reported recently that the Reds had watched Llorente in action for Sociedad in a 3-1 La Liga win against Levante and in Spain’s defeat to Croatia on Thursday.
Llorente has missed significant time this season with a knee injury, but has done enough since returning to earn a call up to the most recent Spain squad.
The 25-year-old is a product of Real Madrid’s youth academy but truly exploded during last campaign with Sociedad, scoring seven times in 34 games in all competitions for Asier Garitano’s side.
He is as adept at keeping goals out as he is at scoring them, though. Llorente is an assured defender who has really found his feet in recent years.
Obviously Liverpool have a coterie of centre back options already, but only Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez are seemingly locked down as first team mainstays in the long term.
Dejan Lovren is 29 years of age and is famously inconsistent, while Joel Matip cannot penetrate the starting line up at Anfield. Surely neither of those players will be happy playing second fiddle to the Van Dijk-Gomez partnership for much longer.
With that in mind, a move for Llorente makes perfect sense. He would ensure that Van Dijk and Gomez stay on their toes and don’t rest on their laurels in the heart of the Liverpool defence.
He would also give Klopp the tactical flexibility to be able to switch to a five man backline if required, something that would bring out the best in Reds full backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson.
It won’t be long before all of Europe’s major superpowers are targeting Llorente, so Liverpool must ensure that they seal a deal for him soon before it’s too late.
