Real Madrid has confirmed that Dean Huijsen has signed a five-year contract with the club ahead of joining the Bernabeu club in the summer transfer window.
Huijsen will remain with Bournemouth for the Cherries’ final two games of the season before linking up with his new club ahead of this summer’s Club World Cup in the United States.
Liverpool has been linked with Huijsen in recent months, but it became apparent of late that he would most likely end up at Madrid. Madrid triggered the $66 million release clause in Huijsen’s contract, and will pay the total fee in instalments over the next three years.
A Bournemouth statement said: “Everyone at AFC Bournemouth is looking forward to working with Dean for the remaining two games of the Premier League season, before he embarks on the next step of his career.”
The Huijsen disappointment only adds to Liverpool supporters’ Madrid-fuelled frustrations, after Trent Alexander-Arnold agreed to move to the Bernabeu on a free transfer during the off-season.
Alexander-Arnold ran his contract down and is expected to link up with Madrid in time for the start of the Club World Cup, which gets under way in the middle of June.
Liverpool is expected to replace Alexander-Arnold with Bayer Leverkusen’s Jeremie Frimpong after deciding to pay the Dutchman’s release clause, which is believed to stand at around $39 million.
Liverpool head coach Slot was asked about the prospect of Frimpong moving to Anfield in the summer but refused to speak specifically about the Leverkusen player.
“It’s going to be a boring answer,” Slot warned. “For the whole season it was about contract extensions. And now we are arriving in a time where everybody wants to know which players we’re going to bring in.
“We don’t talk about the players we want to bring in, in public, until the moment they’ve signed for us. We already have Conor Bradley, Joe Gomez, so it’s not like when Trent is leaving I have no clue what to do anymore, but as a club, we are always looking at interesting players that can strengthen our squad. That’s the general answer, I’m not talking about individuals.”
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Slot also called for the noise surrounding Alexander-Arnold to end after a week of discussion surrounding the reception he received at Anfield a week ago.
Slot said: “Last week, people talked about it to me, then we had the reaction of the fans inside the stadium, then all the pundits talked about it, all the country talked about it, and now it’s time to draw a line under it. Let’s focus on the fact we won the league, and let’s enjoy the upcoming week and not talk about the Trent situation.”
