Rumour Mongering: Liverpool Interested in Schalke Centre-Back

Liverpool are going to be a top destination this summer after winning the Premier League and it remains to be seen how exactly FSG approach building the depth the team needs to retain both the Premier League title and go for a few more while they’re at it. While whatever plan they have is taking shape, we’re going to see a lot of rumours fly past us, however.

Like this one: Liverpool — per reports in German newspaper, Bild — are eyeing Schalke centre-back Ozan Kabak as a replacement for Dejan Lovren who, per reports in a lot of other places (including from Paul Joyce at The Times) is well on his way to St. Petersburg to join Russian Premier League winners, Zenit.

The 20-year-old Turkish international comes with a pricetag of €35M (£31.8M), however, which seems a bit steep considering Liverpool are looking to get roughly £10.9M from the Lovren deal. Is Kabak worth that much money? Maybe. He’s a regular starter with Schalke, has decent defensive stats, and seems to be a very promising young player.

More importantly, Kabak’s hero is Virgil van Dijk:

“My personal aim is to become a top defender in maybe two or three years, like Virgil van Dijk. He’s my idol, I really like him,” the defender said earlier this season. “I like his style and how he plays, so I can say he’s my football idol.”

All this said, it’s worth taking all of this with a grain or seventeen of salt because just last week Kabak was being linked to Spurs via Turkish media sources, and before that with Juventus and Borussia Dortmund. The chances of all this being an agent-driven ploy to get a better contract for the 20-year-old are pretty high.