Jurgen Klopp’s title-chasing Liverpool need a player like 6ft 7ins centre-forward Paul Onuachu, Genk’s sporting director Dimitri de Conde told Het Belang Van Limburg.
There are only three players ever to have set foot in the Premier League who are capable of looking down on Onuachu – literally speaking, of course; Costel Pantilimon, Lacina Traore and new Brighton and Hove Albion goalkeeper Kjell Scherpen.
So you don’t need a UEFA A-licence to realise what Onuachu would bring to Anfield.
Standing at over 2 metres, the sky-scraping Nigeria international would make Virgil van Dijk look like Xherdan Shaqiri.
After Liverpool spent 45 minutes banging on the door without ever looking like breaking down Chelsea’s dogged rear-guard during Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Thomas Tuchel’s ten-men, De Conde feels that the Merseyside giants are crying out for a penalty-box presence; an old-school, battering-ram of a Plan B.
Would Paul Onuachu have made the difference at Anfield?
“Have you seen Liverpool vs Chelsea? Liverpool have top forwards, but none with the profile of Onuachu,” said the Genk director.
“He would have scored against ten men. I’m not saying that Paul would complete 90 minutes every week at Liverpool, but a club like that could really use him.”
It is not often a sporting director is openly recommending one of his star players to another club.
But, after West Ham United refused to stump up the £22 million Genk wanted for their Jupiler League giant, perhaps De Conde is hoping to drum up interest in a player whose sale would boost the club’s coffers no end in the post-pandemic era.
Onuachu scored 35 goals in just 41 games last season. And De Conde has a point.
Liverpool do not have what you would call a ‘classic number nine’. Summer links with Dusan Vlahovic, Alexander Isak and Youssef En-Nesyri, however, suggest that the Reds are open to adding something slightly different to a frontline made up almost entirely of speedy wide-forwards.
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