After two bids were refused, Liverpool can surpass the £42 million Man City transfer and address a crucial squad issue.

Manchester City, who Liverpool’s primary championship challengers are, revealed earlier this month that they had acquired Kalvin Phillips from Leeds United for £42 million.

According to The Athletic, Phillips is aware that Rodri, one of City’s most crucial players from last season, will be a stronger option at The Etihad than he will be.

Although Pep Guardiola intends to occasionally use the duo together, Phillips is most likely going to serve as the backup number six for next season.

And Fabinho is a guy who, based on his past performance, will miss some of the season. He sustained a hamstring injury towards the tail end of 2021/22, missing 11 games in 20/21 due to a variety of muscular problems, and missed 13 games during the title-winning campaign due to an ankle problem. Despite these absences, he has already accrued in his career the same amount of minutes as an average 34-year-old.

Who is the answer if Liverpool wants to match Man City in this department as they have elsewhere? This could be a big problem for Liverpool. Well, it might be Amadou Onana of Lille.

This week, The Athletic reported that Brentford, West Ham, Nottingham Forest, Arsenal, and Liverpool are among Onana’s fans.

After having two bids rejected, the second of which was for £25 million, the Hammers now appear to be at the front of the line. Liverpool might pounce, either this summer or the next, if they decide to pursue other options.

Onana, 20, only made the £6.3 million transition from Hamburg of the Bundesliga 2 to the 20/21 champions last summer. In his first season, he settled in rather gradually, starting 41 of his games, including 11 Ligue 1 games and two Champions League matches, including the Round of 16 first leg against Chelsea.

Onana’s game is focused on winning the ball, perhaps even more so than Fabinho’s. He wins tackles all over the field and is ranked in the 94th percentile among positional peers in the top five leagues (84th percentile for final-third tackles, 93rd for middle third, 88th for defensive third).

Onana ended 14th in Ligue 1 for tackles per 90 and eighth among the midfielders in the league if you select the players who have played the equivalent of five full matches (to ensure a good sample size).

With 3.2 p90, he ranks third among Under-21 players in the top five leagues (1,000+ minutes played), and he makes effective use of his towering 6ft 5in stature in aerial duels, winning 62.7% of the time (87th percentile).

With only 1,257 minutes of Premier League experience, Liverpool will consider him to be still somewhat inexperienced, but they will also see his potential.

In fact, he recently made his senior Belgium debut against the Netherlands in a Nations League match, breaking into the second-best international team in the world.

While Onana and Fabinho are both the same age (26), Rodri and Phillips are eight years younger. He would be a long-term replacement rather than just cover and competition.