Transfer Report: Jeremy Jacquet

I’m driving home from Mass yesterday, listening to “Operator” by Jim Croce, when the notification popped across my phone that Liverpool had signed French defender Jeremy Jacquet for around £55 million. The 20-year-old is set to move to Liverpool in the summer and will likely stake his claim for starters minutes, or at least I have to assume so given the price. As I’m sure you’ve noted, in recent years I haven’t had the time to really do analytical deep dives like I had in the past. However, I think our new signing deserves some attention as to why we paid an expensive fee for him. And so I’m dragged back into the Liverpool mixer for another day. Hope y’all have fun with this one.

As is often the case with Liverpool, as seen with the last young French CB Ibou Konate whom the club bought in 2021, they waited in order to get their top man. While I don’t like the idea of transition seasons in order to obtain the preferred player, nor do I love the idea of purposefully being short on cover in key positions in order to help facilitate such moves, it is an exceedingly rare case when this type of transfer hasn’t worked out for Mikey Edwards during his numbers of years of involvement with the club. Case in point, Konate and Diaz were vital parts of the Klopp era restoration that started upon their arrival in 2021/22. I’ve long been putting off an article on why that team is my favorite of the Klopp era, and perhaps this Jacquet transfer is what finally gets me to do it. But I digress. I’m more so interested in why Jacquet was so clearly the top guy for Liverpool. Just like Leoni last summer, who did prove for 80 minutes to be a sensational young talent at the position. If he comes back healthy, that would be a big boost to the weak state of the defense as well.

Going back to the Klopp era and also in some ways the Slot era now with the signing of Leoni in the summer, there’s a clear archetype of player that Liverpool desires at the heart of their defense: composed big bastards. Klopp recognized early on how important aerial ability is in the Premier League, and it is partly for this reason that players like Joel Matip and of course Virgil van Dijk were so heavily targeted by the club. Konate is another example. Klopp also understood that the game is played at a breakneck pace in the Premier League, so not only do these players need to be tall and strong as fuck in order to win headers against the Declan Rices and Erling Haalands of the world, they also gotta be rapid quick to cover such opposition in a foot race. Then, with being tall and fast as fuck already being difficult enough to find, they must also be good enough on the ball to at least keep possession ticking, and it’d be a bonus if they could be like Virgil and conduct play from the back like a tall, strong and Dutch version of Andrea Pirlo. You know, typing this all out, I now understand why it’s so difficult to find players at certain positions. There’s so many criteria that they have to fit into, and not many players are capable of being all of it, and yet they must if success at the highest level is to be achieved.

Is Jeremy Jacquet then a unicorn that’s able to fit all these criteria? Does he have the tools to develop further under the guidance of Virgil and Slot? Is he the current and future star that this Liverpool defense desperately needs? To start, he does fit the first criteria. He’s still young enough to grow a bit more and fill out his frame, and he’s already a healthy 190 cm tall. For me and my fellow Yanks, that’s 6’2”, only two inches shorter than Virgil. But if you ask me, two inches is plenty……never mind. Did anybody see that we beat Chelsea to sign Jacquet? Did anybody also see that their new owner Boehly was in the Epstein files? Anyways, I digress. Jacquet at the age of 20 has started just about every game for Rennes this season in Ligue 1, and it’s notable that he comes from Rennes because some of the world’s best young talent at the position was once developed by that club. Most recently, Leny Yoro, who was once considered a prodigy and a star in the making before he sold his career down the river to the bad part of Manchester.

Digging deeper into his advanced stats, I see a very promising young talent with some flaws in his game likely dictated by his youth. This is only Jacquet’s second season playing major minutes at a professional level, and his first season playing major minutes for a seriously good Rennes team. His stats in possession are sparkling: 90% pass completion rate, 54% long pass completion rate, and 9 chances created. Even more impressive are his numbers when it comes to keeping possession or winning it back. Liverpool this season have been winning about the same number of aerial duels as they have in previous seasons, with the magic number for success always hanging around 60%. However, at this stage of the season in the Premier League alone, they’ve already faced more than twice as many of those aerial duels compared to all of last season. This suggests a significant change in how opponents have decided to play us. Less fancy footwork, more old fashioned Brexit ball with the big old defender hoofing it long to the bigger and older striker, who heads it down for the pacy winger to stroll past the fullbacks and Liverpool are already behind 1-0, what a start to the proceedings here at Anfield. Liverpool aren’t any worse at winning their aerial duels, there’s just way more of them.

At age 20, with a frame that could use some more muscle, Jacquet is already winning 75% of his aerial duels. That suggests he’s relying on technique that can last, not brute strength which can fade with injury. He also wins 68% of his ground duels, suggesting a knowledge in regard to when to stand, when to slide, and overall understanding of the game that belies his young age. Perhaps a bit rash and underdeveloped in some areas though, which is likely because of youthful vigor and inexperience. He ranks in high percentiles for recoveries, tackles, and interceptions, which tell me he’s very good at them but also suggests he’s making a lot of last ditch efforts because of a lack of positional awareness. Rennes have conceded less than a goal a game when he’s on the field, but it’s still 27 goals in 30 games. It’s good that he’s getting a lot of experience defending at an early age. As his game refines with time and hopefully the Liverpool team plays better, those skills will still be important when we do give up good chances.

Lastly, Jacquet seems to be awfully quick, with a maximum recorded speed of 34.5 km/hr. His stature, pace and style have already drawn comparisons to Arsenal’s best player, William Saliba. He has revealed himself to the world as a physical monster of a player whose brain seems similarly advanced for his age. He fits every criteria that Liverpool could hope for, he is the unicorn they’ve been after. Now let’s just hope they can find one more if Konate’s leaving in the summer. The second part of Arne Slot’s supreme squad overhaul has just started. I imagine similar upheaval is coming this summer before things calm down a bit for a few years, just as it did with the Klopp era. Liverpool have a lot of needs to fill, chief among them successors for Salah and Virgil. Whether Jacquet is meant to play with Virgil or be his eventual replacement, he should be a strong signing joining a team that’s very strong on talent, but is still raw and developing chemistry. It’s not the immediate cover we were likely hoping for, but long term, Jeremy Jacquet should be a good signing. Signing the best young talent in the world and hoping it coalesces is not a bad business strategy. It’s yet to be determined how it all plays out on the pitch, though, and that’s what ultimately matters.