{"id":144549,"date":"2025-08-14T07:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/144549\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T07:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:59:12","slug":"liverpool-agree-fee-for-new-centre-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/144549\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool agree fee for new centre-back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 cKWiEj\">From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it&#8217;s investigating the financials of Elon Musk&#8217;s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, &#8216;The A Word&#8217;, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 cKWiEj\">At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 cKWiEj\">The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"sc-1uza6dc-1 huxBsk\">Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong>Read more<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/liverpool-fc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liverpool<\/a> have agreed a \u00a326m fee with Parma for Italian defender Giovanni Leoni. <\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old centre-back is set to become their sixth major summer signing and take their spending in this window past \u00a3300m. <\/p>\n<p>Leoni will begin a medical on Merseyside on Thursday and will discuss personal terms, which are not expected to be a problem after he made it clear his preference was to join Liverpool. <\/p>\n<p>The Italy Under-19 international had also attracted interest from Internazionale as well as other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Premier League<\/a> clubs and will go straight into Liverpool\u2019s squad, with any talk of a loan move ruled out. <\/p>\n<p>He will join Liverpool after they stepped up their attempts to find a replacement for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/jarell-quansah\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jarell Quansah<\/a>, who was sold to Bayer Leverkusen. <\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Premier League<\/a> champions have also opened talks with Crystal Palace about England centre-back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/marc-guehi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marc Guehi<\/a>. Their move for Leoni has no bearing on their interest in Guehi, with no sign so far they can agree a fee with Palace. <\/p>\n<p>Liverpool have had to use midfielders Ryan Gravenberch, Wataru Endo and Trey Nyoni and left-back Andy Robertson as centre-backs in pre-season after the sale of Quansah and when Joe Gomez was injured and Virgil van Dijk was ill. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2208773888.jpeg\"  loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Liverpool want to sign defender Giovanni Leoni\" class=\"sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn\"\/><\/p>\n<p>open image in gallery<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool want to sign defender Giovanni Leoni (Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Head coach Arne Slot admitted after Sunday\u2019s Community Shield defeat to Palace that their defending was a concern, with nine goals conceded in their last four games. <\/p>\n<p>And their need for defensive reinforcements was also greater as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/ibrahima-konate\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ibrahima Konate<\/a> is in the last year of his contract. <\/p>\n<p>Now Leoni is set to join Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez and Giorgi Mamardashvili, whose transfer from Valencia was arranged last year, among their summer signings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":144550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-144549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115026065167190808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}