Journalist claims Liverpool have been ‘offered’ dribbling wizard who was strongly linked in 2023
Liverpool have reportedly been offered another opportunity to sign a player with whom they were heavily linked in 2023.
Last summer, the Reds had made contact with Manu Kone’s representatives about a possible move to Anfield, although nothing concrete materialised in that regard.
However, according to Dean Jones on the Ranks FC Ultras Podcast, the 23-year-old Borussia Monchengladbach midfielder has been ‘offered’ to Arne Slot’s side along with a few other teams in the English top flight.
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The journalist said: “Manu Kone is good, but I don’t think he’s good enough to improve that midfield, is he? I was a bit underwhelmed by it, to be honest.
“He is being offered. Four or five clubs in the Premier League are being made aware of his availability at the moment, and Liverpool are one of them, so there is something in that from that sense.”
As we now know, Liverpool are pursuing a defensive midfielder from outside the Premier League, and it’s a position that Kone has frequently played during his career.
However, David Ornstein said that the Reds have ‘identified a target’ for that role, and with Jones detailing that the Monchengladbach man was ‘offered’ to us, we can assume he isn’t the unnamed player mentioned in The Athletic‘s report on Tuesday.
That notwithstanding, could the 23-year-old be worth investing in for LFC? He’s played 79 times in one of Europe’s biggest leagues in the Bundesliga and still has the bulk of his career ahead of him, so he’d represent a long-term option in the middle of the park.
As per FBref, Kone is a superb dribbler (his average of 2.13 successful take-ons per game is among the top 2% of positional peers on the continent), but for many other key performance metrics he compares less than favourably with other players in his position at the highest level in Europe.
We agree with Jones’ assessment of the Frenchman – he’s a good player who could be a more than useful asset to many teams, but he doesn’t strike us as an improvement on what Liverpool already have in midfield, and we don’t envisage Richard Hughes moving for him this month.
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