Who is Baris Alper Yilmaz? Liverpool 'submits $33m bid' with concerns and positives analyzed

Liverpool is looking to sign a wide forward this summer and, naturally, speculation has raged over whom the No. 1 player to fill that slot might be. Now, reports emanating from Turkey have suggested that Baris Alper Yilmaz could be the man to solve the mystery.

The Galatasaray winger, who represented his country at Euro 2024, is said to be in London. That’s according to Turkish site Ajanspor .

It claims Liverpool has made an offer of $33m (£25m/€30m) for the 24-year-old, who has a slightly lower market value of $22m (£17m/€20m) in the opinion of Transfermarkt .

But leaving aside that discrepancy for a moment, is Yilmaz the wide forward the Reds should sign for Arne Slot ? Liverpool.com takes a look...

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The Turkey international is certainly versatile. His 108 appearances for Galatasaray has been split across seven different positions, which include him playing at full-back on both sides. It is in attack on the wings where Yilmaz has mostly featured, though, with 50 games on the right and 34 on the opposite flank. Slot’s plans for Mohamed Salah may have an impact on where the potential new boy would play for the Reds if he were to join.

With Liverpool so reliant upon goals from wide forwards in the Jurgen Klopp era, there is a slight concern regarding Yilmaz’ relative lack of output. Galatasaray won the Turkish Super League for the last two seasons and across that time the reported Liverpool target scored 10 goals and provided eight assists. He only played effectively one season’s worth of matches in that time – 37.8 per 90s – but that’s not a huge contribution for a dominant team in a relatively weak league.

Across 2022/23 and 2023/24, Yilmaz had chances collectively valued at 6.7 expected goals, per Fotmob , so is at least potentially a decent finisher. An expected goal on target output of 9.3 is further evidence of that. His expected assist total of 6.7 across the previous two campaigns suggest his actually assist tally was a touch fortunate, but not by a ridiculous amount.

Yilmaz looks to have the work rate required by Liverpool. He has averaged 0.9 final third possession regains per 90 in the last two seasons, which is slightly above the figures offered by Luis Diaz (0.8), Darwin Nunez (0.7) and Diogo Jota (0.5) in 2023/24.

But we must finish on his low goals tally. Yilmaz played five full matches at Euro 2024 without finding the net and has only scored twice in 20 international appearances. Similarly, he has no goals from 19 appearances in the Champions League and Europa League with Galatasaray. The number crunchers at Liverpool will need to dig deep to find the data to justify this move.

Liverpool.com says: At the price quoted, signing Yilmaz would be a relatively low risk move for Liverpool. Having only just turned 24, he could be sold for a decent enough fee down the line. But where is the potential upside? It does not jump out from his headline statistics for his career to date.