Pep Guardiola being unable to give assurances about his future saw Florian Wirtz reject Man City and join Liverpool this summer, according to reports.
The Reds have made a strong start to the summer transfer market after Arne Slot guided them to the Premier League title in his first season as manager.
Liverpool have already completed their first signing with Jeremie Frimpong arriving from Bayer Leverkusen in a deal worth around £29.5m.
It is understood to be a ‘matter of time’ before Bournemouth defender Milos Kerkez joins with Liverpool and the Cherries negotiating a fee.
While Frimpong’s former Leverkusen team-mate, Wirtz, is also close to joining too with The Athletic ‘s David Ornstein revealing on Friday that a fee of £116m had finally been ‘agreed’.
Man City, who eventually signed Rayan Cherki from Lyon, and Bayern Munich had been in the race to sign Wirtz earlier in the summer before Liverpool won through.
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And now the The Times reporter Paul Joyce has revealed that Wirtz only rejected Man City because he couldn’t get an ’emphatic’ answer from Guardiola over his future.
Joyce wrote:
‘Several sources, including those in Germany, have indicated that Wirtz enquired about how long Guardiola would remain in charge given his contract is due to expire in 2027.
‘According to the German publication Bild, the Catalan was not emphatic and so it was Wirtz who turned down City, not the other way round.’
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On Liverpool’s pursuit of Wirtz, Joyce added:
‘Slot’s sales pitch was arguably more straightforward. At Anfield, Wirtz could be the No10, or indeed play elsewhere given his versatility. There was the added lure of working under a coach who had eked improvement from the elite stars Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, as well as those such as Ryan Gravenberch who had a little more to prove.’
‘England represented a new challenge, a step outside Wirtz’s comfort zone and, arguably, the best sporting project, something which has always taken precedence in his career above financial rewards. There is the story that when he joined Leverkusen at the age of 16, his parents gave him a monthly allowance of €150 (about £125).’
Joyce also claimed that the arrival of ‘close friend’ Frimpong was also a major pull but it is the ‘possibility of testing himself in what he considers to be the best league in the world that truly appealed’.