Liverpool are back in the hunt for Bayer Leverkusen central defender Piero Hincapie after they were forced to cool their interest this summer.
Jurgen Klopp’s transfer plans drastically changed following Fabinho and Jordan Henderson’s shock departures for Saudi Arabia as he was forced to prioritise midfield reinforcements. Now 22-year-old Hicapie, who was the subject of a verbal offer from Tottenham in January, is back on their radar and the Reds are already laying the groundwork for a potential January deal.
The Ecuador international is represented by Moises Caicedo’s agent Manuel Sierra but relations still appear to be intact despite the Chelsea midfielder snubbing a £110million British-record switch to Anfield.
Sierra said of Hincapie in the South American media: “Liverpool had an interest in him but at that time they chose to invest in the midfield. For January they are talking like other clubs, it will not be less than €50m [£43m].”
Hincapie signed a new long-term deal – that does not contain a release clause – with high-flying Leverkusen back in February. Sierra has also spoken out about Caicedo’s decision to join Chelsea over Liverpool, despite admitting the Reds offered him a “more stable project”.
“Liverpool were always interested,” Sierra told Futbol sin Cassette. “We always had meetings during those months between January and May but since May we never heard from them again and of course we were surprised that suddenly they appeared with something [an offer] that they said that they couldn’t do.
“The first thing we are told is, ‘tomorrow you have to go to Liverpool until you pass a medical examination’. Of course, what is our reaction going to be if we have not negotiated, we have not spoken, we have not seen anything since May.
“The problem was Brighton but when they tell us tomorrow, ‘you can go to Liverpool’, well of course the reaction is fine but the funny thing is that they didn’t tell us, they told us to undergo a medical with Liverpool without having an agreement, without having said, ‘yes’ – even the club wrote to Moises, ‘with permission from Brighton’, and so on, but our phone conversations were clear at all times. We were clear, as long as Chelsea offered the same conditions that Liverpool could do with Brighton, and as I say they surpassed it, so there was no complaint.
“It is very complicated, imagine that Jurgen Klopp is writing to you, that Liverpool is calling you, we are talking about something very big, that is, one of the best teams in the world, just like Chelsea, and with a more established and more stabilised project than what Chelsea have today, which is a very ambitious project with a view to two, three years ahead.
“It is very complicated, imagine that Jurgen Klopp is writing to you, that Liverpool is calling you, we are talking about something very big, that is, one of the best teams in the world, just like Chelsea, and with a more established and more stabilised project than what Chelsea have today, which is a very ambitious project with a view to two, three years ahead.
“When Liverpool came and approached in that way, obviously Moises gets dizzy, I get dizzy myself, but Chelsea were by our side at all times asking us to go, they wanted an hour so that we could tell Brighton, so that they could match the offer and they gave them an hour and it ended in two days of negotiation.”
