“Quality” player could be key to unlocking major Liverpool transfer deal | OneFootball

Liverpool are reportedly ready to try offering cash plus a player in their bid to seal the ambitious transfer of Real Madrid midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni.

The France international has often been linked with Liverpool, with a recent report from Defensa Central claiming the Reds were keen on him in a potential €100m deal.

Now another report from Defensa Central claims Liverpool could try to get Tchouameni’s asking price down by offering Ryan Gravenberch to the Spanish giants along with around €30m in cash.

This is a bit of a surprise given how important Gravenberch has become for Liverpool since Arne Slot became manager.

It’s fair to say it took the Netherlands international a little while to fully settle in at Anfield, and we didn’t really see the best of him under Jurgen Klopp last term.

Ryan Gravenberch and Aurelien Tchouameni (Photo by Shaun Botterill, Rafa Babot/Getty Images)

Now, however, it’s not clear LFC would be getting an upgrade if they exchanged Gravenberch for Tchouameni.

Arne Slot is a big fan of Ryan Gravenberch

Slot has previously heaped praise on Gravenberch for the quality he brings to his team, so it doesn’t exactly sound like he’d be that thrilled to lose the 22-year-old to a big club like Real Madrid.

“It’s about Ryan’s quality but also the amount of times [the centre-backs] play balls through to Ryan where he can turn and play his passes to attackers, that makes it a team performance,” Slot was quoted by the Independent earlier this season.

“If you look at all the signings the club has made, most players were aged under 24, 25. You expect players at 22, 23 in this environment to progress.

“So it’s not that big a surprise that if you bring qualities like Gravenberch has, you start to work with him, have the right programme and he has the teammates he has, that he progresses and that’s what we’re seeing.

“Now it’s up to him to keep the standards he has at this moment. And that’s a challenge because he has to play every three days, he hasn’t played a lot last season. Now he already played more 90s [minute games] than in the last two seasons so it’s interesting to see how he copes with it. Until now he does really well.”