Liverpool Eyeing Stuttgart's Young Star Finn Jeltsch for Defense

Liverpool’s next defensive leader might already be on their radar – and he is barely out of his teens.

According to Italian outlet TuttoJuve, Liverpool are among a cluster of European heavyweights tracking Finn Jeltsch, the highly rated Stuttgart centre-back, with a €50 million price tag already being floated for a move in 2027.

This is not a luxury watchlist exercise. It’s necessity.

A defence built on uncertainty

Liverpool’s centre-back department looks crowded on paper and fragile in reality.

Virgil van Dijk is out of contract next summer. Joe Gomez is in the same situation. Ronald Araujo is only at Anfield on loan and would cost €50m to keep permanently once his deal expires.

Strip those three out and the long-term picture turns stark. Jeremy Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni are the only centre-backs definitively tied to the club beyond this season. Their combined experience? Minimal. Their injury records? Worrying.

Jacquet, the elder of the pair at 21, is coming back from shoulder surgery. Leoni, just 19, has been sidelined for around a year with a serious knee injury. Both are prospects, not yet pillars.

So Liverpool’s 2027 transfer planning has a glaring red circle around centre-back. They will have to buy. The question is who – and what profile they can afford to gamble on.

Jeltsch stands out in a crowded field

That is where Jeltsch comes in.

The Stuttgart defender, still only 19, delivered a breakout season in the Bundesliga and forced his name into every serious recruitment meeting across Europe. He was one of only 14 teenage centre-backs to log at least 1,000 minutes across Europe’s top five leagues last season. Raise that threshold to 1,500 minutes and the pool shrinks to just 10 – Jeltsch is in that elite bracket.

Analytics back up the eye test. According to a Value Adder model referenced in the report, he ranks around the fifth-best among that group of teenage centre-backs. For a club that leans heavily on data to identify value, that kind of profile is exactly what lights up a screen.

Stuttgart know it. They are not interested in a bargain sale. The reported asking price sits at €50m, and they can point to the queue to justify it. Arsenal, Manchester United and Bayern Munich are all said to be monitoring the situation. Half of Europe, in essence, is hovering.

This will not be a quiet auction.

The age question Liverpool cannot ignore

On the face of it, Jeltsch looks like a classic Liverpool play: young, proven at a high level, with numbers that suggest there is more to come. Yet the fit is not straightforward.

If nothing changes, the only centre-backs guaranteed to be at the club beyond this season will have an average age of 20. Jacquet, Leoni, and potentially Jeltsch: three emerging defenders, none of them with the gravitas or mileage of a Van Dijk.

Stacking another 20-year-old on top of that group in 2027 feels, at best, bold. At worst, reckless. A back line built almost entirely on potential can turn quickly from exciting to exposed in the grind of a Premier League season.

That is why there is doubt over whether Liverpool will actually pull the trigger, even if they admire Jeltsch. They may decide that €50m has to go on a readymade leader, not another project, however gifted.

Or they may decide that this is where the value lies: buy the talent early, trust the development curve, and let the market catch up.

For now, Jeltsch sits in that intriguing space between obvious target and strategic dilemma. The interest is real, the competition is fierce, and the price is steep.

One to keep an eye on – especially if Liverpool’s defensive rebuild ends up being younger, and riskier, than anyone expected.