£9m man’s form suggests Liverpool may have made rare scouting mistake

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Hee-Chan Hwang’s form provides evidence that Liverpool may have made a scouting mistake. That would be incredibly rare for the club.

Takumi Minamino shone against Liverpool a year ago. We even came away from the game suggesting the Reds move for him. They would, of course, and the Japanese international arrived in January.

But he was far from the other exciting attacker at RB Salzburg. Hee-Chan Hwang also played brilliantly, scoring a great goal at Anfield.

His form earned him the typical RB Salzburg sale to RB Leipzig. He moved to East Germany in the summer for around £9m.

Both of these players have something unfortunate in common since, however – they’ve struggled quite badly.

Minamino is barely in the Liverpool team, starting just one Premier League game and one Champions League game this season. He has zero goals or assists in either competition.

Hwang actually has a worse stat line. He hasn’t started a game in either the Champions League or Bundesliga, with no goals or assists in either.

So reading all of this begs a question – did Liverpool underestimate a third player, here?

Dominant force

There was one other exciting attacker at Salzburg a year ago, of course – Erling Braut Haaland. And he moved, too, joining Borussia Dortmund in January.

Unlike the other two, however, Haaland has been an absolute revelation. He got 13 Bundesliga goals just in the second half of last season.

He’s now got sixteen this term, with more goals than games in both the Bundesliga and Champions League.

So did Liverpool underestimate Haaland’s influence on that RB Salzburg side? Because his star teammates seem unable to replicate their form without him.

Both Hwang and Minamino have joined in-form teams, too, with histories of developing players. But they’re both having a very poor time.

Haaland, on the other hand, is a superstar who’s thriving. Hwang and Minamino’s struggles actually make him look even better in comparison – a player capable of improving his teammates, possibly.

And perhaps he was the one the Reds should have gone all-out for. Not signing him now looks like a rare Liverpool scouting mistake. We still hope they’ll correct that one.