In January, Liverpool paid $54m (£44m/€50m) to sign Cody Gakpo from Dutch outfit PSV Eindhoven.
Gakpo had made a sensational start to the season with PSV, scoring 13 goals and setting up 17 more in 24 appearances, and so his exit seemingly left the club with an almighty hole to fill.
To make matters worse, another of their wingers was lured by a big Premier League side as Chelsea captured Noni Madueke in a $37m (£29m/€34m) deal.
Madueke was sidelined for much of the pre-World Cup action through injury, but lit up the 2021/22 campaign with nine goals and six assists, so he was bound to be a significant miss too.
Fortunately, with Gakpo gone, PSV was able to turn to another young player from its production line in the form of Johan Bakayoko
And Bakayoko has seized his opportunity with both hands, so much so that he’s now caught the eye of Liverpool himself, based on a report from Eindhovens Dagblad journalist Rik Elfrink, via Sport Witness.
Liverpool has apparently made contact with the player’s camp to establish the ‘financial conditions’ of a potential transfer, which may refer to both his salary expectations and PSV’s asking price.
Newly-promoted Burnley had previously been showing an interest, but Vincent Kompany’s side is now thought to be out of the equation.
Bakayoko was already generating excitement before he broke into the PSV first term, having scored 30 goals and provided 18 assists in his last 75 appearances for the club at youth level.
After a handful of first-team outings, he began to establish himself following the World Cup in the wake of Gakpo and Madueke’s departures. He’d only started five of the first 16 league games for Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side, but would make the XI for 12 of the last 22.
Better yet, a run of three goals and two assists in four league games was enough to earn him a first call-up to the Belgian senior side in March, along with Southampton’s Roméo Lavia, a player for whom Liverpool made multiple offers this summer before he joined Chelsea.
Bakayoko marked his debut with a dazzling assist against Sweden, and scored his first goal in just his fourth cap against Estonia.
At club level, he would end the season with seven goals and five assists in 33 senior appearances, contributing to a goal every 167 minutes on average.
He’s carried his momentum into this season too, starting PSV’s first five matches and setting up two goals already.
What about his style of play? Well, according to Squawka, Bakayoko is in the same mold of winger as Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka owing to his goalscoring, creativity, dribbling ability and strong work off the ball.
If he did join Liverpool, you can immediately see where he’d slot into the squad — a short-term deputy, and long-term successor, for Mohamed Salah.
For now, it remains to be seen whether the Reds escalate their interest, but there’s certainly a compelling case to do so.
