Back in May, there were many rumours that Liverpool had won the race to sign Anderlecht youngster Jérémy Doku.
The 16-year-old, who made his debut for the Belgian club at the weekend, was allegedly set to join Jürgen Klopp’s squad towards the end of May, but that never happened.
Then came the recent revelations from Football Leaks suggesting the Reds tried to include Doku in the loan taking Lazar Markovic from Anfield to Anderlecht last January.
We didn’t cover that, as we haven’t covered anything Football Leaks related, but it has since been confirmed that Liverpool came very close to signing Doku, this time from someone who knows the player well: his U17 coach.
Speaking to La Nouvelle Gazette, Mohamed Ouahbi said: “Liverpool were offering him a lot of money, and convincing him to stay Anderlecht was a club effort.”
The newspaper also explain that Marc Coucke, the Belgian club’s president, recently making a big deal about getting 11 of his youth players to sign professional contracts was first and foremost to let the world know that Jérémy Doku was theirs, and not Liverpool’s.
The Reds would now have to negotiate a normal transfer should they wish to make the youngster theirs, and there’s little chance Anderlecht will let him go for anything remotely cheap.
