Current Premier League champions Liverpool are a club who seem to have a production line that churns out talented youngsters one after the other. Algerian Yasser Larouci is one of those players and he’s been linked to Leeds United in the past by the likes of the Mail Online and Goal to be interesting Leeds United.
It’s not hard to see why, the Algerian impressing in the youth sides at Anfield since being picked up from French side Le Havre as a 16-year-old. However, he has struggled to make an impact and any inroad into the star-studded line-up ahead of him.
He featured in just two first-team games for Liverpool in last season’s FA Cup Third and Fourth rounds against Everton and Shrewsbury respectively. During his time at Anfield, the former Le Havre youngster has featured extensively for the Under-18s (37 games/1 goal/3 assists) and Under-23s (14 games/1 assist) and was a key member of the Reds UEFA Youth League squad.
Leeds United have set about this transfer window in a certain fashion. No big-name stars, out of the many that have been linked, have been snapped up. Instead, the Whites have gone about signing young prospects with the likes of Joe Gelhardt (Wigan), Cody Drameh (Fulham) and Charlie Allen (Linfield) signing on at Elland Road.
Larouci would fit right into this modus operandi. The 19-year-old has been told he can leave Anfield, his departure coming, however, at a cost. It is a cost that Leeds United are not willing to meet according to a line in a report from Afrique Sports about Leeds interest in another Algerian, Said Benrhama.
Afrique Sport say that Liverpool’s asking price for Larouci is £2m which they say is “considered too expensive” for the Whites. Leeds are not afraid to spend on players, they’ve shown that with the £1m they’ve spent of Gelhardt and the £400,000 rising to £1m they paid for Drameh.
That’s not to say that they won’t bring in the highly regarded Larouci from Liverpool; they could still do so with a little haggling over the price to be paid.
