Rumour Mongering: Liverpool Target Bayern’s David Alaba

The veteran defender appears on his way out at Bayern Munich and
the Reds are said to be interested.

Liverpool are in the midst of a defensive injury
crisis, with Virgil van Dijk ruled out for the season and now
Fabinho falling to injury, leaving them with the talented but
injury prone duo of Joël Matip and Joe Gomez backed up by some promising youth players.

Meanwhile, in Germany, Bayern
Munich have seen their third push to sign 28-year-old defender
David Alaba to a new deal fail, and with the
Austrian’s contract up at the end of the season there is a growing
belief that his future lies away from the Bavarian giants.

Put it together, and you can probably see where this is going
from a mile or ten off, and it’s Football Insider today doing the actual putting
together of pieces and claiming it’s a source within the club
helping them to do it: David Alaba is on Liverpool’s transfer
list.

Certainly Alaba would be a useful signing, capable of playing
across the defensive line—though more comfortable on the left half
of it—as well as further up the pitch in midfield. A bit like the
recent injured Fabinho, then, just with positional preferences
swapped.

On the flipside, though, some reports out of Germany have
suggested his contract talks with Bayern have never progressed due
to wage demands of around £400k per week, or just about what any
two of Liverpool’s current top earners make put together.

There’s also the part where signing him to a pre-contract and
getting him next summer wouldn’t exactly help the Reds with this
season’s issues, and Alaba will be 29 at the start of the next
campaign and so is not exactly a player to build the future
around.

If he’s willing to take less money for a new challenge and if
Bayern would rather lose him for a nominal fee in January rather
than a free in the summer then anything is possible, but for the
time being at least we’re skeptical there’s anything to this
transfer rumour.