Jude Bellingham had apparently ‘imagined playing for Liverpool’ before Real Madrid appeared to gain the upper hand in the race for his signature.
That’s according to Christian Falk, who has been sharing the latest on the 19-year-old’s prospective move to the Bernabeu for CaughtOffside.
The reporter has said that transfer talks between the Borussia Dortmund star’s agent/father and the Champions League holders are ‘really speeding up‘, although ‘no offer has yet been received from Real Madrid‘.
He added: “I heard that Bellingham imagined playing for Liverpool for a few years before making the move to Real Madrid. That was the career plan but Liverpool didn’t have the money for this deal.”
The Bundesliga club are now believed to be awaiting an offer from the La Liga giants and are set to demand a fixed fee of €120m (£106.5m), with the transfer potentially amounting to €150m (£133m).
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Any lingering hopes that Liverpool may have had of signing the England midfielder, who had been linked with a move to Anfield for a number of months (The Guardian), were effectively dashed in recent days when Fabrizio Romano tweeted that Real Madrid are ‘close to’ completing a deal for the 19-year-old.
There were even reports of an offer from the Merseysiders to Dortmund for Bellingham last month (CaughtOffside), only for Jan-Aage Fjortoft to reveal to Empire of the Kop that the Bundesliga club had effectively priced the Reds out of a move for the teenager.
While many Kopites may prefer to turn their focus towards transfer targets who might be attainable in the summer, it’ll surely still be galling to hear that the Three Lions star had seemingly envisaged lining out in the iconic red shirt for some time.
Instead, we’re left with a sense of what might have been as his move to the Spanish capital appears to gather pace.
It’ll be a sore one to take for Liverpool fans, especially if Bellingham goes on to be a success for Los Blancos.
However, the aim for FSG must now be to invest the money which would’ve been spent on him on a variety of high-quality summer signings instead, so that Jurgen Klopp’s squad is sufficiently strengthened ahead of next season.
Jude Bellingham is going to make the same mistake as Martin Ödegaard.