Reports: Toby Alderweireld Targeted by Liverpool

After taking up most of the digital ink early in the summer, Kyriakos Papadopoulos has well and truly fallen off the radar--Liverpool reportedly had strong interest and wanted to make a deal work, but Schalke's valuation was apparently far higher than Liverpool were willing to pay, and suddenly Liverpool's top transfer target of the early summer is nowhere to be seen. With him out of the picture, focus has now shifted to Ajax defender Toby Alderweireld, with Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reporting that Liverpool are working to get a deal done.

Alderweireld's name has been kicked around from time to time, but discussion about him as a realistic target for Liverpool all but ended when it looked as though Sami Hyypia's Bayer Leverkusen were close to a deal. Now Alderweireld's agent has stated there won't be any deal, with Leverkusen instead focused on bringing in Anderlecht's Guillaume Gillet.

As with everything else in the transfer window--especially when an agent is involved--It's hard to say whether or not there's anything in this, but it's a name that hasn't gone away, and it wouldn't be a complete shock if Liverpool's interest piqued with Leverkusen out of the picture and Papadopoulos fading from view. Whether or not he's the signing the club need for right now is up for debate; he's been very good with Ajax and is part of a Belgium setup that's only getting better, but I don't know if he slots in straightaway alongside Daniel Agger.

Whatever the case, he's got a video, so that means we should probably watch it.