Why Liverpool Are Still Watching Aleksandar Stankovic

Curtis Jones leaving for Inter Milan this summer was never going to be the only story to come out of those talks. According to TeamTalk, Liverpool used the same negotiations to sound out Inter over a very different kind of deal, one that would have sent 21 year old Aleksandar Stankovic the other way entirely.

A question asked quietly

Nobody at Anfield has been pretending midfield is an urgent priority, even with Jones now settled in Serie A. Liverpool’s public line has always been that the position is well stocked. Yet the report makes clear the club still made an enquiry about Stankovic while Jones’s move was being finalised, using the goodwill between the two clubs to establish whether the Serbian midfielder could realistically move to Merseyside. That is not the behaviour of a club desperate to fill a gap. It is a club keeping tabs on a player it rates.

Why the name keeps coming up

Stankovic returned to Inter this summer once the Italian side triggered a buy back clause, ending a development spell that took in a loan at Luzern followed by a strong run at Club Brugge, where by most accounts he became one of the more talked about young holding midfielders on the continent. That kind of form does not go unnoticed. Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur were both linked earlier in the window, and Inter are said to have weighed moving him on again almost as soon as the buy back went through, with a loan carrying an obligation to buy discussed as one possible structure. Liverpool, evidently, were also part of that conversation.

Inter close the door, for now

For the moment, Inter have been unambiguous. Stankovic stays, largely because head coach Cristian Chivu rates him highly and wants to give him a proper run in the first team this season. That leaves Liverpool watching rather than pushing, helped by the fact that Trey Nyoni’s rise through the ranks has taken some of the pressure off the position. Nothing here suggests an imminent bid. The suggestion instead is that Liverpool expect to be back in the midfield market by 2027, and that Stankovic remains one of the names they intend to keep close tabs on when that moment comes.

Our take

This reads like sensible groundwork rather than a club caught short. Liverpool were never under real pressure to replace Jones like for like, and resisting the urge to do so just to be seen doing something is, if anything, a good sign. At the same time, Stankovic sounds exactly like the type Liverpool ought to have on file: young, still improving, and already good enough to have two Premier League clubs sniffing around him before Inter even brought him home.

The encouraging bit is the timing. Liverpool already know Inter’s stance, already understand what kind of deal structure might work, and have presumably logged all of it for future reference. That sort of legwork tends to matter more than it looks like at the time, particularly if Nyoni keeps developing and the midfield picture changes again before 2027 comes around. Supporters will disagree, as they always do, on whether the position needs sorting sooner rather than later. But there is nothing wrong with waiting for the right man instead of grabbing the nearest one, and on the evidence here, Stankovic looks worth the wait.