Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC are all set to go into a bidding war to land AS Roma defender Antonio Rudiger in the summer transfer window.
The German centre-back has turned quite a few heads in the last year or so with his calm and collective performances, and is tipped to be the next big thing.
Rudiger is currently on loan from Stuttgart, but Roma can make the deal permanent in summer by paying the Bundesliga side £7 million. What makes Roma’s situation all the more lucrative is that both Chelsea and Liverpool are prepared to pay around £15 million for the centre-back.
With John Terry suspected to be on his way out of Chelsea, it was believed that incoming Blues boss Antonio Conte is planning a bid for Rudiger. However, a recent report in Italian news outlet Calciomercato suggests that Liverpool have also joined the race to sign the German defender. So which side actually needs Rudiger more?
Liverpool need a centre-back who is good on the ball
Jurgen Klopp makes his teams adhere to a very specific style of play. His sides are specifically designed to play the fast paced counter attacking game that took Borussia Dortmund to the pinnacle of German football a few years back.
The back four play a key role in Klopp’s system, playing the ball out from the back, to turn defence into attack. For his system to work, Klopp needs defenders who have a good passing ability.
For most part of the season, Klopp’s preferred centre-back pairing has been Mamadou Sakho and Dejan Lovren (when both have been fit together). However, with Sakho’s future currently under a shroud of uncertainty due to the use of a banned substance, the German manager will need to look for more options in defence.
Sakho has one of the highest pass completion rates of 88 per cent – the Frenchman plays 48.41 successful passes per match on average. However, with Sakho gone, Klopp has been forced to play Kolo Toure, who plays only 25.46 successful passes in a game.
This is one area where Rudiger could come in an improve upon. The German plays 42.86 successful passes per match. Moreover, Rudiger is just 23 years old, and has enough time to improve his game. To add to that, he will have Klopp as coach to help him grow as a player.
Conte needs a new Bonucci
Unlike most other managers in modern football, Antonio Conte likes to play three men at the back instead of four. The usual formations that he played at his former club Juventus were the 3-5-2 or the 3-4-3. One thing that is rather advantageous in this system is that the wingers can double up as fullbacks to form a back five, if the situation demands.
In such a formation, the defender who plays in the middle has to have a good footballing brain. Much like a playmaker, he has to dictate the defensive setup of the team. This player must also possess other footballing qualities like awareness about the game and good passing.
Being aware defensively is not the only key to good defending. Of course it helps if a defender can read the game and sense danger early to nip it in the bud. Chelsea captain John Terry is very good at that but has often been exposed due to his lack of pace.
This is where Rudiger has the potential to be better than the former England international. The 23 year old has uncanny pace for someone who is 6’3″. His ability to make up ground fast added with his keen eye for danger means that he has a high interception rate (1.55 per game) making Rudiger the perfect player to operate in the Bonucci role in Conte’s three-man defence.
Rudiger can improve better under Klopp
Klopp has a reputation for identifying talented players when they are young, and setting up proper programmes for them to develop into the best players in the world.
The likes of Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gundogan, Mario Gotze, and Robert Lewandowski are some of the biggest examples of this. In fact, Klopp had famously asked Lewandowski to play one season as an attacking midfielder, so that he could learn to read the game better.
Keeping this in mind, it certainly seems as though it would be more beneficial for both Liverpool and Rudiger, for the German defender to team up with Klopp at Anfield.
