BREAKING: Liverpool £32.4m agreement confirmed as Jürgen Klopp gets ‘100 per cent’ midfield injury boost
Media Digest: Liverpool have agreed a £32.4m arrangement that may have slipped a little under the radar. Jürgen Klopp has been handed a helpful boost.
Welcome to the Liverpool.com daily Media Digest. From transfers to tweets, it can be hard to keep up with everything going on in the Anfield sphere. Credible, incredible and anything in between: we round it all up in one place here, taking a sideways look at the day’s media goings-on from around the world.
Four loans completed
It was an uncharacteristically busy transfer deadline day for Liverpool. The headline was of course the acquisition of Arthur, arriving on loan from Juventus, but there was also plenty of business in terms of outgoing loans.
All told, four such deals were completed on the final day of the window, per This is Anfield. Paul Glatzel returned to Tranmere Rovers, while Max Woltman joined him in League Two at Doncaster Rovers. Jack Bearne has followed in Rhys Williams’ footsteps by going to Kidderminster Harriers, while Fidel O’Rourke has gone to Welsh Premier League side Caernarfon Town.
It’s encouraging that Glatzel was sufficiently rated at Tranmere for a second move to be agreed, while the level of Woltman’s loan shows the regard in which he is held. The foursome join a fairly hefty list of players already out on loan: it seems Julian Ward, the former loan pathways manager, is overseeing a slight change of policy.
Arthur is ‘100 per cent’
For a player signed at least partly to help with an injury crisis, Arthur has a somewhat concerning past of his own. Having sat out 13 matches because of injury last season, Transfermarkt cites an ankle problem as the cause of a missed game at the start of the current campaign — where he has yet to play a match.
But Jürgen Klopp has received a big boost, with Guillem Balague reporting that Arthur is ‘physically 100 per cent’. With his registration completed, that should allow him to plug straight into the team if necessary, provided the club make the same assessment of his fitness.
In reality, Klopp will probably try to ease Arthur in gently, not least because the Merseyside Derby is up next. The injury to Jordan Henderson could nonetheless force his hand, with the Brazilian now probably the most obvious stand-in for the left-sided midfield role, but Balague noted the importance of being given time to adapt.
If nothing else, it is comforting to immediately have some renewed depth. Arthur can now compete with Fábio Carvalho and James Milner for that role, at least until Thiago and Naby Keïta return. Those absences will still undoubtedly be felt, but each of the stand-ins are able to offer Klopp something slightly different.
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Liverpool option confirmed
While Arthur has initially arrived on loan, Liverpool have reserved the option to buy the player from Juventus at the end of the campaign. Earlier reports suggested there was no such clause, but the Italian side have clarified the situation.
In a statement, Juventus confirmed that Liverpool had the right to make the move permanent for 37.5m euros: approximately £32.4m. Such a fee would be payable over two years.
His performances will help dictate how likely that is, but at the moment it is hard to envisage the option being exercised. The reluctance to dip into the midfield market at all this summer was driven by key targets being unavailable — Klopp hinted at that, per Sky Sports. As such, the plan is surely to wait for those targets, which would cast Arthur as something of a stop-gap.
Nevertheless, it is good to have the option in place. If he exceeds expectations, £32.4m could yet prove to be a good fee. And if nothing else, it gives the player a clear motivation to perform.
