Palace Are Leading The Chase For Tomiyasu, But Should Liverpool Even Be In It

Takehiro Tomiyasu’s name has entered the conversation around Liverpool’s defensive plans, and on the surface it is easy to see why. He is out of contract, he can play across the back line, and Liverpool’s cover at both full-back and centre-back has looked thin for much of the summer. But the fact that a free transfer makes financial sense does not automatically mean it makes footballing sense, and that distinction matters here.

A Sensible Profile, But Palace Are Well Ahead

According to TeamTalk, Crystal Palace are currently the clear frontrunners for Tomiyasu’s signature, with the 27 year old already training alongside Pierre Sage’s squad and having featured on the bench in a recent pre-season defeat to RC Lens. The same report notes that Liverpool are among several Premier League clubs, alongside Everton, Newcastle and Sunderland, who have been made aware that Tomiyasu is available.

That framing tells its own story. Being one of four clubs informed of a free agent’s availability is a long way from being in genuine competition to sign him, and Palace’s head start, with the player already training at their base, suggests this is much closer to being their signing than Liverpool’s.

Versatility Is Attractive, But It Isn’t Everything

There is no question Tomiyasu ticks boxes on paper. His career has taken him from Bologna to Arsenal, he is comfortable at right-back, left-back and centre-back, and a club trying to solve two problem positions with one signing will always find that appealing, especially at zero transfer fee. Liverpool’s issues at right-back have been well documented, and the centre-back pool has looked stretched at times too.

Even so, versatility can become a trap if it is mistaken for a genuine upgrade. A player who is capable of covering multiple positions is not the same as a player who solidifies any one of them, and Liverpool’s defensive problems this summer have looked more like a need for a clear first-choice option than a jack of all trades filling gaps on a rota basis.

Why We Would Rather Liverpool Looked Elsewhere

Our concern is less about Tomiyasu himself, who has a solid reputation as a reliable professional, and more about what signing him would actually represent. If Liverpool’s defensive rebuild ends up being a free agent patch job rather than a properly resourced piece of business, that raises questions about ambition at a moment when the rest of the Premier League is investing heavily.

Liverpool need certainty in defence, not just extra bodies. A squad that has already been unsettled by fitness concerns at the back needs a defined starter, someone the head coach can build a settled back four around, rather than another multi-purpose option who adds numbers without necessarily adding a clear upgrade in any single position.

There is also a question of squad culture worth raising. Bringing in a defender whose recent minutes have been limited enough to attract this level of scrutiny, purely because he is free, is a different proposition to signing someone who has been playing regularly at a high level. Liverpool’s back line already carries enough uncertainty without adding a player whose match sharpness is itself a talking point.

Our Take

Palace being ahead in this race might end up doing Liverpool a favour. A free transfer is always tempting when the market is expensive elsewhere, but tempting and correct are not always the same thing. If Tomiyasu ends up at Selhurst Park rather than Anfield, we would not lose much sleep over it.

What we would rather see is Liverpool treating their defensive gaps as a priority worth spending properly on, rather than hoping a versatile free agent papers over cracks that a specific, higher calibre signing would close for good. Depth matters, but depth without genuine quality at the top of the position does not solve the problem Liverpool actually have.