Liverpool Ready To Make Move For Asmir Begovic

Liverpool are keen to bounce back from their woes by January, so as they are shopping for quality players, several goalkeeper targets are also coming under their radar every day after series of uninspiring outings by their current goalie Simon Mignolet. One of such targets is Asmir Begovic who currently plies his trade with Stoke City. Fortunately for the Reds, their target could be available for just £10m as he currently has about 20 months left on his contract.

During the club’s busy summer, manager, Brendan Rodgers attempted to lure Begovic away from the Britannia stadium but his 15 million pounds price tag was what made him steer towards a cheaper option in Sunderland’s Simon Mignolet who has now turned out to be bad buy. In a brief comparison of the two keepers, both have managed only 2 clean sheets so far this season although Begovic has made fewer saves and also conceded three goals lesser than his Anfield colleague.

Over the past few months, Brendan Rodgers has been linked with several keepers and the rumours actually intensified during the summer. With the arrival of Mignolet at the club, many fans believed that at least in the short term, their problems between the sticks would be solved but unfortunately, things haven’t been panning out as planned as the Belgian save hands appears to be out of place at the Merseyside.

Asmir Begovic has an overwhelming 100% claim success so far this term and it is really not surprising as he has almost a decade of experience in the English Premier League and as such appears much more confident than the man at Anfield.

Neville Southall who at some point served as a goal keeper for Liverpool’s city rivals Everton had bared his mind about Mignolet when he maintained that the goalie will never match up at Anfield and in Southall’s words ‘he is not Liverpool standard goalie’

To be fair on Mignolet, he had an awesome debut for the Reds and in fact saved a spot kick against Stoke City in last season’s opening day and although he has been struggling since then, he still churned out a couple of brilliant albeit occasional performances. Unfortunately, his form has now taken a nosedive at a point when Brendan Rodgers cannot afford backlogs. Recently, the Liverpool first choice has come under heavy criticisms for his decision making.

The manager is already under a lot of pressure with the poor overall performance of the entire team and cannot ignore the fact that he cannot manage a team where the attack has suddenly gone cold and the keeper isn’t reliable. By January, Rodgers will go all out and get Begovic who will be 5 million pounds cheaper by then according to reports. Although, the bulk of the blame cannot be laid on Mignolet because it wasn’t only Southall who raised the red flag about his ability but the Anfield boss ignored. While fielding questions from the Liverpool Echo, the former Everton goalie explicitly stated: ‘All I can say about Simon Mignolet is he’s definitely in my Top 20 of Premier League goalkeepers.’  And trust me, you couldn’t get a warning more directly coined than that.