Liverpool rejected 'opportunity' to sign Oumar Solet last month

Fabrizio Romano claims Liverpool rejected the chance to sign Oumar Solet last month. That's despite tracking the player for some time.

Liverpool supposedly had the chance to sign Oumar Solet from RB Salzburg last month. That's according to Fabrizio Romano, who says there was internal talk of getting a deal done.

Solet is a 23-year-old centre-back for Salzburg, who has played with decent regularity over the last couple of years. That includes two Champions League starts this season.

The Reds have supposedly had him scouted for some time, hence the offer, but ultimately decided not to sign the Frenchman.

"[Liverpool] were offered a nice possibility, an interesting opportunity with Oumar Solet at Salzburg as new centre-back – a player that they’ve been scouting for a long time," Romano told his Here We Go podcast.

"The German director at Liverpool, [Jorg] Schmadtke, knows the player so well so they were discussing internally the possibility for Solet. Then Liverpool decided not to sign any player.

“He was also on the list at Napoli and also at Lens, but he ended up staying at Salzburg.”

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It's very easy to put Liverpool's decision not to move down to Jarell Quansah. The 20-year-old centre-back has stepped up this season, becoming a semi-regular in the side.

That's been especially true after Joel Matip's injury. Liverpool have put an immense amount of trust in the inexperienced academy product - and it's paid dividends.

Thus there wasn't any great need to replace him in January. Solet wouldn't have felt like much of an upgrade, while he also doesn't carry homegrown status like Quansah.

It just didn't really make any sesne to spend the money, then. Instead, Liverpool will see what Quansah can do over the business end of the campaign and if he keeps performing, he'll almost certainly have a permanent spot in the squad going forward.