After being priced out of a deal over Mohammed Salah, Liverpool are considering Portuguese winger Gelson Martins. According to reports, Liverpool’s bid £28m was turned down by Roma as they are believed to want a fee in the region of £40m.
Failing to agree with the valuation, Liverpool have now set their eyes on the 22-year-old for offensive reinforcement. Despite having a release clause of £50m, Sporting Lisbon are likely to agree to a relatively lesser fee owing to financial pressure as they failed to qualify for the Champions League.
Martins had an excellent season and his profile exactly suits to what Jurgen Klopp is looking for. Let us take a look at what he will be offering the Reds.
Martins has tremendous speed which could not only enable the Merseyside outfit in width creation which in turn will enable the central players to exploit the space through the middle. In addition to this, he also has an excellent dribbling ability.
The combination of these two makes the player quite deadly. Martins relishes one on one situations and often gets the better of opposition defenders with ease.
Even though he is said to operate on either wing, his performance playing on the right flanks have been better than those when playing on the left. Not only can he take on the opposition himself but has the ability to hold the ball upfield to bring other teammates into the game.
His ability to cut in from either flank and shoot makes him even more of a deadlier threat. He has quite some power in his left foot and does not shy away from taking a shot. His crossing is also decent.
The stats doesn’t necessarily justify his actual contribution, although they aren’t bad at all either. In 42 appearances, the winger has 6 goals and 9 assists to his name. That said, he is a work in progress and there is a lot of scope for improvement.
Scoring is one area where he could particularly work on. His inability to finish often wastes a decent attack and possession. Another of his weaknesses is the inability to outmuscle oppositions. When you play in England, you need to be physically up for it and not being able to shield the ball for long can turn out to be a major weakness.
While there are obvious strengths, there still are a lot more areas to work on. If he moves to England, he shouldn’t be expected to hit the ground running and he will take his time to acclimatise to the Premier League.
