Jakub Blaszczykowski: Liverpool to Finally Sign £7M Bundesliga Wing Sensation
Reports in both Poland and Germany suggest Liverpool will launch a fresh £7m bid for Borussia Dortmund winger Jakub Blaszczykowski in the summer after the star has made an impressive return to fitness following a long injury lay-off. He has been on Rafa Benitez’s radar for a while but after an impressive end to the Bundesliga season, Liverpool look set to finally get their man.
Though the 23-year-old Polish international is relatively unknown of in this country, he is highly-rated in Europe and would finally add balance and competiiton to the right-side of midfield without sacrificing the team’s work ethic.
Blaszczykowski is an attacking right winger and would finally provide expertise in that position to a Reds side that has been using Dutch forward Dirk Kuyt in that role to good effect this season. The Anfield giants Premier League hopes have faltered in recent weeks but they still have an extremely strong spine to their team but have been criticised for sometimes lacking the width and guile that Manchester United possess. However, Albert Riera’s summer arrival and the increasing interest in Blaszczykowski suggests that the width and dribbling ability the team has been crying out for will be in place this summer.
Rafa is also reported to be interested in Bordeaux’s on loan midfield star Yoann Gourcuff who would cost more but would add flexibility as he can also play on the left and in the role currently held by Steven Gerrard.
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The Polish international begun his career with Wisla Krakow in his homeland. He made a total of 51 League appearances over 3 seasons and scored 4 goals before a 3 million Euro move to Germany.
In his first season in the Bundesliga, Blaszczykowski impressed playing the majority of the time on the right wing where his pace and dribbling ability could be used to maximum affect. However, he has also been used as a wing-back on occasions so his versatility would certainly appeal to Benitez.
The 5 ft 9 winger made 24 League appearances (22 starts) in his debut season for Borussia as the club finished a disappointing 13th. However, this season the team have performed well and are currently 6th in the Bundesliga although Blaszczykowski has only played in 23 league games (19 starts) after being sidelined through injury. His impact on the side cannot be underestimated. After all, since his return to the team, Borussia have won all 6 of their league matches home and away.
The 23-year-old has made 21 appearances for his country and scored twice. He was unfortunate not to play a part at Euro 2008 as he had to withdraw through to injury despite being named in the squad. In fact, the winger was a key component to Poland’s excellent qualification campaign as was sorely missed in the finals.
Blaszczykowski made his debut in March 2006 but was not called up to the final 2006 World Cup squad so has been rather unfortunate at international level not to feature in two major finals.
If he does sign for Liverpool then their fans won’t have to worry about getting his long name on the back of their replica shirts as he usually prefers ‘Kuba’ as a shortened version of his Christian name. If Benitez can bring in this quick, talented winger then Liverpool will be even stronger in terms of balance and personnel for next season’s campaign. At £7m the Pole would also be relatively cheap with Ryan Babel, Andrey Voronin, Andrea Dossena and Jermaine Pennant all expected to be sold to raise funds.
Do you feel the club needs a new right winger or is Dirk Kuyt good enough? Would the signing of a good right winger give the squad the added attacking quality to finish the opposition off in tight matches? Let’s hear your views.
Tags: Borussia Dortmund, Jakub Blaszczykowski, Liverpool, Poland
May 7th, 2009 at 20:12
Kuyt is a good player decently fast but is not a winger but a natural striker. I think its time for Kuba to move to a bigger club and seeing how liverpool will make a bid he will be worth it.
May 7th, 2009 at 22:06
There we go again. Rafa going for unknowns and later found to be unsuitable and sold. The right wing is one area that is crying out loud for a solution and the problem has been there for 5 long years and unresolved. If we need to buy we have to buy a proven right winger not a relatively unknown. To be fair to Kuba, we do not know much of his capabilities and he may come good, but going by the article he seems to be injured most of the time and when he plays in the EPL he may get himself injured more as the game here is much more physical. On a positive note, Kuyt is performing exceptionally well of late and he looks pretty comfortable in that position, he no longer pumps in those blind crosses but occassionally brings the ball to the touchline and cuts in back to others insde the box to score and occassionally goes into the box and nick a goal or two. Well done Dirk.
May 7th, 2009 at 22:58
I don’t think that Kuba is gonna move to Liverpool, although his huge talent and massive skills are undisputed. Although he’s able to make it in a bigger club like Liverpool. One Fact is that Benitez DON’T KNOW anything bout Kuba. “Blaszczykowski, who?!” were his words in an interview a few weeks ago.
Dortmund still got chances to qualify for Champions or European League so i dont think that there is a need for Kuba to move NOW. Maybe in 2 or 3 years.