Rumour Mongering: Sevilla's Bade Earmarked as Van Dijk Replacement
Today at 06:00 AM
Reports out of Spain have Liverpool as the most interested party.
According to Diario AS, Liverpool FC are interested in signing Sevilla's 24-year-old French centre-back Loic Bade.
The Madrid-based outlet say that the six-time European champions are the most interested party and have earmarked Bade as the man to replace Virgil van Dijk in the future. The 24-year-old recently signed a long-term contract with Sevilla, with the release clause raised from £35m to £50m. However, AS claim note that the Andalusian side are ready to sell for a fee "much less" than £50m.
Bade is a 6ft 3in tall defender who helped his country win the Silver medal at the Olympics this summer, although he hasn't made his senior debut for France yet. A quick glance at his fbref page shows off some of his more impressive numbers, 98th percentile in successful takeons with 0.64, 96th percentile in tackles with 2.62, 80th percentile in aerials won with 2.73. I remembered him being quite comfortable playing the ball out with his feet in the past but his pass completion percentage is rather low at 83.9% in the 33 percentile. Perhaps that's due to how crap Sevilla have been.
Bade is rather fun for a random rumour in September, I guess. Nothing about this is especially credible, which should be the case for a rumour popping up just after the window has closed. But should his name pop up again in the future, we can dive deeper into what he could potentially do in a Liverpool team.
