Atalanta’s recent sale of Ruslan Malinovskyi could mean that Liverpool won’t get Teun Koopmeiners this month.
Malinovskyi completed a move to French side Marseille yesterday. And, according to Fabrizio Romano for Caught Offside, this could have a big impact on whether Atalanta will sanction Koopmeiners leaving Bergamo.
“Honestly, Atalanta have never received any approaches for Teun Koopmeiners in January. It’s a quiet situation and I don’t see them selling another midfielder after Ruslan Malinovskyi to Marseille,” said the transfer expert.
“Rumours are there because Liverpool sent their scouts to monitor him multiple times in the last year, but things are quiet on the Koopmeiners deal, as of now.”
Another one bites the dust for Liverpool
This would make a lot of sense, really. In the same way that Liverpool are pretty desperate for midfielders, Atalanta would be silly to leave themselves in a similar situation.
As a result of Koopmeiners’ rise to prominence for La Dea, Malinovskyi is now the more expendable midfielder. Hence, the Ukrainian is the one being farmed out to Marseille.
In a slightly surprising move, Malinovskyi joins the French side on-loan with a £11.4m obligation to buy [Fabrizio Romano].
Koopmeiners would obviously have been the more lucrative sale for Atalanta. They’ve reportedly quoted Liverpool £35m in order to bring him to Anfield. But there’s a reason they don’t want to part with him.
As seen from his ridiculously good goal last night, the 24-year-old is a player with real quality. He has been hailed as ‘extraordinary’ by former Atalanta player Domenicao Progna [Tuttomercatoweb].
True, we’ve seen Malinovskyi blast in those left-footed screamers over the years as well. But Koopmeiners is likely seen as the future of the Atalanta midfield. At the very least they’ll want to hold onto him for the rest of the season.
So, in their hunt for a winter midfield signing it looks as though Liverpool may have hit another dead end.
Had they been a little quicker in their movement, perhaps they could have wrapped up Koopmeiners before Malinovskyi moved to Marseille. A summer move may yet happen, but maybe it’s time to let this one go for the moment.
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