Initial interest reported by Joyce in this article: Rio Ngumoha, 16, and Hugo Ekitike live up to hype as Liverpool dazzle
Since then a number of other journalists have been drawing links
Di Marzio was (unsure if still is) good usually for Italian players.
If not enough for a thread feel free to delete, but there’s a fair bit of smoke around this move including from Joyce.
Anyone seen the requisite 10 games?
Fuck it. Bring him in!
Would he be enough cover if we don’t get Guehi? Given his age and never having played in the PL, you’d expect that he’d be behind Quansah (if he was still here) so he’d have to be a fourth choice rather than a third choice surely? Maybe the club have faith in JoGo getting minutes?
I think someone like Leoni surely has to be in addition to Guehi, and not an alternative. Perhaps tie him up now, keep him on loan at Parma for another year, and bring him back next year. Joe Gomez will only have a year left on his contract by then, so we’ll know what’s happening with him. He’s played 12 times in Serie B and 17 times in Serie A. At his age, it’ll be better for him to have that game time for another year, and then come in, and still have the chance to learn from VVD.
I’d hope so too.
Not a fan of that as, if we want him now or next season as potentially an extra body (4th/5th choice CB depending on JoGo), then he needs to adjust to playing in our system and seeing the PL up close.
From what little I’ve seen of him on YouTube, I can understand why the club has him at the top of their list. However, I doubt Slot would let him play. Slot would always prefer an Endo or Gravenberg. The boy would cost an incredible amount of money and barely get any playing time anyway. Maybe if he would be happy to go out on loan anywhere.
Even Guehi would have to fight for his minutes first, or someone would have to get injured. So, I think he’s great… but Slot is no Jürgen Klopp, who has always given young players a chance or dared to put his trust in them. I think the boy would just be unhappy here.
This is more of a general post about the CB options flying around currently, and this is just my on-the-back-of-a-napkin ponderings but:
I think Plan A is to extend Konate, sign Guehi and sign Leoni. For this season (and maybe into next) Guehi is 3rd choice and Leoni 4th choice (with Gomez being a nice-to-have rather than someone we count on), but longer term Guehi, who prefers playing as LCB, steps up to replace Virgil, and when Konate eventually leaves, Leoni will be a good age to step up to replace him.
I think the Collins interest is there in case we’re not able to extend Konate’s contract.
Hasn’t he played about 6 in his career? 
I know what you mean. I just feel that with a talent that he is already, featuring in first team games in Serie A, it’d be beneficial for him to continue that for another year, iron out any errors and mistakes, and he can come in as an even better defensive prospect.
Why would Slot prefer Grav or Endo ?
Imo Slot has already shown that he isn’t taking risks and always picks the same trusted players, and he isn’t rotating the team much anyway. He hasn’t played regularly youth players last season at all. Apart from that, the step from Italy to Liverpool would be really really big. So I don’t believe the boy would get some minutes this season . But that’s just my opinion
If the club buys him now, it’s not because Slot thinks the boy will help him, but because he’s someone long-term for the future.
This season will be he one where we see that. He rotated regularly between Gakpo, Diaz, and Jota. He didn’t rotate the players he didn’t trust, i.e. Quansah.
This season the players at his disposal are the ones he trusts from Klopp’s squad, and his own players. If he still doesn’t rotate now then that’d be a fair comment, but last season I think it was clear what he wanted and what Klopp wanted from players was different. With Klopp effort would overcome certain faults in play style. With Slot it seems as though play style comes first and if you don’t fit in with how he wants to play you won’t get game time
Well, I’m actually talking mostly about young players. We’ll see what happens with Rio. Slot could have brought him in, but he preferred to use Endo and even Elliott. I agree with you on the other point, though. We’ll see.
If we bought Leoni then loaned him back to Parma, would he still count as homegrown in 3 years time? Or bought and loaned to another PL or Championship side?
Lets see how that pitch goes down in Parma…
Three Leonis on the shirt… Sorry.
This has purchase and then immediately loan out written all over it.
