Liverpool are certainly getting into the swing of things in the early days of this summer’s transfer window. After announcing the signing of James Milner from Manchester City on a free transfer last week, the Reds have now followed that up by landing Danny Ings from Burnley for an as-yet undecided fee, while Bolton Wanderers goalkeeper Adam Bogdan is also expected to join the club for free in the coming few days.
That makes a goalkeeper, a midfielder and a striker that the Anfield club have already recruited, yet Reds boss Brendan Rodgers knows that further strengthening is needed before he can deem it a successful summer. So potent when spearheaded by Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge during that near-glorious 2013/14 campaign, the way in which Liverpool’s attacking force regressed last season was painful to witness for both fans and manager alike.
While Sturridge remains at the club (albeit in a seemingly permanent state of convalescence), Rodgers has failed to find an adequate replacement for Suarez since his £75 million sale to Barcelona, with Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert – last year’s striking recruits – falling well short of the mark.
Two players the Reds have been repeatedly linked with are Aston Villa forward Christian Benteke and West Bromwich Albion hitman Saido Berahino, and with both being young, proven in the Premier League and apparently keen to move on to bigger things, signing one of them would certainly be an upgrade on Liverpool’s current striking misfits. But which one would be the best fit at Anfield?
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Benteke’s magnificent renaissance with Villa in the latter half of last season suggested that his blip during the previous campaign under then-manager Paul Lambert was due to the Scot’s failure to make the most of the striker’s greatest strengths, rather than any inadequacy on the player’s behalf in dealing with the demands of Premier League football.
Tim Sherwood – who replaced Lambert in February – saw that Benteke’s brute physicality and strength could be maximised to devastating effect, as the Belgian battered and barged past countless defenders on the way to scoring twelve goals in fifteen games for Sherwood’s rejuvenated Villa side.
However, as effective a striker as the Belgian may be, there are reasons to doubt whether he would truly be a good fit for the Reds. Rodgers has always favoured quick, technically gifted attackers at Anfield, capable of taking on, running in behind and beating defenders with their pace and trickery. The ideal Liverpool striker in Rodgers’ view is a player who doesn’t rely too heavily on his height or strength, and is no mere focal point for a barrage of long balls or crosses from out wide – hence the Northern Irishman’s decision to offload Andy Carroll soon after he became Liverpool boss in 2012.
While there is no denying that Benteke possesses significantly superior technical skills to Carroll, and is a far better player than a bog-standard target man, his lack of pace and relative weakness at beating defenders in one-on-one situations means he may struggle to adapt to the high-pressing, high-intensity style of play implemented by Rodgers at the Merseyside club.
Such a player could theoretically thrive in a striking partnership with the more conventional Rodgers forward – see Liverpool’s 3-0 drubbing of Tottenham at White Hart Lane early last season as a prime example, where Daniel Sturridge and Mario Balotelli complemented each other brilliantly – but given how often Sturridge is injured, and how badly Balotelli struggled while leading the attack on his own, it represents too great a gamble.
Saido Berahino, on the other hand, is much better suited for the current Liverpool side. The England youngster is a supremely gifted footballer and is only getting better, scoring 20 goals in all competitions for the Baggies last season.
The 21-year-old is in many ways similar to Reds attacker Raheem Sterling; lightning quick, skilful and capable of changing a game with one moment of magic, the prospect of seeing the duo team up at Anfield is certainly an exciting one.
And yet things are never that easy with Liverpool; not only has Sterling expressed his strong desire to leave the club this summer, but his agent Aidy Ward is the very man who represents Berahino. Relations between the Reds hierarchy and Ward are toxic at best after the agent made a number of barbed comments in the media, leading to the club cancelling a scheduled meeting where they were due to discuss Sterling’s future.
And so Brendan Rodgers faces something of a dilemma if he is to make a move for one of his two preferred targets; does he opt for Benteke – an excellent striker who may nevertheless find it difficult to adapt to the Liverpool system – or Berahino, a player who is for all intents and purposes better suited for the Reds but whose representative is very much a persona non grata at Anfield?
Of course, Rodgers may have identified other striking targets, and his interest in these two early-summer favourites may wane between now and the start of the new season.
Whatever happens, an intriguing couple of months await for Liverpool.
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