Julian Ward willing to pay €50m for wonderkid

Julian Ward is Liverpool's latest addition to their recruitment department.

For the last couple of years, Richard Hughes was the man at the centre of all Liverpool's business.

The Englishman spent over £600 million during his reign and, even though he chose to stay put until the summer transfer window was over, fans were still left a bit baffled about his decision to exit.

In the end, he joined Al-Hilal which meant that Ward became the Reds' new sporting director.

And, while he's not had the chance to do any actual business yet, it feels like he's going to be rather busy in January as many different links with players are already emerging.

Liverpool are happy to pay €50 million to sign Finn Jeltsch

One area of Liverpoool's squad that Hughes and Andoni Iraola focused on upgrading in the summer was their defence.

Jeremy Jacquet and Ronald Araujo were brought in to try and help shore things up.

Questions were asked of both players with some fans believing that Jacquet was too inexperienced to replace Ibrahima Konate.

But, in reality, he has performed much better than his fellow countryman and has massively improved the Reds' back line.

However, since the futures of Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Kostas Tsimikas are all up in the air, some more changes may have to be made to their ranks in summer.

So, this recent update from Spanish outlet Sport saying that Liverpool are willing to spend €50 million on Finn Jeltsch makes a lot of sense.

"Finn Jeltsch, Stuttgart's right-sided centre-back, is proving to be one of the season's biggest revelations in Europe," they wrote.

"He has just been called up by Jürgen Klopp to the German national team squad, and many see him as a great prospect for the future of the 'Mannschaft's' central defense.

"Jeltsch is only 20 years old, stands 1.85 meters tall, and is being followed by many top European clubs, including Real Madrid, Liverpool, who are said to be willing to pay 50 million euros for his signing, and Barcelona.

"Sources close to the German club have confirmed Hansi Flick's interest in this young German talent. The Barcelona manager is known to follow German football with great interest, as demonstrated by his signing of Karim Adeyemi this summer."

Finn Jeltsch could become Liverpool's next Virgil van Dijk

Van Dijk is still one of Liverpool's best defenders.

The 35-year-old has featured in almost every game possible for the Reds this season and, even though most people thought his performances levels would have dropped massively, that's been far from the case.

In fact, in their game against Manchester City a couple of weeks ago, the Dutchman even managed to catch up to Antoine Semenyo after he burst away from him.

Not only did he manage to catch up but, he also made an inch-perfect tackle which stopped the Cityzens from bagging yet another goal.

But, as with every player, there will come a time when Van Dijk can't handle it anymore which is why Jeltsche would be a good purchase.

At the moment, he's one of VfB Stuttgart's best players despite only being 20 years old.

He's also featured in most of Stuttgart's games this term and has even been given a call-up to Germany's national squad by Jurgen Klopp.

Indeed, buying any player who has no Premier League experience is always a risk but, right now, it feels like the best way for Liverpool to get ahead of their rivals, especially with all the contracts that are set to expire this summer.