According to The Mirror, Spanish giants Barcelona are looking to add depth to their squad at the back and are lining up moves for Alberto Moreno and Nacho Monreal as potential back-ups for first choice left-back Jordi Alba.
While Moreno has found regular minutes hard to come by after the arrival of Andrew Robertson at Anfield, Monreal is already on the other side of 30 and might fall out-of-favour under Unai Emery once the new manager brings in defensive reinforcements to the club.
The former began his career in Spain with Sevilla and played a key role in the club’s road to success in the 2014 UEFA Europa League. His impressive form did not go unnoticed, as Liverpool penned his signature in the summer of 2014 for £12m.
The 25-year-old has made a total of 88 appearances in the Premier League till date where he has scored thrice. However, he is yet to make it to the matchday squads for any of the games this season.
Moreno has been criticized in the past for his defensive flaws. His performance at the 2016 UEFA Europa League final against Sevilla was perhaps the worst of his Liverpool career, where he committed numerous blunders with marking and positional errors.
The Spaniard does like to venture forward to make attacking contributions but has the tendency to play away from his position. This has proved detrimental for the organisation of the defence in the previous seasons. It is his defence that is yardstick upon which he should be judged. And in terms of that, he clearly hasn’t done enough.
Truth be told, Moreno, at times, hasn’t looked like a defender whose primary objective is to defend. Consequently, Liverpool had to use James Milner and Joe Gomez as makeshift left-backs in the previous seasons. Starting from his game reading, positioning and marking to his tackling- all his defensive attributes haven’t been up to the Premier League standards. He has shown little signs of improvement over the course of three seasons.
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Jurgen Klopp has already spent a lot of cash this summer in his efforts to bring in Alisson, Naby Keita, Fabinho and Xherdan Shaqiri. Liverpool should look to bring in some useful funds to the club by offloading Alberto Moreno to Barcelona. The Spaniard apparently doesn’t have a lot to offer at Anfield and a move to the Catalans should be good for all parties involved.