Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney has given a useful piece of advice to Liverpool after they eventually decided against sealing the transfer of Timo Werner.
The Germany international will be on his way to Chelsea next season, as the Blues officially announced this week, but he had also been linked with Liverpool earlier in the summer.
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Sky Sports have reported on how Liverpool decided Werner might not be worth spending big on as he might not play regularly, and Rooney has suggested a transfer approach that could give the Reds some more depth up front.
The former England international says Liverpool could do well to try doing what Manchester City did with Gabriel Jesus, and sign a talented young player who won’t necessarily expect to be playing regularly straight away.
LFC have a world class front three in Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino, so may have been wise not to go for Werner, as it’s hard to imagine he’d have started week in, week out.
Chelsea needed a new first choice centre-forward more, so the 24-year-old may have made the right move for himself as well, and Rooney believes similar big names might also have reservations about moving to Anfield right now.
“Transfers-wise, the one thing Liverpool could strengthen is their bench,” Rooney wrote in his column in the Times.
“They could do with more back-up for that front three but passed on Timo Werner partly because they couldn’t offer a player of his calibre a starting position. It’s a bit like the Harry Kane situation at Tottenham in that you would hesitate to join Spurs as a No 9 because you know you won’t play ahead of Kane.
“Any forward approached by Liverpool will be thinking, “How am I going to get into that front three?” Top players don’t want to sit on anyone’s bench — maybe the solution for Liverpool is to get a brilliant young forward, like Manchester City did with Gabriel Jesus, who is willing to go there for a couple of seasons and learn.”