Act fast Richard Hughes! Liverpool have golden chance to sign £50m Van Dijk successor | OneFootball

Liverpool have begun the process of shaking up their centre-back selection.

Last summer we saw Giovanni Leoni arrive on a £26m deal while Jarell Quansah was permitted to join Bayer Leverkusen.

The restructuring continued in January through the arrival of Mor Talla Ndiaye for the under-21s and other deals were put in place for summer 2026.

Ifeanyi Ndukwe comes on board from Austria Vienna and - biggest of all - Jeremy Jacquet will be at Anfield once his £62m deal from Rennes goes through.

Liverpool will be left short of experience at centre-back

But Liverpool still have some question marks over their current crop of senior defenders.

Ibrahima Konate STILL hasn’t signed a contract extension and remains on track to leave at the end of the season - and in summer 2027 both Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez will be wrapping up their Liverpool careers.

That of course means a significant experience gap opening up at the back for Arne Slot’s side - that can probably only be addressed by a major signing in the transfer window.

Nico Schlotterbeck is available

The No1 candidate to arrive now appears to be Nico Schlotterbeck. The Borussia Dortmund stopper recently extended his deal until 2031 - but it hasn’t stopped speculation from growing around the Germany international.

Schlotterbeck’s new deal contains a clause - according to trusted transfer source Florian Plettenberg - which is available to a select number of clubs including Liverpool.

“Now confirmed, as revealed yesterday on our show Transfer Update: Liverpool (alongside Real Madrid) are also one of the few clubs that can activate a release clause for Nico Schlotterbeck this summer,” he writes on X.

Schlotterbeck clause only active until July

Liverpool cannot afford to miss a deal for the left-footer - who can be groomed into a long-term replacement for Van Dijk in the heart of defence.

For an experienced, international and Champions League-proven defender Richard Hughes could end up paying a fee of between €50m and €60m (approx £45m to £52m) - a snip for a player of that calibre.

But Liverpool are going to have to act fast to get ahead of the competition. The clause will expire around the time of the World Cup final in mid-July - meaning time is already ticking down on the opportunity to strike for Schlotterbeck.

“The fee is around €50-60 million,” Plettenberg states.