Liverpool could now sign the FASTEST player in Europe | OneFootball

Liverpool could sign the fastest player in Europe after missing out on Antoine Semenyo.

Manchester City will be the winners in the race to lure the Bournemouth attacker away from the Cherries. Despite Richard Hughes being his former boss, Semenyo has opted to choose Pep Guardiola's side as his next destination.

What really happened and how serious Liverpool's interest was in the end, remains to be seen. We may never know the inside out details of the deal.

But one thing is clear, Liverpool have to move on. The Reds have to target other alternatives and this process will already be underway.

There are going to be a number of alternative options being discussed, and the most obvious solution could be a player who Anfield Watch exclusively broke the Reds having an interest in back in October.

Recently, Liverpool head-coach Arne Slot has been talking about how much he wants to add speed to his attack. Slot's teams have always been full of really fast wingers.

At Feyenoord, he flourished with Yankuba Minteh playing for him. He has since gone onto become a major success in the Premier League and is on Liverpool's radar.

But when it comes to the January transfer window, Minteh is probably out of the club's reach for now. Brighton will not want to sell him until at least the summer.

Even then there will be a hefty asking price.

In January, Liverpool have to assess the market and see who is actually available.

One of those players on the club's radar who will be available is Jean-Matteo Bahoya. Anfield Watch exclusively revealed back in October of this season that he is a player Liverpool are very interested in and believe they could sign on the cheap.

That's largely because even though the 20-year-old is a very talented winger, his situation at Eintracht Frankfurt is complicated. Recently, the club has shifted to using wing-backs and inverted wingers, which has made Bahoya a peripheral figure in the starting line-up.

The Frenchman is more of a direct winger who likes to hog the touchline and take players on. But he's neither a wing-back or a player suited to inverting and coming into central channels.

Despite the limited minutes, Bahoya has 8 goal contributions already this season for club and country, averaging a goal or assist 0.66 per 90 minutes.

© IMAGO - Jean-Mattéo Bahoya Liverpool

What makes Bahoya such a good fit for Liverpool is that in the current calendar year he clocked the fastest speed in Europe's top five leagues.

The winger clocked a remarkable 37.16 km/h in a match against Bochum last season, which meant he was the first player to break the 37 km/h mark in the Bundesliga.

For comparison, the world's fastest man Usain Bolt had an average speed of about 37.58 km/h (23.35 mph) during his 9.58-second 100m world record.

It makes him by far the fastest player in Europe right now.

But Bahoya is not just a speed merchant. He has great technical qualities and is capable of getting himself out of tight spaces with clever feints and quick-feet.

Out of players who average at least 4 dribbles per 90 in the Bundesliga this season, Bahoya has the best completion rate (71.79%).

© IMAGO - Jean-Mattéo Bahoya Hugo Ekitike Liverpool

It's important to mention that last season, he struck up a brilliant partnership with his fellow Frenchman and now Liverpool forward Ekitike.

Bahoya has the most joint goal participations (4) with the former Frankfurt start out of any other teammate in his career. For Ekitike, only three other teammates have had more joint goal participations in his career so far but they've all played at least 1000 more minutes than Bahoya with the Liverpool forward.

In their last 11 matches together, Bahoya made five goal contributions and Ekitike made nine, meaning they made 14 total goal contributions.

That's a remarkable return, and it suggests, Bahoya could be an excellent facilitator. The underlying numbers support this. This season, he ranks among the top 10 wingers for expected assists (0.21 per 90) and he is definitely the type of winger who loves to provide rather than score.

For all these factors and the reason why he's available in the market right now, this is the one player to keep an eye out on. Liverpool could easily sign him in January.