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This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…
According to BBC Sport, Liverpool are interested in signing teenage centre-back Sepp van den Berg from PEC Zwolle.
What’s the word?
Ahead of a Premier League season where Liverpool will be hoping to go one better than their second place finish in 2018/19, there isn’t a huge amount of work to do in the transfer market.
The Reds have a fairly settled squad and after achieving 97 points and winning the Champions League, there aren’t too many reasons for going out and spending.
However, they could be about to land their first signing of the summer according to the BBC.
They claim that Liverpool are keen on adding 17-year-old Dutchman Van den Berg to their team. Despite his age, he played 15 times in the Eredivisie last term, cementing himself as a rising talent.
Danger for Hoever?
Liverpool’s defence at the moment is one of the best around. The imperious Virgil van Dijk has been joined by the consistently reliable Joe Gomez and Joel Matip, so it would be difficult to dislodge any of them as Liverpool aim to challenge for further major honours.
As a result of their settled backline, the promising Ki-Jana Hoever already faces a battle to gain first-team minutes.
The 17-year-old can play at right-back or centre back but it was in the middle where he earned his senior bow against Wolves last term. He’s also played in that role in the UEFA Youth League.
Therefore, if Van den Berg arrives, it would be incredibly detrimental for his development.
It appears unlikely that Liverpool’s defence will be broken up anytime soon and therefore game time is likely to be restricted considerably for their rising stars.
If you consider Trent Alexander-Arnold’s impact at full back too, Hoever isn’t expected to be able to stake much of a claim there either.
You can relive Liverpool’s Champions League celebrations in glorious 2D thanks to the guys at 442oons in the video below…
It would be shrewd business to poach one of the Eredivisie top young talents away but they’d be putting another of their academy prospects in danger of not fulfilling his potential by doing so.
The pair of them may well go onto establish a fine partnership at youth level, but it’s doubtful that they’d ever fit into the same Liverpool side.
Jurgen Klopp’s defence is particularly young as it is, so Hoever would only find things even more challenging if their reported target arrives.