Club president confirms Liverpool have been watching £29m player since last year

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Liverpool are weighing up whether to go on the attack in the transfer market.

With around six weeks or so left before the window shuts, it is beginning to look like the Reds won’t do any business.

In fairness, the Liverpool squad is relatively big already and it remains to be seen how Arne Slot is planning to use a lot of players. You can understand the reluctance to enter the market.

Nevertheless, if Liverpool go into the season with exactly what they ended the last one with, it’s hard to see how they better their third place finish.

Clearly, the Liverpool owners are keeping an eye on players they think could be worth going for, but so far this has not amounted to anything more than a watching brief.

Fulham make offer for Andre Trindade

There have been differing claims about what Liverpool’s priority position to strengthen is this summer.

Some reports have suggested that Liverpool want a centre-back above all, others report that the Reds are looking for a new forward.

If you ask Liverpool supporters, though, they’ll likely tell you that in defensive midfield is where Slot’s squad is currently most in need of a long-term option.

To that end, there has been some small rumblings of movement. Atalanta’s Ederson now seems like the most likely target, but for a long time a move for Andre Trindade of Fluminense felt inevitable.

Liverpool wanted to sign Andre last summer but with Fluminense heading towards a first ever Copa Libertadores win, neither player nor club were willing to play ball.

READ MORE: Fluminense staff persuaded Andre Trindade to turn Liverpool down in 2023

12 months on, and it looks like Liverpool have lost interest. Speaking to Itatiaia Esporte, Fluminense president Mario Bittencourt said that there is a Premier League club pushing to sign Andre, but it’s now Fulham, not Liverpool.

“There is no negotiation. There is a proposal that has been made (by Fulham), Fluminense have made a counter-proposal and there has been no response to it yet,” says Bittencourt. “This is about ten days old.

“Fulham are the club that have been looking for Andre since last year, in addition to Liverpool,” he adds.

“In January they made a new attack. Right now, what we have is a paper from Fulham with a proposal, a paper from Fluminense with a counter-proposal. We still don’t have an answer.”

Door open for Liverpool to complete Andre chase

Andre’s story is a little bit of a sad one in some ways. Yes, the 23-year-old achieved a dream when he helped win Fluminense’s first ever Libertadores title. The glory of lifting that enormous trophy with his boyhood club should not be diminished.

But at the same time, Andre was one step away from joining Liverpool. Fluminense blocked it, he himself got onboard with that view and the Reds stepped away.

The Rio de Janeiro club may have felt that they will be back. But Liverpool don’t really do business that way. The fee – reportedly around £29m for Andre – would not break the bank for the Reds and they do still need a player like the Brazil star.

But for whatever reason, it feels like the bridge has been burned. With Flu struggling at the bottom of the Brasilerao and Andre injured for most of the season, things have turned a little sour.

In our opinion, Liverpool should come back in. They never did fully replace Andre as a target and he is now ready and available to join. Sadly, we don’t think that will happen.