Fabrizio Romano says Liverpool thought about signing 23-year-old in the last days of the window

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With the January transfer window now officially closed, Liverpool have chosen to stick with the players they have for the rest of the campaign.

Truthfully, it never seemed likely that the Reds would bring in a new addition last month. Following Joel Matip’s injury, a new centre-back did at one stage feel possible, but the form of Jarell Quansah made it less necessary.

Nevertheless, according to journalist Fabrizio Romano, Liverpool did consider the possibility of a late move. Speaking on The Here We Go Podcast yesterday, Romano reports that the Reds were offered – and thought about – the opportunity to sign RB Salzburg defender Oumar Solet.

“Liverpool were never close to completing a signing in the January transfer window because they were really happy with the squad they have,” explained the journalist. “They were never close to signing Andre [Trindade] or any other player despite all the rumours.

“But they were offered a nice possibility, an interesting opportunity with Oumar Solet at Salzburg as new centre-back – a player that they’ve been scouting for a long time. The German director at Liverpool, Schmadtke, knows the player so well so they were discussing internally the possibility for Solet. Then Liverpool decided not to sign any player.

“He was also in the list at Napoli and also at Lens, but he ended up staying at Salzburg.”

Liverpool discuss Solet addition

This is an interesting little nugget of information from Romano. Prior to his quotes from yesterday, we’re not aware that Solet had even previously been linked with Liverpool. It seems a bit of a strange one.

Obviously with all the upheaval surrounding the club ahead of the summer window, nobody knows quite if previous transfer targets will remain.

Schmadtke himself has now left his position, so if Solet was simply one of his picks to strengthen the squad, then that isn’t going to happen.

With Jurgen Klopp also on his way, it’s feasible that we never see anything regarding the 23-year-old and Liverpool ever again.

Having said that, Liverpool obviously like to do business with the Red Bull clubs. You get the impression that that’s owing to more of a date-led approach and shouldn’t change without Schmadtke and Klopp.

As a result, we’d suggest that Solet may now be one to keep an eye on moving forward.

Turning 24 next week, the Frenchman is not really a young player coming through in Austria. Having made just four appearances for Lyon before joining Salzburg, he has already been discarded in France, too.

That’s of course no reason to write him off, though. If Liverpool are taking a peak at him, then Solet must be doing something right. Certainly a name to perhaps learn a little more about.