3 months ago
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Photo by Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
Sepp van den Berg will be free to decide where his future lies after the Reds accepted bids from Brentford and Bayer Leverkusen.
After signalling earlier in the summer that he believed that he would need to leave Liverpool in order to continue to grow as a player, 22-year-old centre half Sepp van den Berg will now chose between Brentford and Bayer Leverkusen.
That’s the latest in the ongoing transfer story, after English and Dutch sources confirmed that the Reds had accepted £25M bids from Premier League side Brentford and Xabi Alonso’s defending Bundesliga champions Leverkusen.
For a player who would have been no better than fourth on the depth chart this season and has spent recent years cycling on loan—most successfully to Preston in the Championship and Mainz in Germany—it’s an enviable choice.
Brentford would likely offer the better path to playing time and potentially a higher wage packet, while Leverkusen are in the Champions League and with Bayern Munich struggling seem to have a legitimate shot at a title defence.
Van den Berg joined Liverpool from Dutch side PEC Zwole in the summer of 2019 for a deal worth up to £4.4M inclusive of all add-ons. Across his five seasons under contract with the Reds he made four total appearances, all in 2019-20.
He spent part of 2020-21 on loan with Preston in the Championship and returned for all of 2021-22, making 66 total appearances. He played just nine times for Schalke in 2022-23, then made 35 appearances for Mainz in 2023-24.
