Lazar Markovic: quick as Messi, crafty as Zlatan

The player we have latest been linked to is Benfica and Serbian winger/striker Lazar Markovic.  He is 20-years-old, 175cm (5'9"), lightning quick, and has a skill set that reminds me of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

For some reason finding statistics for Liga Sagres is very difficult, even if I spoke Portuguese.  I won't even get into stats from the Serbian SuperLiga, if anything more than superficial exist.  Here's what I could throw together:

app (sub)	96
mins	6318
goals	19
assists	18
chances	7*
npg90	0.27
gcp90	0.53
ccp90	0.88*
pass	316**
att	398**
pass %	79.4*
bp %	60.6*
sacc %	50*
shot %	12.5**
TTI90	9**

* stats are only from European matches in 2013-14 for Benfica

** stats are from European matches in 2012-13 for Partizan Belgrade & 2013-14 for Benfica

Overall, not that impressive, but he does show flashes of brilliance and he did just turn 20 in March.  He also tends to command influence in his performances as shown in this video:

Is he worth the £25m though? Potentially yes, but it's quite risky.  He's an exciting player with a decade of football ahead of him.  Statistically, he doesn't blow anyone away, especially his back pass percentage, but he does create a goal every other match.

I'm not one who advocates spending that kind of cash for a potential superstar, but I'm on the fence with Markovic.  There's just something about him that makes me think he's going to be quite special in a few years and it would be a shame if Liverpool lost out.