Real Betis star Nabil Fekir believes that his aborted move to Liverpool during the summer of 2018 was result of ‘fate’, as he told BeIN Sports.
There is an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu spreading across the red half of Merseyside right now.
A month ago, the Athletic reported that Liverpool were on the verge of completing a £31 million deal for RB Leipzig centre-back Ibrahima Konate.
But amid a series of mixed messages – and nagging concerns about the defender’s injury history – the Anfield faithful have been left wondering if we are about to witness another head-scratching transfer saga.
Back in 2018, Liverpool had all-but completed a deal for Lyon’s World Cup-winning play-maker.
Fekir was understood to have even chosen his shirt number; only for a £53 million deal to fall apart at the eleventh hour after an ankle issue was discovered during the Frenchman’s medical.
Three years on, Fekir is still trying to put all that drama behind him, even if he does occasionally wonder how things would have panned out if he had joined a club who would go on to lift the Champions League and Premier League title soon after.
“Everything did not go as I would have liked. But it is fate,” said Fekir, who eventually moved to Spain in 2019 for a vastly-reduced sum of £18 million.
“It was a day before playing against the United States in Lyon (a World Cup warm-up clash in June 2018).
“My agent calls me in the evening and says: ‘We sign (for Liverpool) tomorrow.’ But me, in my head, I was going to sign after the World Cup.”
Given that Fekir has missed just seven of the last 71 La Liga matches for Real Betis, you can make up your own mind about whether Liverpool were right to get cold feet.
Interestingly enough, the Merseyside giants are still watching the 27-year-old closely, according to Tuttomercatoweb in March.
Perhaps the Fekir to Liverpool ship has not yet sailed after all.
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