Liverpool's perfect choice to replace Ibrahima Konate

This will be an opportunity for Liverpool to bolster their defensive options but also to find a centre-back a little bit more tailored to Arne Slot's system.

There is nothing wrong with Konate per say. He's a brilliant defender who covers a lot of ground and who works in perfect symbiosis with Virgil van Dijk.

But is he irreplaceable? Definitely not. Does he have his shortcomings? Certainly.

One of those is being exposed at the moment. Konate is a brilliant defender but he's not necessarily the best centre-back when it comes to his build-up play.

He's a good ball-playing centre-back, but he's not great.

Could Liverpool do better? Yes.

The perfect replacement is someone already on the club's radar. Jan Paul van Hecke is someone who is on the club's radar. Most recently TEAMtalk reported he was wanted by the Reds last month.

Now the 25-year-old is a very good defender. But Van Hecke's greatest asset is his ability on the ball.

No defender in the Premier League has made as many progressive passes as the Dutchman (52) and he ranks among the top five centre-backs in Europe's top five leagues in the metric as well.

He also gets the most passes into the opposition's final third among centre-backs in the Premier League and ranks joint third in the metric in Europe's top five leagues (57) as per FBref.

Van Hecke is simply the perfect choice for Liverpool. There's no two ways about it. He'd offer the progressive play from deep that the Reds are missing right now.