Could Jeremie Frimpong be a Liverpool player next season and an instant right-back replacement for Trent Alexander-Arnold?
On Monday evening, Sky Germany reporter Florian Plettenberg revealed that Anfield chiefs have already held ‘advanced talks’ over a potential swoop for the Bayer Leverkusen defender, who’s planning to leave the Bundesliga club this summer and has a release clause in the region of €35m-40m [£29.4m-£33.6m].
Aside from his discernible qualities as an enterprising full-back option – over the last three seasons he’s scored 28 goals and set up another 35 – the 24-year-old would greatly help the Premier League champions in another sense if he were to sign for them.
Frimpong would qualify as a ‘homegrown’ player for Liverpool
Despite being a Netherlands international and well past his 21st birthday, Frimpong would actually qualify as a ‘homegrown’ player for domestic and European squad classification.
The Premier League defines ‘homegrown’ as someone ‘who, irrespective of nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to The Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21)’.
Having spent nearly a decade in Manchester City’s academy before joining Celtic in 2019, the Dutch full-back qualifies under that definition and therefore wouldn’t take up one of the 17 permissible non-homegrown berths in Liverpool’s first-team squad.
Signing Frimpong would give Liverpool leeway for more additions from overseas
By Frimpong meeting the Premier League’s criteria for homegrown classification (and also qualifying as an ‘association-trained’ player by UEFA), that’d give FSG some welcome leeway in the summer transfer window.
When Giorgi Mamardashvili is added to the current Reds squad in July, it’d mean that LFC have only one non-homegrown slot remaining, unless there are exits in the meantime (which could happen if the likes of Darwin Nunez and Kostas Tsimikas depart).
Liverpool can have as many ‘homegrown’ players as they wish, but they will lose one first-team regular in Alexander-Arnold and are also likely to see Caoimhin Kelleher move on, and possibly Joe Gomez too.
By bringing in Frimpong, the Merseyside club would secure an astute readymade senior addition without impacting their homegrown quota, therefore offering greater scope for signing overseas players aged 21 and above.
It’s yet another reason why the Bayer Leverkusen right-back would represent a marvellous coup by Richard Hughes if a deal were to be done for him in the coming weeks.
