Everything you need to know about Dara Jikiemi as Liverpool agree historic transfer

Liverpool have agreed yet another transfer with Dara Jikiemi set to join the club.

It's shaping up to be another busy window for Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes. While a lot of last week was focused on the players leaving the club, with emotional farewells said to Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson, there was also news breaking about potential new arrivals.

David Ornstein dropped the most exciting bomb, revealing Yan Diomande was a top target for Liverpool. Meanwhile, Samuel Martinez had also agreed a deal to sign for the Reds.

And then there was Dara Jikiemi. We revealed to you that the young centre-back had also agreed to join Liverpool.

This is a move that has been spoken about for a while. Jikiemi had been linked with a move to Anfield earlier on in the season so it looks like the Reds have been trying to get the young centre-back in for months at the very least.

It's a move that is also very interesting. Jikiemi will join Liverpool in July. He'll be the third young centre-back joining the club after Jeremy Jacquet and Ifeanyi Ndukwe also agreed moves to Anfield earlier this season.

And he will be the fifth young centre-back to join the club since last summer, with Mor Talla Ndiaye being a January arrival and Giovanni Leoni coming in last summer.

So it seems that at the very least Liverpool's future when it comes to the centre-back department is sorted. They are now stocked with a plethora of really exciting options.

Jacquet is widely regarded as one of the best young centre-backs in Europe. Leoni showed his quality on his Liverpool debut before an unfortunate injury curtailed his season and momentum.

Ndiaye is making really good strides with Liverpool since joining and regularly training with the first-team. Ndukwe is regarded as one of the best young centre-backs of his generation and was instrumental in helping Austria reach the final of the U17 World Cup.

Jikiemi is a little bit younger at 16-years-old but he is also showing a lot of promise and is very highly rated.

He will be arriving from Celtic, which makes this a historic transfer because over the last one hundred years there's been so many previous examples of players moving from the Scottish giants to Anfield.

Most notably Kenny Dalglish. But the first transfer from Celtic to Liverpool was Joe McQue who arrived in 1892, not long after the club was founded.

So this is a tradition that stems back a long time. More recently, Ben Doak was another super talent who joined Liverpool from Celtic, and that worked out well for the club.

Jikiemi is highly regarded. He captains Scotland's U15 and U16 sides. He's a proper modern day centre-back, who loves to play out from the back and is constantly looking to play those line breaking passes.

He's comfortable with either food and works well under pressure - which is a requirement when you're playing for Liverpool.

Defensively, he's quick and he has a very physical profile. He's already very strong for his age. According to Wyscout data, he has won 80% of his defensive duels that he participated in for Scotland's U15 and U16 national team. He also won 64% of his aerial duels.

All while averaging 4.29 interceptions and 9 recoveries per 90 minutes.

Interestingly in his last five games, he's competed in 19 defensive duels and won 18 of them.

So, you can see what kind of player he is. He tends to play in the right-sided centre-back role and another interesting facet about him is that unusually for a centre-back he takes penalties for his national team.

He actually scored against Spain from a spot-kick.

Right now it's expected that Jikiemi will join Liverpool's U18 side when he links up with the Reds this summer to allow the likes of Prince Kobe Cisse to move up to the U21s.

But there is a clear pathway to the first-team at the club, so Jikiemi will get his chances in due time.

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