Ragnar Klavan is set to seal a move to the Serie A ahead of their window closing after Liverpool accepted a £2m bid for the defender from Cagliari.
Farewell Ragnar Klavan, you served us well!
The Estonian international is set to seal a £2m move to Italy before the closing of the Serie A transfer window at 6pm tonight.
The news was initially broken by Italian outlet DiMarzio before the ever-reliable Liverpool mouth-piece Paul Joyce confirmed on his Twitter account that the player had indeed set off for Italy to finalise the move.
Despite Klavan’s age and seeming fourth, even fifth, choice centre-back status at the club, the decision to sanction a move while Dejan Lovren and Joël Matip’s injury records continue to be the subject of much debate is a little surprising.
During the opening matchday of the season, only Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez – another whose injury record does not flatter him – of the club’s centre backs were fit to take the field while Nat Philipps played a lot more minutes across pre-season than was perhaps initially expected.
It will remain to be seen whether this is a smart bit of thinking from Klopp who, based on pre-season evidence, backs Philipps to step up into the first-team if required or whether the lack of depth in the centre half position will bite Liverpool later in the season.
Klavan made 53 appearances for the Reds, scoring two goals, including a late winner away at Burnley in the club’s first Premier League fixture of 2018.
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