Florentino Luís - The Perfect Replacement for Fabinho at Liverpool

... But not for his release clause of £103m

With the departures of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson to Saudi Arabia on the cards, Liverpool’s transfer window plans take a slight detour. After signing Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister, the focus was on getting Roméo Lavia and slowly integrating him into the squad.

But, the Reds are now compelled to sign a defensive midfielder who can come in and start games from the start of the season. There won’t be much time to settle down, unlike Fabinho in 2018.

Among the many names the media have linked the club to, Benfica’s Florentino Luís jumps out. The 23-year-old plays for Benfica having joined the club as a child 13 years ago. He made his senior debut for the Portuguese giants during the second half of the 2018/19 season before going out on loan to Monaco and Getafe in 2020/21 and 2021/22 respectively.

Last season, Luís made 54 appearances in all competitions for Benfica, almost all of it in a defensive midfield pivot. He has made 84 appearances for various youth sides of the Portugal national team from the U15s to U21s, but is yet to crack it at the senior level.

With the premise of the article and introduction of the player done to a certain degree, let’s take a deeper look at the latter, what his numbers say and why he would be a good signing for Liverpool, provided they find a solution to the caveat.

Player Profile - Florentino Luís

Throughout his career so far, Florentino Luís has either operated as a lone number six or in a double six. The 23-year-old loves a tackle or two, is good at all types of passes (having a good vision in possession) and has a good aerial duel winning rate. 

With 3.47 tackles per 90, Luís is third in the Portuguese League amongst all the players who played a minimum of 900 minutes last season [FBRef]. Is it me or does the player remind us of the Fabinho we signed a few years ago? Probably so.