Empire of the Kop
·16 dicembre 2024
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Yahoo sportsEmpire of the Kop
·16 dicembre 2024
A penny for the thoughts of Stefan Bajcetic and Bobby Clark following news of Pep Lijnders’ sacking at RB Salzburg.
Jurgen Klopp’s former assistant has officially parted ways with the Austrian outfit following an unsavoury run of three wins in his last 10 games across all competitions.
Salzburg sit in fifth place in the Austrian Bundesliga and five places from the bottom of the Champions League table.
It remains to be seen what former colleague Jurgen Klopp thinks about the decision made by his new employers 16 days ahead of taking up his role as the drinks company’s global head of football.
(Photo by Lars Baron/Getty Images)
Spare another penny for the thoughts of Clark who, unlike our young holding midfielder, agreed a permanent transfer to RB Salzburg back in the summer. Bajcetic, at the very least, has an out by the following summer window at the latest.
As we steadily approach the January transfer window, this development raises a potentially interesting question for Arne Slot and his recruitment team.
The 20-year-old has played relatively frequently under Lijnders’ watch, managing 18 appearances and 890 minutes worth of first-team football – almost quadruple what he picked up last term at Liverpool (234).
Of course, there can be no guarantees of this flow of game time continuing under a new manager.
There’s a growing sense around Liverpool Football Club that we’d benefit from having another body in the midfield.
Just to be clear, it’s a notion we’d wholeheartedly agree with here at Empire of the Kop.
The burning question, then, is which section of the midfield most needs bolstering. In our view, and bearing in mind some worrying comments made by Slot following a 3-3 draw at St James’ Park earlier this month, we’d love to see some cover brought in for Ryan Gravenberch.
Liverpool’s interest in Martin Zubimendi is understood to remain, though we have some doubts over whether it would be possible to extract the Spaniard from Real Sociedad in the middle of the season.
In that case, might young Stefan Bajcetic offer a reasonable immediate solution? Provided we’re capable of recalling the 20-year-old from his loan at Salzburg, that is!