Southampton Reportedly Reject £46M Third Liverpool Bid for Roméo Lavia

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If Liverpool have alternatives now (or maybe even two weeks ago) would be the time to move on to them.

Liverpool proved willing sellers of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson when Saudi Pro League clubs came calling and turned the players’ heads with big money wage offers as they enter the twilight years of their careers. As a result, Liverpool have no senior players in the squad with experience in the six.

Liverpool have so far failed to convince Southampton to budge off their exceptionally high asking price of £50M for Roméo Lavia, a 19-year-old who in an ideal world would have spent the upcoming season backing up a player like Fabinho for a club with title aspirations. And today, Saints have rejected Liverpool’s third offer.

That’s the story from Sky’s Melissa Reddy, who says a bid totalling £46M—with previous reports claiming both that £40M of that would be guaranteed and that it was absolutely, categorically, Liverpool’s best and final offer for the player—was quickly rejected by relegated Southampton today.

Liverpool kick off the season in less than a week against Chelsea and, again, they have no senior player with experience playing the holding role, a role that looks set to be especially taxing this season with the inverted fullback system they have embraced to get the best out of Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Now we wait to see if all this dithering and delaying and talk of final offers only leads to the Reds belatedly agreeing Southampton’s asking price—a price that had they met it earlier could have meant Lavia in the mix for the season opener—or if they actually have viable alternatives that they can move on to.