If Jurgen Klopp looks a little less chirpy than usual in training this week…then there is very good reason.
Not only have Manchester City snatched rising star Jeremy Doku the Liverpool manager was SO close to signing himself – but he lost out because the player he would eventually have replaced, persuaded the Belgian NOT to come to Anfield.
City have agreed a fee of more than £50m for the Rennes winger, who many believe will be the next European superstar, with his potential described as “frightening” by the manager who gave him his first Belgium cap, Roberto Martinez.
Yet Klopp thought he had signed the exciting forward himself, five years ago for 100th of that eye-watering price, with a deal so close that Doku’s then club Anderlecht had given permission for the Reds boss to talk to the player personally, so resigned were they to losing him.
In fact, they were so convinced, they even included Doku in a deal to take the out of favour Liverpool winger Lazar Markovic on loan that summer.
Klopp was hugely keen to bring the now 21-year-old to Anfield when he was just 15, and about to sign his first professional contract. The fee would have been only compensation for his development, and likely to have been around £500,000.
There was competition for the talented teenager’s signature from a host of big clubs including Arsenal and Chelsea, so the Liverpool manager wheeled out the big guns to persuade him to join.
That included Klopp himself, who spoke at length to Doku, and also Reds legend Steven Gerrard, who was coaching the club’s U18s at the time, and would have taken the youngster into his youth set up.
But Klopp also asked Gini Wijnaldum to speak to the winger…and Sadio Mane too, whose position Doku played in, and could provide real insight into what was expected on Merseyside.
The Liverpool manager even told him, on a tour of the Melwood training ground, he could replace Mane in the side one day.
The problem was, as Doku himself later revealed, was that Mane hardly did the ‘hard sell’, and instead spoke honestly with the 15-year-old kid, telling him there was no need to rush his development.
“My 16th birthday was coming up, the age you can sign a pro contract. A lot of teams came to see me – Liverpool was the most concrete interest but there was also Arsenal and Chelsea,” he later told Ouest-France.
“I went with my mum and dad, and we were given a tour of the stadium, the training ground, even the school I would go to. They gave me a signed Salah shirt, and I met the players.
“I was able to discuss with Jurgen, Gerrard too, we looked at some video moments, and he spoke about the development. We met players, (Simon) Mignolet because he was Belgian, Wijnaldum from Netherlands. I talked a lot with Mane but we didn’t really talk about football. We talked about everything.
