Weaknesses:
Two years of sitting on the bench aren’t going to have aided his development or his confidence, and Rodgers must be confident that he’s still signing the player of two years ago, who cost Madrid an incredible £34m (via BBC).
Even if he can rediscover that form, this is still very much an unpolished diamond. There’s a reason that he hasn’t been able to force his way into the first-team picture at Madrid on a consistent basis, and the overriding fact of the matter is that he simply isn’t quite good enough at this stage.
The Spanish giants are never going to be one who put much effort into improving players such as this, as they’re always going to be capable of buying a replacement. He’ll struggle in the air and his tackling can be a little wild at time, due to his enthusiasm and desire to reclaim the ball.
How he would fit in at Liverpool:
He’d be a direct replacement for Lucas. This would give Brendan Rodgers a big selection headache – because this is a player who is going to expect to play regularly. We’ve seen us employ three central midfielders in the past – with Emre Can playing alongside Jordan Henderson and James Milner – but with Joe Allen still to come back in as well, competition for places is going to be incredibly high.
It’s hard to argue with the fact that this would be a quality addition for us, but it’ll be even harder to keep everyone happy. The likely scenario would be that Can would drop further down the pecking order, which would be a crying shame for a player in the most important years of his development.
