Liverpool gambled on Jacquet and it is paying off

Jeremy Jacquet's choice of song for his Instagram post after Liverpool beat Brighton on Sunday and kept their fourth clean sheet of the season was telling.

"Trust in the process, trust in the plan" were some of the lyrics, accompanying a selection of images from the game.

That is very much what the 21-year-old has been doing - and more - since joining Liverpool in a deal worth £60m over the summer.

Things could have been very different had Liverpool pressed further with their pursuit of Leny Yoro in 2024. Yet in going down that route, they were alerted to another French centre-back in Jacquet, who was playing for Rennes.

Yoro chose to move to Manchester United from Lille and could well go on to be an elite centre-half but on Sunday afternoon, it was hard not to notice the difference between the pair.

Yoro, 20, made a calamitous error as United lost to Bournemouth while Jacquet put in another assured performance against Brighton. The ease with which he has adapted to playing for Liverpool has been impressive and even surprised senior figures at the club.

Liverpool great Alan Hansen, who was watching on at Anfield on Sunday, would surely have taken satisfaction from Jacquet's display.

Since arriving at Anfield, Jacquet has started every game in the Premier League and Champions League, playing more minutes (956) than any player at Liverpool bar Alisson (990) this season.

The transition is even more remarkable considering he spent most of the year recovering from injuries, having sustained a broken shoulder in February followed by a knee problem in the summer.

Jacquet did not play a minute of Liverpool's summer tour to the United States and made his debut in a pre-season friendly against Como, when he scored at Anfield just a week before the Premier League started.

After the departure of Ibrahima Konate to Real Madrid, Liverpool had a space to fill at centre-back alongside Virgil van Dijk and given the injury struggles of Joe Gomez and Giovanni Leoni, Jacquet got the nod the following weekend at Newcastle.

A trip to St James' Park for a first Premier League experience is quite the task and, despite conceding early on, it was an encouraging display in which Jacquet played more accurate passes and successful final-third passes than any other player in the first half.

Losing to Manchester City and Erling Haaland was a timely reminder of the challenges ahead but, on the whole, he has excelled.

The way in which the Frenchman dealt with Brentford's Igor Thiago a week later was a real standout, while social media compared his short sleeves and gloves look against Brighton to French great Marcel Desailly.

Jacquet has four clean sheets in the Premier League, ranks fourth in the top flight when it comes to interceptions (15), fourth in blocks (10) and has made more tackles (19) than any of his Liverpool team-mates.

With his stellar start to the campaign, a France call-up was inevitable under Zinedine Zidane and a debut followed for the boy from Bondy - the same area in the Paris suburbs that is home to Kylian Mbappe and William Saliba.

"Very good. Very, very good," said Zidane, when he was asked about Jacquet's performance against Italy earlier this month. "Brave. He wasn't afraid to come out a long way. Very good in the duels. He was, once again, very good. I said it four times."

Chelsea's loss is Liverpool's gain

On Wednesday, Liverpool will welcome Xabi Alonso back to Anfield when Chelsea visit in the Carabao Cup. Jacquet could easily have been wearing blue had Liverpool not accelerated their push for him in January,

Chelsea were keen and Jacquet was rated highly internally at Stamford Bridge but he chose the Reds.

At the time, the move raised eyebrows, particularly for a player who had only made 36 appearances in France's Ligue 1.

Liverpool missed out on Marc Guehi last summer and were having a poor season but Richard Hughes, the former sporting director, was prepared to wait until the summer, with Rennes unwilling to sanction a move in January.

On deadline day in January, journalist Julien Laurens, told BBC Sport: "It's a lot of money but Jacquet has everything to become one of the best centre-backs in the world in the next few years. He is arguably the best centre-back of his generation."

A few months into the new season, it seems Liverpool have settled on a gem.

Jacquet is part of a quartet at Anfield, alongside Bradley Barcola, Victor Munoz and Ronald Araujo, taking English lessons and like everything else, he is understood to be taking that in his stride.