Former Liverpool striker Michael Owen thinks it will be extremely tough for Liverpool to sign a world-class forward this summer due to the quality they already have in their squad.

With doubts surrounding the futures of both Daniel Sturridge and Divock Origi, Liverpool look set to go into the market for a striker at the end of the season but Owen thinks they’ll find it difficult to get a top-tier forward to Anfield.

Speaking after a training session with the Liverpool Legends ahead of their upcoming game against AC Milan Glorie in March, Owen said:

It’d be so much easier if you’re a scout or in the recruitment department of any other club bar the top six. How can you recruit someone and they say ‘Am I going to start?’ and you say ‘No, Salah’s going to start.’

Owen scored 158 goals in 297 games for Liverpool between 1997 and 2004 so he knows a thing or two about strikers and he thinks the Reds might either have to go for an experienced player who is happy to play as a squad player, or for a young hotshot who can learn from the likes of Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.

You can’t go and get an absolute top-liner unless they’ve only got a couple of seasons left of their career or you go and buy the next really good young thing and almost bleed him in for a year or so. To go and get someone in the guts of their career [aged] 24 or 25 who is top of the tree, it’s so hard and that’s the only type of player who can improve teams if they’re world class.

Whatever happens between now and the end of the season, it looks like the Reds will go into the market for at least one striker this year and Owen says the recruitment staff at Liverpool will need to work extremely hard to find a player of suitable quality who is willing to play second-fiddle to the club’s current front three.

It’s so hard to get somebody that’s going to improve your team unless you’re unhappy with one of the players in your team and you go to replace them with a world class player but Liverpool have got a great front three so if they’re going to buy then you’d think it’d be one of the options I’ve just mentioned.