Liverpool's €50 Million Move for Finn Jeltsch in Defensive Rebuild
Liverpool are weighing up a €50 million move that would underline just how aggressively they plan to rebuild their defence for 2027.
The club’s long-term planning has been thrown into sharp focus by the state of the back line left behind by Richard Hughes. On paper, Liverpool have numbers at centre-back. In reality, almost every option comes with a question mark.
Virgil van Dijk is out of contract next summer. So is Joe Gomez. Ronald Araujo is only on loan and will walk away unless Liverpool trigger a €50m clause to make the deal permanent.
Strip those three away and the future suddenly looks thin. Jeremy Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni are the only centre-backs guaranteed to be at the club beyond this season, and both are still more promise than proof. Jacquet, 21, is returning from shoulder surgery. Leoni, just 19, has spent close to a year sidelined with a serious knee injury.
That is not the foundation of a title-chasing defence. It is a project.
So Liverpool are already scanning the market for 2027, and one name keeps coming back: Finn Jeltsch.
Liverpool eye Finn Jeltsch amid defensive reset
According to TuttoJuve, Liverpool are in the hunt for Jeltsch, who could leave Stuttgart next year after a standout breakthrough season in the Bundesliga.
At 19, he has already done what many highly rated young defenders never quite manage: he has actually played. Jeltsch was one of only 14 teenage centre-backs to log at least 1,000 minutes across Europe’s top five leagues last season. Push that threshold to 1,500 minutes and the pool shrinks to just 10 – and by one Value Adder model, he ranks around the fifth-best of that elite group.
That kind of profile does not come cheap. Stuttgart know exactly what they have and, per the report, are holding out for €50m. Interest is not in short supply either. Arsenal, Manchester United and Bayern Munich are all said to be tracking him, setting up the prospect of a full-scale battle for his signature.
The chase makes sense. The fit at Liverpool is where the debate starts.
A third kid at the back?
On talent alone, Jeltsch ticks the boxes Liverpool crave: young, proven at a high level, and with the sort of upside that can anchor a defence for a decade.
But stack him against what is already in place. The only centre-backs certain to be at the club beyond this season have an average age of 20. Jacquet. Leoni. Both still learning, both coming off serious injuries. Dropping another 20-year-old into that mix in 2027 would give Liverpool a back line long on potential and short on scars.
For a club trying to navigate contract stand-offs with van Dijk and Gomez while deciding whether Araujo is worth another €50m, committing a similar fee to yet another prospect feels, at the very least, bold.
Liverpool might argue that this is exactly where the market’s value lies: paying big for elite youth rather than overpaying for established names with limited resale. The numbers on Jeltsch’s breakout year support that logic.
The question is whether they are ready to build the heart of their defence almost entirely on kids.
For now, Jeltsch sits firmly on the watchlist. The price is clear, the competition is fierce, and Liverpool’s need for clarity at centre-back is only growing.
Something will have to give.
