Liverpool are being linked with a move for Sporting Lisbon winger Diego Capel. The Express reports that Sporting would be willing to sell the 25-year old Spanish player if their £6million valuation is met, as they bid to get the player of their wage bill. Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham are said to be the teams most interested in Capel and a deal could happen as early as January.
Capel, who has won two caps for the Spanish national side is an out-and-out winger. Currently at Liverpool, we do not have a top class winger with the experience and skill of Capel. Raheem Sterling and Jordan Ibe are the two wingers at the club now and according to Brendan Rodgers, they are still some time away from being ready for regular first time football.
Rodgers signed Victor Moses on loan from Chelsea and the Nigerian also plays his trade down the left hand side but was playing more central recently in the absence of Coutinho. Moses is likely to return to Chelsea at the end of his loan, meaning that Liverpool will still be thin on wingers in the squad and thus the signing of Capel would be a good move for the club.
3-5-2 is the current formation Rodgers is using and it does not accommodate out-and-out wingers so a player like Capel would be surplus to requirements in that system. But Rodgers is most likely to revert back to the 4-3-3 formation as soon as he has all his available players fit. The Liverpool manager said that the switch to 3-5-2 was necessitated by the players he had available. Now if he has a quality winger like Capel on his books, he can go ahead with the 4-3-3 and have Capel playing out wide with Suarez hovering on the other flank and Sturridge upfront. The lack of a quality winger is one of the reasons Rodgers is still holding onto the 3-5-2 experiment and that can all be resolved by forking out £6million for Capel.