Manchester City star could trigger blockbuster €70m Liverpool deal

Liverpool will be watching one Manchester City star very closely. He could trigger a €70m deal for the Reds.

Liverpool are in the process of weighing up a massive signing. Everyone can see they lack a proper, controlling defensive midfielder and the calls to sign one grown louder with every passing game.

Fortunately, they do have one in mind. The Athletic is the latest to report that there's a solid interest in Lamine Camara from AS Monaco - one of Europe's standouts.

Journalist Ben Jacobs has claimed that a €70m deal is on the cards, too. Liverpool made contact about it at the transfer deadline, assuring Monaco that they'd enter the race in 2027.

And that's fantastic news. We're massive fans of Camara and feel he's exactly the kind of signing that Liverpool should make.

But he is a risky one. Camara is thriving as a standout player for Monaco and is excelling in Ligue 1. But will that translate to the Premier League?

Liverpool's watching brief

One excellent way of seeing if Camara can translate to the Premier League is seeing how other players who excelled in Ligue 1 last season transfer their skills to England. And thankfully, the two most relevant ones happened to join Premier League sides.

Defensively, no player across Europe's top five leagues had a defensive profile as similar to Camara as Mamadou Sangaré did. He was the star for RC Lens before moving to Brentford this summer.

It is very, very relevant that he's started this campaign well and if Sangaré continues to impress, Liverpool will feel a lot more confident about Camara shining in English football.

But he's not the only one. Ayyoub Bouaddi also made the jump, joining Manchester City from Lille. He didn't have a season as good as Camara or Sangaré and his excellence last season was more about holding his own at the elite level at just 18.

This season, we'll see if Bouaddi can also hold his own in the Premier League. Doing so would again demonstrate that skills are transferable, even from a young age - another reason to trust that Camara's data from last season would also hold true in England.

These are the things Liverpool would want to ratify before spending €70m on the player. And if all goes as expected, we fully believe they'll be spending that money.