Some transfers get to a point where you just presume that it was finalised a while ago, but it appears that talks are still ongoing between Liverpool and RB Leipzig over their French centre back Ibrahima Konate.
The German side are already set to lose Dayot Upamecano in the summer so it will be a major blow to lose both starting centre backs at the same time, but the latest report from Fabrizio Romano suggests his move to Anfield is now extremely close:
If Liverpool trigger that release clause of around €35m then there’s not a lot that Leipzig can do about it, and it’s hard to see the move falling through if personal terms have been agreed alongside the dates of the contract.
It will be interesting to see what impact this has on Liverpool’s defence as he’s highly rated and will expect to get into the team straight away, but they will then have too many options once Matip, van Dijk and Gomez all recover.
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It suggests that Nat Phillips may need to look for a loan move which might not be a bad thing if he can be a key starter somewhere else for a season, while January signing Ben Davies may never actually see the field.