Five replacements for star players X club ‘already has to save them millions’

If you’ve got your finger on the transfer window pulse you will definitely have come across articles over the years suggesting X club ‘already has a replacement’ – normally a ‘perfect’ or ‘ready-made’ one – for X star player that will ‘save them millions’.

We assume this repeated style must convince transfer gossip layman to click in the hope that their club has signed someone under the radar on the cheap, but as we all know it indicates an article about a young understudy at the club that could – but probably won’t – be The Next Mohamed Salah in a neat but shameless way of getting star names into headlines in the absence of actual news of replacements.

We thoroughly enjoy the brazen claims, particularly when they concern some of the very best players in Premier League history. There are a couple of those in this list of current players who have had such articles using their names as clout for clicks, as well at least two we’re not convinced need replacing, by an academy star or anyone else.

Anyway, we’ve come up with five having used a very simple method of googling ‘Liverpool already have replacement for’ and changing the club name.

There are only representatives from Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United because Man City aren’t about to replace Kevin De Bruyne or anyone else with an academy graduate, Chelsea don’t have any academy graduates left to promote, Tottenham haven’t produced a worthy player since Harry Kane and news outlets are unlikely to bother with such articles about clubs outside the Big Six.

Bournemouth already having a replacement for Dominic Solanke who could save them millions isn’t going to draw huge traffic, despite us definitely now wanting to know who that might be. God damn, it works.

Jarrell Quansah for Virgil van Dijk
We may not have stooped to a ‘save millions’ article, but we were impressed by Quansah as many were last season and definitely considered the possibility that he could step into Van Dijk’s shoes.

Jurgen Klopp claimed Quansah’s poise in possession was “special” and said he “liked him from the moment he first saw him” as a 16-year-old. Van Dijk himself hailed the heir to his defensive throne as “a fantastic talent” whom he would strive to “help” bring through.

The similarities are obvious: physical dominance, composure, an excellent passing range and – perhaps most notably – an air of authority that borders on arrogance.

Liverpool Echo went a step further in a bid to prove their likeness in an article titled: ‘Liverpool already have ready-made Virgil van Dijk replacement to save them millions.’ No notes guys, brilliant.

They used Macro Football’s player impact tool, which essentially allows them to come up with a percentage similarity between players, and found that the player that most closely matched Van Dijk’s style in Europe’s top five leagues last season was Quansah. A 98.6% similarity rating, apparently. Slightly less than the percentage of DNA that humans share with chimpanzees (98.8%), for what it’s worth.

Waldemar Anton, who has just joined Borussia Dortmund from Stuttgart, Cristian Romero (Tottenham), Pau Cubarsi (Barcelona) and Beraldo (PSG) make up the rest of a top five of Van Dijk mimics.

Ben Doak for Mohamed Salah
Football Fancast went for a slgihtly more original but far more fanciful headline given the players involved: ‘Liverpool’s “special” teen Salah replacement could explode under Slot’. And they couldn’t resist a sub-heading of ‘Liverpool’s readymade Salah replacement’ before extolling the virtues of a player who ‘has already been given several first-team opportunities at Liverpool over the last two seasons’.

Is ten ‘several’? Must be. He’s played 37 Premier League minutes and 307 senior minutes in total, in which he’s failed to register a goal or an assist.

It was Klopp who claimed Doak was “special”, hailing his “straightforward bravery”, which sounds like it might be included on the inscription of the most-improved trophy for a 10-year-old at the local sports club.

And even the uber-positive Liverpool legend would struggle to convince even the most blinkered of fans that Doak can be anything close to a like-for-like replacement for a guy who’s got 211 goals and 89 assists in 349 games. Someone with that potential would have been in the team more often than not last season, even as an 18-year-old.

Ethan Nwaneri for Emile Smith Rowe
A particularly weird decision from several news outlets to jump on the replacing Emile Smith Rowe bandwagon. There were plenty of very similar articles with prototypical headlines but GIVESPORT went so far as to use pre-season footage in which Nwaneri chiefly played five yard passes to illustrate their bright idea to SAVE ARSENAL MILLIONS.

The whole reason Smith Rowe is leaving for Fulham is because he’s not getting sufficient game time. Nwaneri – who became the youngest ever Premier League player when he made his debut nearly two years ago – would probably rather not be his replacement, thank you very much.

READ MORE: Nwaneri is an obvious Arsenal talent, but 15 is too young for professional football

Amad Diallo for Jadon Sancho
Amad impressed in the penultimate game of last season, scoring and assisting at home against Newcastle and Andy Cole and Wayne Rooney were among the Manchester United alumni after that game to suggest Amad “is the man to replace Jadon Sancho”.

That granted news outlets scope to write ‘already have’ articles using their quotes as though this is some sort of academy success story rather than a case of United maybe, finally making use of a player they bought for £19m three-and-a-half years ago, at a point when they would much rather have been getting a deal for the man he’s now being tipped to replace over the line.

Looks like Sancho’s staying in any case.

READ MORE: Manchester United starting to read from the same page but need more than just words

Myles Lewis-Kelly for Oleksandr Zinchenko
We know what you’re thinking: Do Arsenal need ‘a perfect replacement for Zinchenko’ having just signed Riccardo Califiori amid the return to fitness of Jurrien Timber? Hey, we don’t make the perfect-replacement-to-make-club-millions rules and who are we to question the guys over at Sport Bible .

The Evening Standard are of a similar mind, or at least were back in January, hailing Lewis-Skelly as the ‘next Oleksandr Zinchenko’, possibly to choruses of ‘FFS, not another one’.