Liverpool are keeping tabs on Toulouse full-back Mathieu Goncalves, according to L’Equipe.
The 18-year-old full-back has featured regularly for the French side so far this season, and is also capable of playing at centre-back.
It is understood, however, that the Reds are keen to see how he develops with a full campaign under his belt, although the report does suggest that Juventus are also heavily interested in his progress.
OPINION
To be fair to Liverpool, this seems like a very smart thing to do. All too often, we hear about teenage prodigies breaking into first teams like this and garnering a whole load of attention, only for them to stutter or fall away in their development and not ever reach the heights they were expected to. It’s impressive that Goncalves is already playing first team football, but at the end of the day he has just four Ligue 1 matches to his name, and there is simply no way of properly knowing how good a player is after such a short period of time. Moreover, his performances have hardly been earth shattering. His highest Whoscored rating over those four matches was just 6.53, and he hasn’t won more than two tackles in any single game. His versatility is a plus, and nobody is bashing him for his output, largely because he is so far ahead of the curve, but all things considered, a little bit of patience might be a good thing.
