:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49689015/525624526.0.jpg)
There were always going to be players who left at the end of the season, players like Kolo Toure, who isn’t expected to be given a new deal by the club despite that he was their best performer in the Europa League final. Similarly, there were always going to be players who were sold. There always are. The only question there ever is is who.
A surprise contender for Liverpool’s first senior player sold this summer has arrived today in the form of 20-year-old Jordon Ibe, who the Liverpool Echo have reported the club are expecting to receive offers for—and with the paper admitting his future at Anfield remains in doubt, there’s every chance one of those offers could, in the end, lead to a sale.
After a promising loan spell and a few sparking cameos last season, Ibe entered into the season in high regard. The club even shipped out the previous summer’s £20M winger signing, Lazar Markovic, loaning him out to clear room for Ibe and making him the only senior winger at the club. It’s a decision the club soon came to regret, as Ibe struggled.
He remains one of the club’s most physically talented youngsters, but many have long worried that his technical game hasn’t been developing to match his physical skill. That his approach to the game today is the same as it was when he was 16-year-old breaking through at Wycombe. His talent and potential seemed clear, but he simply wasn’t developing.
Ibe is still young, not turning 21 until late in the year, and not every player grows in a linear fashion month to month and year to year. There’s every chance, based on what Ibe does do well, that he can still come good. It would seem, though, that there are serious doubts at the club as to whether he ever will if they are now open to hearing offers for him.
If those reports are to be believed, there are also clubs who have been keeping tabs on Ibe and could soon be making those offers, most notably Southampton and Watford. Given his clear talents, though, and how highly regarded he is as one of England’s brightest winger prospects, it will have to be a significant offer to convince Liverpool to sell.