The success of Ajax over the last three years has brought plenty of attention to some of its best players, just like in the good ‘ol days, and Liverpool especially have been trying to bolster their squad with the Dutch Champions’ players, including Belgian centre back Toby Alderweireld.
While Liverpool have shown interest in the player for quite some time, and their need for a new starting centre back to pair up with Daniel Agger is obvious, it seems they’ve been working harder on adding attacking players first, and according to Brendan Rodgers, they’re still not through. Regardless of Luis Suarez remaining or not, it seems Liverpool will try to add another attacking midfielder (Christian Eriksen?), but it’s hard to believe that at least one central defender won’t be added to the team.
Talks about Tiago Ilori have been going on for quite some time. The young Portuguese central defender is interested in a move, but Liverpool and Sporting CP haven’t been able to come to terms regarding the player. With Toby Alderweireld, things should be easier, because Liverpool know the price they need to offer in order to get Ajax to agree.
Norwich City made an offer that Ajax agreed upon; with Alderweireld becoming a free agent at the end of the season, Ajax can’t be too picky about how much they sell him for, even though he might turn out to be one of the more impressive central defenders in Europe in a very short time.
Alderwereld rejected the Norwich offer – officially because of the salary they offered him, although being a team without inspiring aspirations and ambitions do hurt the chances of adding talented players from clubs that play in the Champions League. Liverpool don’t have Europe to offer next season, but there’s no doubt they have more money to offer than Norwich, or the remaining one year-contract Ajax have to offer.