Jamie Carragher bemoans Liverpool not beating Arsenal to sign underrated star

Jamie Carragher feels Liverpool will need to sign a central midfielder this summer and is still bemoaning the fact they didn’t buy Declan Rice when he was available.

The Reds may have spent £446m last summer in an enormous transfer market splurge, but they are doing considerably worse this season than last.

The Premier League champions are 14 points adrift of leaders Arsenal and their title defence appears to have long been over already.

Carragher reckons the current table-toppers have the leading contender for Player of the Season, someone he wishes Liverpool would have moved for when they had the chance.

The Gunners paid West Ham £100m for the England midfielder in 2023 and he has been an integral figure for them ever since, already racking up 135 appearances and 20 goals for the club.

With Carragher feeling that some Liverpool midfielders are not quite bringing enough to the table, he feels that Rice is the complete package and compares him to a Manchester United legend.

‘Curtis Jones and Alexis Mac Allister are really good players, but it ends up with two or three players who do not have great physicality in there,’ Carragher told The Athletic.

‘The one who stands out every time I watch him play is Declan Rice. What a player, honest to god. That’s exactly what Liverpool need. For me, he is the modern-day Roy Keane.’

‘I actually don’t think we still give him enough praise’

Despite being seen as a key player for the Premier League leaders, Carragher feels Rice is still underappreciated.

‘I don’t think he’s a Stevie Gerrard, because Stevie was more attacking,’ said the former Liverpool defender. ‘Roy did a bit of everything; press high, get the ball off the back four, everything. Declan has the set pieces, too. I actually don’t think we still give him enough praise. It always feels like there’s a but with him. His passing is fantastic. No one can run past him. His set-piece delivery is as good as anything in European football.

‘Why Liverpool didn’t go for him? The summer he was available, was the summer we were going to get rid of Jordan Henderson and Fabinho. My argument at the time was you buy one player to replace two, because he could do both the Fabinho role and also the Henderson one, pressing high, as he shows for Arsenal. Oh god, I’d have loved to have got him in a Liverpool shirt.

‘For me, he’s Player of the Year this year, especially if Arsenal win the league. Then he will get the real love he deserves, and hopefully he will go and have a great World Cup (with England), too.’

Liverpool did make multiple midfield signings in the summer of 2023 as they replaced the departing Henderson, Fabinho, Naby Keita, James Milner and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

In came Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch and Wataru Endo.

Speaking earlier this month, Rice explained how Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has been able to get the best out of him since he moved across London.

‘The good thing is with the manager, he knows when to put the knife in me, just to give me a nudge, he knows how to get the best out of me,’ he said.

‘I love to listen, I love to take it all in. Since then, I’ve just gone on and the games are coming so thick and fast so I’m just trying to play consistently well.’