Liverpool’s hopes of signing Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Jan Oblak seem to be fading as his parent club want at least £80million for the Slovenian, a fee that Liverpool are not willing to pay.
The Mirror reports that we had set our sights on Oblak but Atletico are not willing to reduce their asking price, which is almost double the record fee paid for a goalkeeper.
The contract of the player is up in three years and the Reds had enquired about the availability of Oblak. But the Spanish side have revealed that their asking price is a minimum of £80million.
The 25-year-old has been in outstanding form for the La Liga side as he lifted the Europa League under Diego Simeone. The Slovenian has kept a remarkable 93 clean sheets in 162 games for Atletico and only conceded 28 goals in 49 games last time around.
For a world-class keeper, we have to pay huge fees
Just like the Virgil van Dijk saga, we will have to pay a crazy amount to bring the right player into the club. Atletico know that we need to bring in a top player between the sticks and can ask for whatever they want, given that they have a star in Oblak.
We are also facing a similar situation with regards to Alisson as AS Roma are not going to let the Brazilian leave on the cheap, so it seems like we will be spending big in the summer for a Loris Karius replacement.
A quality goalkeeper has been a requirement for the Reds ever since Pepe Reina left and if we have to smash the world record fee for a keeper to bring him to Liverpool, we should go ahead and make the move as we badly need a goalkeeper.