Liverpool's €50 Million Centre-Back Strategy for 2027

Liverpool are weighing up a €50 million move that would underline just how radical their 2027 rebuild could become.

The club’s long-term planning is already under strain. The squad inherited from Richard Hughes has clear gaps, and the picture at centre-back is particularly murky.

Centre-back puzzle for 2027

On paper, Liverpool look well stocked at the heart of defence. In reality, every senior option comes with a question mark.

Virgil van Dijk is out of contract next summer. Joe Gomez is in the same situation. Ronald Araujo is only on loan and would cost €50m to keep beyond this season.

Strip those away and the future rests on Jeremy Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni. That’s it.

Both are talented, both are intriguing, but both are unproven at the level Liverpool want to live at. Jacquet, 21, is returning from shoulder surgery. Leoni, just 19, has been sidelined for around a year with a serious knee injury.

So Liverpool know they will have to dive back into the market for a centre-back in 2027. Quietly, they’ve already started.

Liverpool eye Finn Jeltsch

According to TuttoJuve, Liverpool are among the clubs tracking Finn Jeltsch, the Stuttgart defender who has exploded onto the scene in the Bundesliga.

The 19-year-old put together a breakout season last term, forcing his way into the conversation as one of Europe’s most exciting young centre-backs. Across the top five leagues, he was one of only 14 teenage central defenders to log at least 1,000 minutes. Raise that bar to 1,500 minutes and the list shrinks to just 10 – and by the Value Adder model, Jeltsch ranks around fifth in that group.

That kind of profile does not come cheap. Stuttgart are said to want €50m and they know they can hold firm, because interest is flooding in from across Europe. Arsenal, Manchester United and Bayern Munich are all reported to be monitoring him.

This is not a quiet negotiation. It’s a fight.

Risk or opportunity?

Liverpool’s name in that pack is eye-catching, but there are reasons to doubt whether they will actually pull the trigger.

By 2027, the only centre-backs guaranteed to be at the club currently have an average age of 20. Jacquet, Leoni… and potentially Jeltsch? Building a defensive core around three 20-year-olds would be a bold move bordering on reckless.

A third young centre-back at that price point feels, at first glance, like a gamble. Experience at the back has underpinned every recent Liverpool title challenge; handing the keys to a group barely out of their teens would be a radical break from that formula.

Yet this is where the market is heading. Elite young defenders are scarce, and their value is only rising. Liverpool may decide that if they want the next great centre-back, they have to buy him before he becomes one.

So the question hangs over Anfield: do they lean into youth again, or hold out for a more seasoned leader?

For now, Finn Jeltsch is firmly on the radar – and in a summer shaping up to be defined by defensive decisions, his name will not be going away.