Thread on Bayern Munich midfielder Thiago, the world-class midfielder that Liverpool should be doing everything in their power to sign this summer:

- To begin with, everyone with a footballing brain would argue that Thiago is one of the top five midfielders in world football. His market value is based at around £43M, as of April 2020, and was at £63M the year before. The man is simply world class.

- Despite his impressive market value though, we can, by all accounts, get the 29-year old on our books for a measly €30M, which is just over half his apparent value in the 2020 market.

- This fee of around £27M is still extremely low for Thiago, despite him only having a year left on his deal with Bayern. It is also thought that the Reds could even lower the price down too. This deal makes perfect financial sense.

- Now looking into his stats, there is a common misconception that Thiago is extremely creative, and provides a high number of assists, but this is not the case, stats wise.

- The Spanish midfielder didn’t register a single assist in 24 Bundesliga appearances in 2019/20, and has only managed to grab himself 2 in 8 in the Champions League so far.

- He also only managed to score 3 goals in 38 appearances this season, showing he is the midfielder a lot of people seem to think he is. But these stats aren’t representative of who Thiago is, and why he’d be so good for us.

- Thiago creates 1.0 chances/90 mins, which is higher than Gini’s extremely low 0.5 chances/90 mins for a player of his position. Keita, however, creates 1.8 per game and Henderson 1.1 chances too. Ox and Lallana were also equal on 1.0 last season.

- This may not seem impressive to many, but it is again not truly representative of the ex-Barca man. He is often an all-action midfielder, being superb in both defensive and further forward positions.

- Thiago also completes a superb 3.6 dribbles/90 mins, with a success rate of around 86%. This eclipses Keita’s 2.3/90 mins, who himself has a success rate of just over 82%.

- This stat looks even more impressive with Gini only managing 1.2 dribbles/90 mins, with a woeful success rate of just over 54%. Ox only manages 1.9 per game too, with a low success rate of 59.3%.

- Even Henderson only manages 0.7/per game, with a 58.3% success rate. These stats compared with Thiago makes it clear what the Bayern midfielder could add to our midfield and team as a whole.

- Despite him being prone to a move forward, Thiago is also phenomenal defensively. He averages 2.3 successful tackles a game, over twice as many as Wijnaldum’s 1.1.

- Perhaps the most surprising defensive stat of the 29-year old is his rate of interceptions. He completes 2.3 per game, higher than Fabinho’s 1.5, Chamberlain’s 1.4, Keita’s 1.3, Henderson’s 1.2 and Wijnaldum’s low 0.6.

- Thiago is also comfortable playing as a No.6, No.8 and a No.10, showing his versatility in the midfield sense. This is a vital aspect of Klopp’s midfielders, with Henderson and Gini also having these qualities.

- Much is also talked about Thiago’s injury record. However, he only missed 6 games due to injury in the 2019//20 season. This is less than Henderson’s 8 and Fabinho’s 13.

- Even in the 18/19 season, he only missed seven games due to small knocks. This is more than Henderson’s 4, but shows that he hasn’t been as injury prone as people lead you to believe over the past 2 years of his career.

- Even from the recent CL restart games, it is clear that Thiago would add a new dimension to our midfield three. From watching his recent performances against Chelsea and Barcelona, it is clear that the Spaniard is a level above what is currently at the club.

- Against Chelsea in the RO16 2nd-leg, he managed 75 touches of the ball, 58/64 completed passes, 6 tackles, won 3/4 aerial duels contested and won 1 interception. He also won the ball back 4 times, and created one chance.

- Against Barca, he had a 96% pass accuracy. He also made 6 ball recoveries. In terms of the direction of his passes, unlike Gini’s proneness to pass the ball backwards or sidewards, he made 3 passes into box and 3 long passes. He also completed 3 take-ons and won 1 tackle.

- In my opinion, Thiago could be the missing piece of the puzzle for us. He’d take our midfield up a notch, and add some much needed desire and forward-thinking to the midfield three. Get it done, @LFC.