Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has responded to speculation linking Khvicha Kvaratskhelia with a transfer to Anfield during the January transfer window.
The Merseyside giants did not spent a penny in the winter window, but they were credited with an interest in a host of players including Georgian winger Kvaratskhelia, who has allegedly been identified as a possible long-term replacement or Mohamed Salah.
It has been well documented that Liverpool are at risk of losing star attacker Salah for free this summer, as his current contract is due to expire at the end of June.
Following an excellent two-and-a-half-year spell at Napoli, form whom he recorded 30 goals and 29 assists in 109 games, Kvaratskhelia caught the attention of several top European clubs prior to January.
A mid-season switch to Liverpool ultimately failed to bear fruit and the 24-year-old instead completed a €70m transfer to Paris Saint-Germain, where he has chipped in with two goals and four assists in 11 appearances since making his debut.
Kvaratskhelia started for PSG in their slender 1-0 home defeat to Liverpool in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie on Wednesday, and Slot has since commented on whether the winger was ever close to moving to Anfield.
© Imago
Slot plays down Kvaratskhelia to Liverpool rumours
“Probably you don’t come from England because in England people say we almost buy every player that there is in the world!” Slot joked to a Georgian reporter during a press conference in Paris. “This is where people like him (pointing to Sky Sports News reporter Vinny O’Connor) make their money!
“If you go to England, you see Sky Sports, you see the whole day, everybody, we are interested in almost every player in the world! It’s a bit exaggerated.
“I cannot talk about if we were interested, yes or no. What I can tell you if he’s a great player.
“He was in [Luciano] Spalletti’s team in Napoli which I loved to watch, when they were dominating the league in Italy and doing really well in Europe. I think they even faced Liverpool that season, yeah?
“He’s a great player. Paris Saint-Germain has many of them and he is definitely one of them.”
Kvaratskhelia has penned a long-term contract at PSG until the summer of 2029 and acknowledged that it is a “dream” to play for the Ligue 1 champions following confirmation of his switch from Napoli.
Now that Kvaratskhelia has moved to the Parc des Princes, Liverpool are reportedly ‘closely monitoring’ the situation of PSG attacker Desire Doue who joined the French giants from Rennes last summer but is now said to be growing ‘unsettled’ in the French capital.
