Liverpool transfers: Santiago Hezze TWIST after private jet claims
A report which made a wild claim that Liverpool were looking to make a deadline day signing of a European champion has taken a further twist.
After Greek journalist Stephen Kountourou first reported yesterday that Liverpool were interested in Olympiacos defensive midfielder Santiago Hezze, social media was awash with snap analysis of the Conference League champion.
Read more: Is Federico Chiesa a Mohamed Salah replacement?
With the story spreading, it wasn’t long before James Pearce of the Athletic followed up on whether or not Liverpool were really considering Hezze as a last-minute bolstering to the number one target position of holding midfielder.
Unfortunately for those who want a dramatic deadline day deal to take place, it doesn’t look like Hezze will be it. Initial reporter Kountourou quoted Pearce’s post, essentially agreeing with him that Liverpool are not in fact targeting Hezze.
It seems that the biggest piece of evidence linking Liverpool with Hezze was simply circumstantial, with the private jet that brought Federico Chiesa to Merseyside and took Stefan Bajcetic to Salzburg was then listed as being chartered to fly from the Austrian city to Athens.
However, this jet does not belong to the club and was in all likelihood chartered for completely different reasons.
Would Hezze have been a good signing?
Obviously, whether or not Hezze would’ve made sense for Liverpool to sign would be completely dependent on the fee, given he is an influential defensive midfielder with capability of scoring or even assisting from range as Olympiacos found out to their benefit last campaign.
That said, he probably is not yet of the desired level of quality that the Reds would be looking for in terms of threatening a starting position in the no.6 role.
What with Hezze being of the profile many teams would be chasing this summer, essentially a solid and still very young midfielder with experience of European competition, it is something of a surprise he remains in Greece as things stand.
Part of this could be due to a potentially distorted asking price, given Olympiacos’ Conference League-winning season. For the most part that squad has been kept together rather than broken up as expected, which could be due to the asking prices of players being steeper than expected.