Liverpool were close to signing 22y/o who ignored Reds’ pleas; they missed big deadline – report
According to reports from Netherlands, Liverpool had been ‘close to’ signing Orkun Kokcu from Feyenoord in recent weeks, only to miss a deadline imposed on them by his management.
Dutch outlet 1908.nl claimed that the Reds weren’t far away from securing a deal for the 22-year-old and had even asked him not to sign with Benfica.
However, after a deadline was set by the player’s representatives for the Merseysiders to submit a bid to the Eredivisie champions, they failed to present one by the specified cut-off point, much to the dismay of intermediaries such as Fulco van Kooperen, who had been working on the potential transfer.
Kokcu swiftly elected to join the Lisbon giants instead, seeing the Estadio da Luz as the ideal next step in his career, with a last-gasp hijack attempt from Brighton at the Portuguese capital city’s airport proving futile.
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If indeed Liverpool had been quite close to securing a deal for the Turkey international, only to miss out because they dallied in submitting an offer to Feyenoord for him, it’ll duly come as a disappointment that they failed to push harder to try and get it done.
There’s no guarantee they’d have succeeded if they had been quicker off the mark if the player’s mind was already made up on a move to Benfica, but it still leaves a sense of ‘what if’ from a Reds perspective.
Perhaps there were some factors behind the scenes which delayed the presentation of an offer beyond the deadline imposed by Kokcu’s management, but nonetheless it didn’t come quickly enough to prevent the Portuguese champions from getting the business done at their end.
Having scored 12 times for Feyenoord last season as they went on to win a first Eredivisie title in seven years (Transfermarkt), the 22-year-old could’ve offered a potent presence in Liverpool’s midfield had the Merseysiders managed to lure him.
Alas, that ship has now sailed, so the Anfield hierarchy must simply move on from this ‘what could have been’ and instead concentrate solely on transfer targets who may still be attainable, ensuring that they work swiftly to avoid missing out on other prospective purchases.
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