Jamie Carragher is right about James Maddison - but Liverpool should not sign him

The first edition of Sky's Monday Night Football took place this week, with Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher overseeing events at Molineux as Wolves faced Manchester United.

In amongst the analysis, one of the points made by the former Liverpool defender involved Leicester City's James Maddison, with Carragher recommending the player to Jurgen Klopp.

“I think he is the one player outside of the top six who Liverpool should be looking at. People have been talking about Coutinho coming back, but obviously that hasn’t happened as he has gone to Bayern Munich, but if you are looking in the Premier League, yes he will cost a lot of money, but he should be the one Liverpool are looking at if you are going to that next step up.”

So, let's take a look at whether a move for the 22 year-old would make sense.

This summer, Liverpool opted against spending excessive amounts on new recruits, with only £2m spent on Sepp van den Berg, Harvey Elliott and Adrian . However, one of the reasons for this was because the Reds don't have a great deal of squad needs.

The recruitment undertaken by the club over the years has been outstanding, and it's led to the squad being difficult to improve upon. There was the argument that a creative spark was lacking in Liverpool's midfield, but Klopp already had a wealth of names available to him in Fabinho , Jordan Henderson, Gini Wijnaldum, James Milner, Naby Keita , Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Adam Lallana.

A move for another figure, no matter how talented, made little sense considering Klopp already had to find minutes for those seven established talents.

Interestingly, though, two players on the list only have one year remaining on their current deals.

A move for Maddison didn't make much sense this summer, but next summer, should the Reds consider him?

There are definite pros related to bringing Maddison to Anfield, considering his age, his homegrown status and the strengths he's able to showcase on the pitch.

One of his most notable qualities is his proficiency from outside the box, as he scored four in the Premier League last season, with three of those being direct free-kicks. Liverpool, for comparison, scored a total of six from outside the box, with Mohamed Salah being the team's most deadly with only two.

Trent Alexander-Arnold scored the team's only direct free-kick in the league last season, and remarkably, the last player to score one before him that is not named Phillipe Coutinho was James Milner in February 2016, over three years ago.

When the Brazilian was sold to Barcelona for £140m, Liverpool's effectiveness from outside the penalty area somewhat disappeared, with the team's scoring figure of six last year being less than half of Manchester City's 16.

Ultimately, from a squad building perspective, whereby different skills are to be carefully added to a team in order to allow a manager to have different tools at his disposal, Maddison would fill a void.

However, positionally, he doesn't appear entirely suited to Liverpool at present.

Klopp quite clearly favours a 4-3-3 formation, and considering Maddison is best deployed as a no.10, he's perhaps not tailored for the team's primary system.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that he simply can't be used. Last season, Klopp utilised a 4-2-3-1 shape against more inferior opponents as a means of including the creativity of Xherdan Shaqiri , and a similar shift would help incorporate Maddison.

His underlying creative output last season suggests he'd be worth the trouble, as according to Expected Assists (xA), only five players in the division posted a better figure per 90 minutes.

xA offers an insight into the likelihood of a chance being scored by considering aspects such as difficulty and location, and it tends to provide an accurate summary of whether a player deserved an assist or not, regardless of whether the chance was scored.

Maddison's figure will have likely been impacted by his hold over Leicester's set-pieces, but it's encouraging nonetheless.

On the negative side, though, the midfielder would cost a significant amount, with the Foxes recently demanding as much as £80m for Harry Maguire from United.

Liverpool could justify such excessive amounts for game-changers in the mould of Alisson Becker or Virgil van Dijk , but considering Maddison probably wouldn't start in Klopp's strongest XI, it's unlikely to expect the club to pay such an extortionate sum.

Instead, the Reds seem to prefer identifying relatively unearthed gems that may be undervalued, and they are often found in foreign leagues.

Maddison is also not the most mobile or physical, and those are crucial for the highly intense, aggressive traits of Klopp's game. The English talent is slight in his frame, and although he was deemed to have a strong season last year, he only actually managed eight goals and six assists in 3620 minutes, which works out as one scoring contribution roughly every 250 minutes.

Overall, he's a player who's certainly worth keeping an eye on, with room to grow aged just 22, but right now and perhaps even in the near future, his signature simply doesn't appear worth the amount that Leicester would charge.

Liverpool have proved that they are willing to pay astronomical amounts for players providing they'll have a worthwhile impact, but in the case of Maddison, he doesn't yet fit that criteria.