Liverpool’s impressive start to the season has been lauded by pundits, the media, fans and ex-players. Their breathtaking attacking play has saw the Reds pick up wins against Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester as well as coming away from matches against an undefeated Spurs side and a well organised Manchester United team without a loss.
People have started to ask the inevitable question – Can Liverpool really challenge for the title?
While it may a little premature to be asking such a question it is starting to become a little difficult to ignore just how valid their claim to the Premier League title is. As previously mentioned, they’ve already faced three of the newly accepted ‘top 4’ in Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United and they’ve come away from these matches with 7 points.
Even more impressive when you consider they played two of those matches away from home. Klopp’s side also came away from White Hart Lane without suffering a loss.
Their only hiccup this season so far arrived away at Turf Moor. Burnley caught the Liverpool cold and came away with a 2-0 win. Yet despite this, their only loss of the season, the Reds have conceded the second most goals in the Premier League’s top 10 (10) with only Watford (13) having had a more porous defence. If they keep conceding at this current rate they’re on course to finish the season having conceded 48 goals – just 2 goals fewer than last season.
It’s no secret that Liverpool have defensive frailties. As Jurgen Klopp alluded to on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football show, his side don’t deal well with high balls into the box. They conceded soft goals to Hull City and Swansea from set pieces and then lapses of concentration enabled Leicester City and Chelsea to get back into matches. They may not have been costly yet but getting away with three points after conceding sloppy, preventable goals isn’t sustainable and Liverpool will eventually be caught out by it.
Against Manchester United the Reds kept their first clean sheet in the Premier League since their 2-0 win against Watford back in early May. Clean sheets don’t tell the whole story but it must be a concern if Liverpool are consistently conceding goals despite not really being troubled. Individual mistakes and players switching off seem to be the root cause.
Klopp brought in defensive reinforcements in the summer in the form of Joel Matip and Ragnar Klavan. Both have impressed individually but neither have been able to prevent Liverpool conceding the soft goals they’re now infamous for. Their new ‘keeper, Loris Karius, arrived from Mainz 05 and even though his style is much better suited to what the German manager wants from his side Karius isn’t the sort of ‘keeper that commands his area when balls are coming into the box.
With this in mind, it’s no surprise that the Liverpool transfer rumours mill is in overdrive as the January transfer window nears ever closer.
The Reds have already been linked with a move for Paris-Saint Germain’s newest star Presnel Kimpembe as well as apparently rekindling their interest in Bayer Leverkusen’s tank of a defender Jonathan Tah and Hoffenheim’s giant defender Niklas Sule.
But according to the Daily Star Sunday, Liverpool are interested in a Hoffenheim defender but it’s not Niklas Sule. Instead, the paper suggests Klopp wants to bring Swiss International centre-back Fabian Schar to Anfield in January. It’s a move that would make a lot of sense for both the player and the club.
When Schar swapped Switzerland for Germany in the summer of 2015 it was a move that shocked many. At Basel he was playing in Europe regularly and had an army of admirers with Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Juventus and Napoli all reportedly interested in signing him. So when he signed for Hoffenheim in a deal reported to be worth £5 million it left many scratching their head.
Since his move, the 24-year-old has gone off the radar. He’s only started 22 times in the Bundesliga in just over a season with the club. New Hoffenheim manager Julian Nagelsmann has experimented with a couple of formations this season, including a back three formation, and Schar doesn’t seem to be involved in his thinking with the centre-back role going to Niklas Sule.
If Schar did want to move in a search for first-team football then Liverpool should be at the front of the queue ready to court him. As a player he’s far from perfect but at this moment in time, he may be perfect for the Reds.
It’s clear that Klopp needs a defender who is not just aerially dominant but also good with the ball at their feet. In Schar’s debut season at Hoffenheim, as per Whoscored.com, he averaged 38 passes and completed 79% of them as well as winning 1.7 aerial duels per 90 minutes. To go alongside those stats he won 1.3 tackles and 2.2 Interceptions per 90 minutes.
Defensive stats are difficult to judge because it’s very much dependant on the system they’re playing in but what these stats do show is he’s good on the ball and he has a good reading of the game.
What really stands out is his passing ability. He doesn’t just keep them simple. He’s as comfortable playing a chipped 40-yard pass with an insane amount of backspin over the defence as he is playing a 5-yard pass to the midfielder ahead of him. The difference Joel Matip has made to the Liverpool defence in terms of being able to build from the back is noticeable already. Putting a player like Schar beside him would take Liverpool’s ability to build from the back to a whole other level. At the reported £9 million he would be a shrewd signing in today’s inflated market.
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