Liverpool transfer target matches SENSATIONAL Lionel Messi record

Liverpool have had an excellent start to their first season under their new head coach, but even so Arne Slot still has one eye on the future.

The Reds currently sit top of both the Premier League and UEFA Champions League tables and Slot has won all but two of his first 16 games in charge in Merseyside.

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Slot’s side still hold a perfect record in the Champions League, and their emphatic 4-0 win over Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen showed just how good the team can be.

After the match, Luis Diaz’s hat-trick will have been what most Kopites were talking about, but he wasn’t the only player to score three in Europe that night, and the other hat-trick scorer will have been on Slot’s mind too.

Gyokeres joins Leo Messi in exclusive club

Liverpool’s domestic rivals Manchester City were in Portugal to take on Sporting CP, managed by Manchester United’s next manager Ruben Amorim, and things didn’t go to plan for Pep Guardiola.

Despite taking the lead after just five minutes, City were dismantled in Lisbon and ended the night 4-1 losers.

It was Liverpool target Viktor Gyokeres who piled on the misery for City, scoring a treble and taking his goal tally to 23 in just 17 games this season.

When the 26-year-old completed his hat-trick in the 80th minute he joined Lionel Messi and Christopher Nkunku in an exclusive three-person club.

The trio are the only players to ever score three or more goals against Manchester City in the Champions League.

Do Liverpool need Gyokeres?

Although Diaz impressed massively playing through the middle for the Reds against Leverkusen, Gyokeres’ form is hard to ignore.

The Swede has 27 goals and assists already this season and had 58 goals and assists in 50 games last campaign when he even outscored Erling Haaland.

This is proof that Gyokeres isn’t just in a purple patch, he seems to be the real deal.

Although he currently plays in Portugal, a league that is undoubtedly weaker than the Premier League, there have been some great examples of players who have made the jump between the two leagues and excelled.

Luis Diaz joined Liverpool from Porto in 2022 and has been a regular starter for the Reds ever since, and there is an argument he’s been one of Slot’s best players this season.

It isn’t just Diaz though, Ruben Dias joined City in 2020 from Benfica and was regarded as one of the best defenders in the league for a while. There is also Bruno Fernandes who joined Manchester United from Sporting.

Liverpool should not be put off by Gyokeres' current league and, when you look at his performances over the last 18 months, it becomes incredibly hard to argue that he shouldn’t be top of Slot’s shopping list.

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