English Premier League defending champions Liverpool have completed the signing of two centre-back to help boost their defence. They have signed Schalke’s Turkey central defender Ozan Kabak on loan till the end of the season.
The 20-year-old joins the Reds until the end of the season, and they have also signed Preston North End’s Ben Davies for £2m. 25-yeats-old Ben Davies has signed a long term deal with the English Premier League defending champions Liverpool.
Marseille’s Duje Caleta-Car was also a potential target, with the Reds exploring several options in defence because of injuries. Liverpool has an option to buy Kabak for £18m with add-on clauses at the end of the season, but do not need to activate it until June.
For now, they will pay a £1m loan fee now with the potential for an extra £500,000 based on games played and how they fare in the Champions League.
Liverpool received sad news in the late hours of yesterday, and they received the news of Joel Matip’s injury. It was said that the player had joined Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez in the injury room. The player was declared out of season.
Manager Jurgen Klopp named his 12th different centre-half partnership in 21 Premier League games for Sunday’s 3-1 win over West Ham United with midfielder Jordan Henderson alongside Nathaniel Phillips.
Klopp said: “It’s probably clear that in a normal transfer window, without any issues, we would not look at Preston [to see] if there’s a player for us or something like that.”
He also said: “Since our situation got clearer and clearer – the problems we had when we saw him we got excited about it and thought: ‘Wow.’ “We see the quality, and we see the potential as well because he’s 25 and there’s a lot to come for him.”
Kabak was recommended by former Huddersfield Town manager David Wagner, who coached him at Schalke and worked with Liverpool boss Klopp at fellow Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund.
Kabak, whose idol is Van Dijk, has played 14 times for Schalke this season, although the club is bottom of the table with the worst defensive record in the league.