'A real talent': Liverpool think they've got a young player who could be worth £50m this time next year
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Liverpool have earned plenty of plaudits for the business they have conducted during the summer transfer window.
The Reds knew they were going to have to spend a big amount after barely entering the market the year before, and duly obliged.
The arrivals of Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak have garnered the most attention, with the two players breaking the British transfer record one after another.
Liverpool have done plenty more eye-catching deals besides, though.
The 18-year-old is yet to play for Liverpool, though, and according to journalist Lewis Steele, the Reds have potentially signed Leoni one year ahead of schedule.
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Leoni became the first centre-back signing for Liverpool since Ibrahima Konate in 2021 when he joined in August.
It is not as if the Reds have not been trying to make a defensive addition, though.
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As Steele tells Anfield Index, the failed pursuits of Dean Huijsen, Leny Yoro and Levi Colwill meant Liverpool felt they could not risk waiting and allowing Leoni to become another player out of their reach.
“The way that they see it is if they look at the data and what Leoni has done in not many games, basically they really wanted Huijsen this summer and Yoro last summer and Colwill the summer before,” says the reporter.
“But they were all £50m players by the time that Liverpool wanted them.”
“The way they see Leoni is if he had another Serie A season under his belt he would also be a £50m player.
“The way someone explained it to me was Liverpool feel they are stealing a march on rivals by getting Leoni maybe a year before he’s ready,” Steele adds.
“They will have to be patient with him.
“Liverpool think they’ve got a real talent on their hands so let’s see how he settles in.”
The notion that Liverpool are planning to use Leoni scarcely and bed him in this season was underlined by their deadline day pursuit of Marc Guehi.
Had Guehi arrived there was a chance that Joe Gomez would have left.
But it could have also played out that Gomez stayed and Leoni was shunted down to fifth-choice.
Nevertheless, having seen that transfer fall through at the last second, the teenager is back to being fourth-choice for Arne Slot this term.
While fourth-choice centre-back is not where any player really wants to be, that is an absolutely fine position for Leoni to be in at this stage.
He may not get an incredible amount of game time, but his situation can potentially be compared to that of Konate during the 21/22 campaign.
The Frenchman was behind Virgil van Dijk, Gomez and Joel Matip in the stakes and still played 29 times across the season.
For Leoni, he will be hoping for something similar, with a Liverpool debut finally likely to arrive in the Carabao Cup third round match against Southampton on September 23rd.