Arne Slot continues to sway Liverpool’s interest in Crystal Palace skipper Mark Guech despite confirming Giovanni Leoni’s contract with Parma. The Reds agreed to their first £26 million fee and add-on with the Serie A side to sign the younger defender.
The 18-year-old was given a green light to travel to Liverpool for medical care after signing a contract with Parma on Wednesday evening.
Liverpool smoothed out competition with several top Italian clubs and Premier League rivals, with the youth insisting on a transition to Anfield. Leoni will be bolstering his centre-back options ahead of the new season and will soon be joining the first team in the slot for the campaign. The talk of the departure of the loan has been firmly rejected.
After Jarrell Kuanza was sold to Bayer Lebakusen in a potential deal of up to £35 million, the slot was left with only Virgil van Dik, Ibrahima Connate and Joe Gomez as options for his senior centre-back.
However, Van Dick missed two friendly matches against Liverpool’s Athletic Bilbao due to illness, but Gomez didn’t have minor Achilles issues for most of the pre-season season. Meanwhile, speculation continues to swirl Conate’s future as his contract is set to expire next summer.
While Liverpool approached Leoni’s signature, they began a discussion with Crystal Palace earlier this week about Guech’s potential move.
However, Slots remained tight about Liverpool’s pursuit of the latter when asked about the club’s latest transfer activity ahead of the Premier League opening game at his AFC Bournemouth home.
“(I can tell you) the club has agreed to the deal, but he hasn’t signed it for us yet,” Slot revealed about Leoni at a pre-match press conference. “The moment he signs us, I can go into more detail.
“And the other people (guehi) of course, the answer you always get from me.
“No (I can’t go into more detail) He’s not our player and unfortunately he was the captain of the team that lost last Sunday.
“No, if you want to talk about him, go to the palace and go to (Oliver) Glasner and hear his opinion about him.”
In the meantime, Slot confirmed that Gomez could make a comeback to the match-day team against Bournemouth after returning to training this week, but confirmed that he decided to follow the English International’s destroyed preseason schedule.
“Joe, I have to make a decision about it,” he said. “He’s only trained twice now and I think he missed quite a bit before the season.
“But if you look at our bench against the Palace, I think we have three players under 20. There’s a chance Joe is on the bench, but I think we have to look at the answer.”
