Liverpool have now been linked with a surprising transfer target who recently had an online spat with a member of Arne Slot’s current squad.
Dominik Szoboszlai was making a variety of headlines towards the end of March, having recently married his partner Borka Buzsik a few days after a prolonged tiff with Arda Guler arising from an on-field clash during Hungary’s UEFA Nations League play-off against Turkey.
After the Reds midfielder trolled the Real Madrid youngster about his lack of game-time at the Bernabeu in response to an online post showing the latter shushing our number 8, the 20-year-old shot back: ‘This guy is a joke. Isn’t 6 goals enough to shut you up?’, a reference to the Turks completing a 6-1 aggregate victory.
Despite that social media feud, the Turkish youngster appears to be on Richard Hughes’ transfer radar at Anfield.
Liverpool monitoring Arda Guler
According to CaughtOffside, Liverpool are among the clubs currently monitoring Guler as a potential summer target, with the attacker having struggled to establish himself in Carlo Ancelotti’s side.
It’s claimed that the Reds have a ‘strong appreciation’ for the Turkey international, but the aforementioned tit-for-tat with Szoboszlai could be ‘an awkward issue that prevents the deal from materialising’.
We can’t see Guler joining Liverpool this summer
We’d be very surprised if LFC push hard to sign the 20-year-old this summer, especially after his run-in with our Hungarian midfielder over the past fortnight.
Had it been a momentary coming together which subsided almost immediately, there’d be no real issue. However, the fact that the two players took their disagreement online and continued the verbals well after the match had finished suggests that there could be a lingering animosity between the pair.
We don’t dispute that Guler is a talented player – indeed, Jose Mourinho has lauded his ‘great personality and exceptional quality’ – and the youngster has still chipped in with 10 goal contributions for Real Madrid this season despite only playing for 1,165 minutes (Transfermarkt).
Also, as outlined by FBref, his 90-minute averages are among the best in Europe’s top five leagues compared to positional peers in Europe’s five main leagues over the past year for a number of underlying performance metrics.
However, we can’t imagine that Szoboszlai would be too enthusiastic about sharing a dressing room with the Turkish attacker, or that Los Blancos would part with him too readily despite his sporadic game-time. It’d be a massive surprise if the Reds were to sign the 20-year-old this summer.
