Rumour Mongering: Reds Return for Roma Left Back

Liverpool’s attack looked to be the side’s strength heading into the season and, nearly four months in, there’s no surprises there. If there’s one area the club don’t need to look at strengthening in the short term, it’s that. If there is another area they don’t need to strengthen, though, it’s left back.

And that’s something of a massive shock. Few would turn their noses up at bringing in a top, world class player there, but with a seemingly revived Alberto Moreno starting and Andy Robertson hardly seeing the pitch despite the fact he’s impressed any time he has, it’s not a position of need.

That hasn’t stopped the Italian press from claiming Liverpool are now desperate to sign Roma fullback Emerson Palmieri, a 23-year-old that Corriere dello Sport say the Reds would have signed over the summer for €25M were it not for the fact he was returning from a ruptured ACL.

However, it’s far from clear he’s over his injury just yet, having only returned to training with the first team six weeks ago and to the Roma bench in November. So far, he’s only made youth team appearances, and his injury was one players can take years to recover from—if they ever fully do.

It adds up to €25M for a player who was sidelined for half a year with with an anterior cruciate ligament injury and hasn’t played a minute of first team football since. That Liverpool are apparently going to totally buy now even though they don’t have an urgent need at left back.

It’s probably safe, then, to write this one off as pure, unadulterated bullshit. It doesn’t even much matter if it’s the club floating rumours so people know they’d be willing to sell, or if the player’s doing it hoping for a move, or if the Italian press is just making things up out of whole cloth.

Whatever the case, Liverpool aren’t going to be spending €25M to sign Emerson Palmieri—even by dumb Italian transfer rumour standards, this is a particularly dumb one.