3 months ago
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Photo by John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
The 22-year-old Dutch defender had the choice of joining Bayer Leverkusen or Brentford and has selected the Premier League side.
When Liverpool received bids in the £10-15M range for Sepp van den Berg from Dutch side PSV and mid-table Bundesliga club Mainz early in the transfer window, the 22-year-old centre half pushed for the Reds to lower their valuation in order to move on.
Liverpool resisted, sticking to a valuation double what was being offered. It turns out Van den Berg probably owes them a massive thank you for doing so. That’s because today the young defender is on his way to Brentford to undergo a medical ahead of a £25M move.
Over the last week, Van den Berg was targeted by both the Premier League club as well as Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen. Both offered a transfer fee in line with Liverpool’s valuation and so the club gave final call on Van den Berg’s next step to the player.
While Leverkusen are defending Bundesliga champions and in the Champions League, he likely would not have been a nailed-on starter and there would have been more questions surrounding the sustainability of the project if Alonso leaves following this season.
Brentford on the other hand offered a likely starting role for potentially stable mid-table side in England, with higher wages a near certainty. Between the two some might have taken one over the other, but it seemed a case of there being no bad choice.
He is now set to undergo a medical at Brentford before completing the move to his new club, at which point Van den Berg will become the second Liverpool youngster to join The Bees after Fabio Carvalho, who moved there for £27.5M earlier this summer.
