Chelsea line-up move for Liverpool's Adam Wharton

Chelsea are making moves to sign a Liverpool academy graduate who has been likened to Adam Wharton.

Right now the flavour of the month appears to be the Crystal Palace midfielder. Everyone is on the Wharton hype train. Liverpool are undoubtedly going to be in the conversation for a player of his quality as well.

There's no debating that Wharton is a great player. Liverpool need exactly the type of player he is as well. His ability to progress the ball and create control in the middle of the park, especially in the build-up phase of the game makes him an ideal profile.

However, he is also an extremely expensive option. Crystal Palace are going to want a lot of money for his signature. The kind of money that Liverpool may not be able to afford since there are so many other areas of the squad that also needs strengthening right now.

But Liverpool may not even have had to deal with this problem had they decided to keep a prized asset from their academy.

There's a player who graduated from Liverpool's academy who has a very similar style to Wharton, and who had played first-team football at the club for many years.

His name is Tyler Morton and he left the club for a paltry fee of £12m joining Lyon last year. Since then, Morton has become one of the best midfielders in Ligue 1 and has caught the attention of a number of clubs.

According to Sports Boom, one of those clubs is Chelsea who are looking at Morton as an alternative option to Wharton.

The report claims Chelsea scouts are a fan of the player as a cheaper alternative in comparison to Wharton and that Liam Rosenior, who worked with Morton at Hull City is also a fan of the midfielder.

How true these reports are moot.

Liverpool do have a 20% sell on clause on Morton, so it does mean they could potentially make millions from a big Lyon sale.

The report does not claim how much Morton would cost but it would have to probably be a lot more than Liverpool sold him for.

For the Reds this is a lesson learnt. Morton was a very highly rated player who was not given many opportunities to showcase his talent under Arne Slot.

He has since gone on and proved that he is definitely good enough to play at the highest level. Chelsea's interest in the midfielder is confirmation of that.

Ironically, it comes at a time when Liverpool are struggling to find midfielders who excel at exactly the areas of his game that Morton excels in.

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