Reports from overseas have now suggested that the Premier League champions are in pole position to land a Champions League participant with whom they were first linked just over a year ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Liverpool reportedly leading the race to sign Joel Ordonez<\/p>\n According to\u00a0Bolavip<\/a>, Liverpool are the frontrunners to sign Joel Ordonez from Club Brugge, with Chelsea withdrawing from negotiations over a potential \u20ac40m [34.8m] move for the Ecuador international despite Stamford Bridge seemingly being his preferred destination.<\/p>\n That has seemingly \u2018cleared the way\u2019 for the Reds to make their move for the 21-year-old, although Inter Milan continue to monitor the situation with a view to potentially gazumping the Merseysiders.<\/p>\n Ordonez has accrued a wealth of high-level experience in European football, having recently surpassed a century of appearances for Club Brugge, with nearly 20% of those coming in the Champions League (Transfermarkt<\/a>).<\/p>\n As evidenced below by underlying performance metrics comparing him with other centre-backs across Europe in 2025 (via FBref<\/a>), the Ecuadorian stands out for his ball-playing abilities, traits which were evident from his teenage years<\/a> at Independiente del Valle in his homeland.<\/p>\n Per 90 minutes Expected assisted goals (xAG) Non-penalty xG plus xAG Non-penalty xG Pass completion Progressive passes The big unknown about the 21-year-old is how he would adapt to playing in the Premier League, which\u2019d be a significant step up from the Belgian top flight, although his experience of Champions League football should stand him in quite good stead.<\/p>\n Guehi would still be the most desirable centre-back acquisition for Liverpool in January, given his homegrown status, proven ability in England and his obvious fit for what the Reds are seeking in a player, given the club\u2019s pursuit of him during the summer.<\/p>\n However, if the Palace captain proves to be unattainable next month, Richard Hughes may well give serious consideration to exploring a move for Ordonez, especially now that Chelsea have seemingly pulled out of the race for the youngster.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s see if this one develops any further throughout the January transfer window.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool reportedly have a free run at signing a highly-rated South American centre-back in 2026. John Aldridge has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-218132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Liverpool](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/joel-ordonez-ecuador.jpg\")
(Photo by Ira L. Black\/Getty Images)What qualities could Ordonez bring to Liverpool?<\/p>\n
\nPercentile among positional peers<\/p>\n
\n0.08
\n97th (top 3%)<\/p>\n
\n0.16
\n97th<\/p>\n
\n0.09
\n92nd<\/p>\n
\n91.1%
\n91st<\/p>\n
\n4.48
\n84th<\/p>\n