Liverpool will have to play club record £37m to land AS Roma star Miralem Pjanic

Liverpool have to reportedly pay £37m ($56.9m) if they want to sign Miralem Pjanic from AS Roma in the summer.

According to the Mirror, Brendan Rodgers has earmarked the Bosnian midfielder as the player he wants to bring in to replace outgoing skipper Steven Gerrard.

The Reds skipper is leaving the club and the Premier League to go play in the MLS with LA Galaxy and the Northern Irishman has been scouting for a perfect replacement.

Rodgers has experience with Luis Suarez to know the repercussions of not replacing a top player with a player of similar quality.

The report claims that the Reds manager held talks with the Serie A club's sporting director Walter Sabatini during his recent visit to Rome and has been told that it will take a Liverpool club-record bid to prize the midfielder away from the Stadio Olympico.

IT is also believed that Pjanic, who is contracted to the club until 2018, will need to be made the highest earning player at Anfield, as he is already on a £160,000-a-week contract with his current employers.

Even though Rodgers is interested in Radja Nainggolan, his number one priority to fill the void being left by Gerrard is the Bosnian playmaker.

Apart from Liverpool, Roma had received enquiries from French champions Paris Saint-Germain, and has knocked back a bid of around £25m around the same time last year. And the club believes that the midfielder is worth even more.

The Merseyside club are keen to land their primary targets during the upcoming summer transfer window, but are said to be way off on their valuation of the midfielder.

Liverpool currently are willing to bid around £20m which is nowhere close to what the Serie A side, and with Roma under no pressure to sell, the Anfield side will have to make an offer that can tempt the Italians to part with their prized possession.