One Bournemouth player has made a startling claim about a teammate who’s been linked with a summer move to Liverpool.
With the Cherries enjoying an excellent season under Andoni Iraola, two members of their defence have been named as firm transfer targets for the Reds.
LFC’s admiration for Milos Kerkez has been well-documented, and the Merseysiders are also understood to have initiated contact over a potential swoop for Dean Huijsen.
The latter played for Spain in their UEFA Nations League quarter-final triumph over Netherlands (ironically the country in which he was born), and prior to the match, Justin Kluivert (who featured for the Oranje) made an eye-catching statement about his Bournemouth teammate.
The 25-year-old said of the teenage centre-back when speaking to Radio Marca: “I know that next year he won’t be with us.”
Could Liverpool be the club to land Huijsen from Bournemouth?
When a player has as much transfer speculation surrounding them as Huijsen currently does, usually their teammates or manager would be publicly playing down the likelihood of a move and asserting that they’re fully committed to their club.
It’s therefore quite interesting to hear Kluivert so explicitly declaring that the 19-year-old won’t be a Bournemouth player next season, and the Dutchman’s words could be music to the ears of Richard Hughes, who of course counts the Vitality Stadium as his alma mater.
Plenty of Reds fans could also be buzzing over the Cherries forward’s claim, even if no indication was given as to where the newly-capped Spain international could be playing his football after he leaves the south coast.
Liverpool could well be in the mix, although Fabrizio Romano has pointed out that the teenage defender has been telling Spanish media that he’d dearly love to join Real Madrid.
As the long-running sagas with Aurelien Tchouameni and Jude Bellingham highlight, Los Blancos are one of the few clubs who’d appear to hold greater sway than the Reds right now; and with Huijsen pinning his colours to the Spain mast, it’s no surprise that he’d be dreaming of a move to the Bernabeu.
Nonetheless, if Arne Slot is convinced that the Bournemouth prodigy would be a good fit for the project at Anfield, Hughes should definitely be on the blower to his former club and at least attempting some form of a charm offensive.
