Liverpool send unmistakable transfer message to 21y/o as Reds face squad dilemma – report
While Arne Slot awarded game-time to numerous Liverpool youngsters on the pre-season tour to USA, some players on the club’s books weren’t brought with the squad.
Billy Koumetio was among those who didn’t travel out to the U.S., with his omission a clear indicator of where he stands in the pecking order at Anfield.
According to Football Insider, LFC chiefs have now informed the 21-year-old that he’s free to find a new club before the transfer window shuts on 30 August, with the defender not part of the head coach’s plans going forward.
With the Frenchman attracting interest from numerous Scottish and Football League sides, it’s expected that he’ll complete a permanent exit from Liverpool in the coming weeks, especially as his current contract expires next summer.
Koumetio will likely have known from the moment he was left out of the squad for the U.S. tour that Slot doesn’t see him as part of Liverpool’s future, with abortive loan spells at Austria Vienna, Dunkerque and Blackburn over the past two years not helping his case (he played just 21 times in total for those three clubs).
His only senior appearances for the Reds came in a dead rubber Champions League game against Midtjylland in December 2020 and a Carabao Cup quarter-final against Leicester a year later, with Jarell Quansah – two months his junior – subsequently leaping ahead of him and into the first team.
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Although LFC have more scope to bring in non-homegrown signings now than they had last summer, they currently have more than the maximum squad limit of 25 ‘overage’ players who must be registered for their domestic and European squads.
That number includes Koumetio, who turns 22 in November but would qualify as ‘homegrown’ as he’s been on Liverpool’s books for more than three years.
In order for Slot to bring in players who’ll be 22 or older by the end of this calendar year (such as Anthony Gordon, Giorgi Mamardashvili and Willian Pacho), he’ll need to either sell/loan some of his current squad or even omit some peripheral members entirely, leaving them in footballing purgatory.
It’d be unfair for the Frenchman to be left in the cold in such a callous manner, so hopefully for his sake, a deal can be struck with another club so that his career gets the jolt that it needs and he can go on to deliver upon the potential which earned him the right to forever proclaim ‘I’ve played for Liverpool’s first team’.
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