Spending most of their early summer trying to sign Nabil Fékir from Lyon, Liverpool ended up bolstering their attack with Xherdan Shaqiri from Stoke City.
Paying just £13m for the Swiss forward, the Reds picked up an explosive player with Premier League experience, but they weren’t only looking at him.
According to Stéphane Courbis, an agent for a number of big players like Laurent Koscielny and Steve Mandanda, Jürgen Klopp asked about Nice’s Allan Saint-Maximin before turning his attention to the Switzerland international.
However, Nice, who were bracing themselves for a Mario Balotelli exit as well as Alassane Pléa going to Borussia Mönchengladbach, weren’t ready to negotiate for the winger, whom they firmly believe him going forward.
Still very raw, Saint-Maximin remains one of the more exciting talents in Ligue 1 if he can get consistency issues sorted, and it’s understandable that Liverpool, looking for a backup and potentially a project, would be looking at him.