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Liverpool certainly aren't messing about on this one: just hours after rumors of interest cropped up, Liverpool have lodged an official bid for Rickie Lambert, reportedly offering £4 million plus addons to Southampton for the striker.
The Echo phrases it as Liverpool "closing in" on a transfer, and given all the fluttering about that journalists are doing on Twitter right now, it seems like this has real legs to it and could be done before too much longer. It's a pretty reasonable fee for a 32-year-old striker who'd mostly be a backup, and if the talk of the contract being for just two years is true, it's hard to find much fault in the deal.
It's a deal that makes a lot of sense for both Liverpool and Lambert. Liverpool would another body in to it's striker rotation, and Lambert adds another tactical option to Brendan Rodgers' already teeming list of choices. He's also got a pretty nifty free kick in him, which will be handy in matches where Luis Suarez is out or to just try and confuse defenses with both lining up over the ball.
For Lambert, the move would give him probably the only crack at Champions League football his career will see, and would give him the chance to come home to Merseyside and become a conquering hero. Pretty much a win-win for all involved.
Some are espousing that this could mean the end for Fabio Borini at Anfield, but given that they offer two very different skillsets, there's little reason to think that they couldn't co-exist, especially with Champions League football on the offing. If anything, this heralds an almost-certain end to the Iago Aspas Experiment, something that I'm sure dozens of Liverpool fans will be upset about.
