Liverpool reportedly still stand a good chance of sorting out a transfer for Fabio Carvalho for the summer, despite things falling apart late in the evening on 31st January.
This comes from a joint Athletic piece from Paul Rutzler and Caoimhe O’Neill, Fulham and Liverpool correspondents respectively, with the pair confirming that a medical had gone ahead in London before a failure to complete paperwork derailed the proposed move.
The agreement of a fee between the clubs – a major breakthrough after it had initially appeared that talks were heading nowhere – stands as a good sign of a deal being thrashed out between the two as part of a pre-agreement.
A pre-agreement will be the making or breaking of Carvalho’s hopes of remaining in England and, more specifically, completing a permanent move to Merseyside to link up with Jurgen Klopp’s men.
This will hardly be considered a disaster regardless for us given the acquisition of one of the Portuguese top-flight’s most respected talents in FC Porto’s Luis Diaz – not to mention the fact that many had consigned Liverpool to a quiet winter window.
It’s a hugely positive indication for the kind of long-term replacement we’ll be getting for our resident transfer guru, Michael Edwards, in our former loan and partnerships manager, Julian Ward, who led on the deal for the 25-year-old Colombian.
Carvalho would have been the icing on a rather lovely surprise cake, though, the general consensus appears to be that an agreement can still be arranged between ourselves and Fulham before a feeding frenzy can ensue between European outfits who can snap up the teenager for a pittance in the summer and our domestic rivals.
The player is said, however, to be keen on a move to the red half of Merseyside, with the prospect of joining our star-studded squad a more than enticing prospect.
Assuming that Fulham are still hopeful of squeezing some value out of a player whose contract expires at the end of the season, we’d have to imagine they’d take a pre-agreement with Liverpool over the risky prospect of a tribunal.
On Liverpool’s part, it seems highly unlikely that so much effort will be simply chucked down the drain and forgotten about when it comes to a talent who has ambitions of winning the Ballon d’Or.
#Ep31 of The Red Nets Podcast: The poor handling of Mane, what the hell are NFTs?… and more!