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Once a rumoured Liverpool transfer target, always a rumoured Liverpool transfer target. Just ask Arda Turan. Or perhaps ask Ezeqiel Lavezzi, who has again been linked with a move to Anfield despite the fact that all the previous occurrences of his being linked to Anfield went all of nowhere and never found substantiation by way of confirmation from journalists with ties to the club.
Still, the 29-year-old PSG winger is a recognisable name. Someone just short of being a genuine star these days and who, in his Napoli prime, was perhaps the best traditional winger on the planet. That makes him an easy name for the rumour mongers at The Mirror to toss out again, like chum to the sharks, with Liverpool in need of a bit of attacking help this season, even if Lavezzi isn’t the finisher the club needs.
As the rumour has it, PSG are looking to move on from Lavezzi and are chasing Benfica’s 23-year-old attacking midfielder Nicolas Gaitan. And, if they land him this month, they have already made clubs aware that Lavezzi would be available for a cut-rate £8M, with Liverpool’s supposed past interest placing them in pole position to land the Argentine winger’s services at a price that would be hard to pass up.
Even at a price that’s hard to pass up, though, Lavezzi doesn’t fill a position of need for Liverpool. He’s a pure winger, and his goal return reflects that. This season, he has scored twice in 667 minutes of action. He has never scored more than nine league goals in his time in Europe, even in his Napoli glory days. He may be a skilled winger, even if he’s lost a step since moving to France, but he isn’t a finisher.
And Liverpool need a finisher. The club already has players like Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana, Lazar Markovic, and Philippe Coutinho with the ability to play multiple attacking support positions—including out wide where Lavezzi is most comfortable. One could argue that if Lavezzi re-discover’s his Napoli form he would improve the squad, but whether he can do that is a question mark.
Even if he did, he would be improving Liverpool at a position of depth without solving the club’s actual problem in attack—putting balls in the back of the net and that their one proven, top quality striker has become so injury prone it would be foolish to count on him staying fit. With Liverpool appearing not to have a great deal of cash to throw around, then, it would seem to make a move for Lavezzi unlikely.
It would at the very least make such a move a touch foolish were Liverpool actually considering it. So far, though, there appears little reason to think that this is anything more than a familiar name being linked to the club by lazy rumour mongers.
