Liverpool are looking into the possibility of bringing Naby Keita’s arrival at Anfield forward to January, following Philippe Coutinho’s move to Barcelona.
The Brazil international’s £142million transfer has left the Reds light in midfield and Jurgen Klopp wants the Guinea international to fill the gap.
He is due to join the Merseyside club in the summer for £55million but they are prepared to pay a premium to bring the deal forward.
However, the Liverpool Echo claim Leipzig are not interested in doing business early and have put the blockers on him leaving this month.
Speaking about the potential of Keita leaving in January, the German club’s CEO Oliver Mintzlaff was adamant it would not be happening.
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“Neither Naby nor his agent have made the request to leave the club in the winter,” he said last week.
“There are contracts and they say that he will be a Liverpool employee from July 1 onwards.”
And it seems Leipzig’s hardline approach is starting to get through to the Reds as Klopp did not sound hopeful of agreeing an early deal when asked about it last month.
“How do we deal with this? I thought we don’t speak about transfers,” he said.
“There is an agreement with the club that he will come in June or July to Liverpool.
“There is nothing else to say about that. We really don’t think about it because of all the things Leipzig have said.
“They said they do not have to sell any player. Why should they do something like that (letting him leave in January)? So no, we don’t think about it.”